The entertainment industry has become big business, bringing with it significant ecological damage and a high energy consumption: leisure travel by car and by airplane, the plethora of electronic gadgets to keep us happy at home and on the road, high-tech Olympic Games and NASCAR races. Compare this to the "ball the bastons", where all you need are two wooden sticks, and a dash of courage. Topnotch entertainment with the low-tech seal of approval.
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Slamming
A "Ball de bastons", or "dance of sticks", occurs in groups of 8, 12, 16, 20 or 24 dancers, each holding two 40 to 50 cm long, 2 to 5 centimeter thick wooden sticks. Marching through the streets, performing on a town or city square, the "bastoners" display a variety of jumps and fancy footwork while slamming into each other's sticks.
These strikes are meticulously timed to produce a rhythm that follows a melody performed by a small, accompanying orchestra. This coupled with the shouts of the dancers and the tinkling of bells attached to their pants completes the unique soundtrack.
The ball de bastons is performed in Catalonia, the northwestern region of Spain. This traditional dance is promoted by the Catalonian government, ever eager to demonstrate its long and rich history to the world (but especially to the federal Spanish government in Madrid).
Sword fights
The ball de bastons more than likely evolved from sword fights in medieval times, although the origins could prove to be much older than that (originating in agricultural rites). The first written evidence of the dance in Catalonia dates back to 1150. Popular throughout the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century, the stick dance is usually performed in medieval costumes, but can also be seen on the streets played by people wearing casual clothes.
While the merits of modern high-tech entertainment are debateable, those of the ball de bastons are obvious to everybody who has witnessed it. Cooperation and confidence are fundamental to the success of the dance. If you miss, you will more than likely hit your dance partner on the fingers or the head with a heavy wooden stick. Judging from the sometimes very powerful knocks, this has got to hurt.
Girls
Originally, the dance was exclusively executed by men, but the since the 1960s women have happily joined. Today in Catalonia women are very well represented. Any of you prepared to play with the ladies below?
Prefer not to be hit by an oak wooden stick? Why not give the alternative "ball de pastorets" a try? This parodic version of ball de bastons is played with wooden lances, and makes fun of the bastoners by never hitting each others weapon. Every group of bastoners or pastorets also needs an accompanying orchestra. These are valuable extensions of the festivities and guarantees that nobody is excluded.
Examples of somewhat related dances elsewhere in the world are the paloteo and moresca in other parts of Spain, the morris dance (and the parodic Molly Dance) in the UK, the dança de pauliteiros in Portugal, the stick dancers in Nepal, and many other weapon dances in Europe and the rest of the world.
© KDD (edited by Shameez Joubert)
© Picture credits: 1. / 2. / 3. / 4. / 5.
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hiya - great stuff... perhaps may be useful to look up the folk style called "garba" - phonetically something like an extended fur (with extra rrr's at the end) for the "gar" portion - it is probably found all over India in many forms, the one I am thinking is is Gujarati - from Gujarat state in India - and it is (the banging of sticks version) called "daan-dee-ye raas" is how you would pronounce it... I did this dance every year growing up as a child in Durban , South Africa, during the Navrathri festival - religious Hindu festival of 9 nights..... have a look!!
Posted by: Muna | January 18, 2012 at 05:24 PM