THE SARDANA
Catalan popular dance. It is composed of two parts: a short, variable of eighteen to forty rhythms, and the other one long, from fifty-five to eighty-five usually, without, however, any limit. A prelude of flageolet is needed in the sardana; the same instrument makes the counterpoint at the beginning of the fifth and of the sixth being thrown of lengths;they are to pay attention, and not dance them. The dancers, hold the hands forming a ring, in order, to the center, moving around sideways, they mark dotting the rhythms of the music with the feet. Each rhythms are a point or step which it is necessary to make; the short ones are a product of the grouping of two rhythms. The dancers have to know to count out and to distribute: first, it is necessary that they know the number of short and of long which the sardana needs. In order to end with the feet joint exactly ; in second place, the distribution has to be calculated. Once the sardana has been finished, with the sixth run of lengths, the cobla touches an chord with dry knock,rhythms of which the dancers advance the arms in direction of the middle of the ring in sign of farewell.
Of the dances of Catalonia, the sardana has a good number of supporters and it is like the national dance of the Catalans. Danced initially in the regions of the northeast, it spread during the first third of our century. The intellectuals promoted it as a prop to strengthen a national consciousness of the beginnings of the century Mediterranean that represented the Catalan, simple, serene and solidary spirit to end up being a cultural patrimony of popular feeling. The sardana, continues being a privileged bond that joins all the Catalans of the north to those of the south.
The sardana spreads a universal message of brotherhood of peace and joy in all the villages. It is a circle that joins without captives, of subordination or without slavery, of freedom that does not become anarchy. The sardana is the ideal excuse to make the unknown join in a hazardous way.
