sardana de l'Alcalde

The tradition & historical record

The Sardana de l'Alcalde (lit. 'the Mayor's Sardana') is a traditional dance from the town of Amer, Girona, in the north of the La Selva region of Catalonia, Spain. It is a dance very similar to other sardanes, but it has a fundamental characteristic that makes it peculiar: it is always danced openly, without closing the circle. The sardana had always been danced for the town's main festival, on August 15, although due to logistical circumstances, it is now danced on the night of the 16th. Oral histories attest to the existence of this dance since the end of the 19th century, while research by Josep Puigdemont, former mayor of Amer and expert on the tradition, point to a contrapàs (lit. 'back step'; a forerunner to the sardana) that probably emerged at the end of the 18th century. The tradition of the Sardana del Alcalde suffered an interruption. Dancing probably stopped around 1910, due to political reasons. According to the memory of Josep Puigdemont and Oliveras's mother, it seems that the enmity between two sides, fascist and anti-fascist – the ruling party and the opposition – reached a point that the couples on each side booed each other, leading to fisticuffs. From then on it was thought appropriate to stop the dancing. It was not resumed until 1949, in the midst of the Franco regime. In that year the Millennium of the consecration of its Temple of Santa María, formerly the Monastery of the Order of Sant Benet, was celebrated and great festivities were held.

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “La Sardana de l'alcalde”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

sardana de l'Alcalde is type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ¹

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