20 May 2009

La Feria de Abril de Cataluña

In the last week of April, Barcelona held its version of La Feria de Abril. Although not as big and glitzy as the key event in Seville, there is no charge to enter Barcelona's fair.

Divided into 2 areas, one is dedicated to fairground attractions such as rides and shooting galleries.

Barcelona_Fairground
The other is where all the action really is, and the main purpose of the fair. Large marquees are set up - called casetas - in which traditional Andalucian flamenco dancing takes place. These tents are occupied by dance clubs as well as private companies and political organisations.

Dance_Tent
As we wandered past the rows of tents, it became evident that some were having a better party time. While most of the dancing was desultory and seemingly performed by people who were not having fun, there were other groups who were whooping it up and getting into the spirit of the event.

We stopped to watch one group from Isla Cristina as they performed the Sevillanas, the traditional dance of Andalucia. Out of all the tents, they appeared to be having the best time. The moves are very orchestrated and have a lot of overhead flourishes and hand movements. It was interesting to watch, but the poor lighting made it difficult to get any good quality images.

Dancers02Dancers01Dancers03
The food areas were incredible. Wine, jamón and grilled meats were on offer in this tent.

Wine_Tent
Big paellas were part of the menu in other areas. They looked so delicious that we couldn't walk past, and stopped to have a couple of plates.

Paella_Chef
It tasted as good as it looked!


Paella
Fortunately for us, the fairground at Diagonal Mar was within walking distance of our apartment, so we got a chance to walk off the food as we waddled home.

3 comments:

meg said...

I thought those night dance images were pretty good actually! Spain look cool...

nzm said...

Thanks Meg.

Isn't it funny how we're so critical about our own work, yet love what others produce!

Spain is cool - we're loving it here.

nzm said...

I didn't like the images because I had to shoot at 1600ASA which meant that I lost a lot of colour saturation - mostly in the dresses.