The Fallas festivities are an expression of a unique kind of art using large wooden structures covered with painted papier-mâché. Recently, however, other materials are also coming into use.
This festival is also a satirical and ironic vision of local, provincial, national and even international problems and themes.
The Fallas criticize almost everything and everyone imaginable, although they do so with tongue in cheek. Over 370 full-scale fallas and 368 children’s fallas are mounted throughout the city, and some of these reach extravagant heights, although they do not usually exceed 20 metres. What are fallas, you ask? Fallas are towering cartoon-like installations, which look simply amazing.
Each falla elects their own Fallas Queen among the Fallas maidens who form the court of honour of that particular Falla. Towards the end of the year, they present one of these lovely ladies – not necessarily their Fallas Queen – to the competition from which the judges will chose the thirteen Valencian women who will make up the court of honour of the main Fallas Queen of the entire city of Valencia. Children’s fallas follow the same process.
The nominees public presentation, which follows their proclamation by the Mayor in the Chamber of the City Hall, is a solemn event in which all Fallas commissions and much of Valencian society take part. The ceremony was held for many years in the “Teatro Principal” (main theatre) of the town, but today the Palau de la Música (or the Music Auditorium) has taken over as the annual venue because of its larger capacity.
Fallas is the culmination of the work and efforts of an entire year. The whole city mobilizes itself and contributes to the Fallas, which also enjoy the institutional support of the City Council. The authorities set up their own falla and help to give the festivity an exceptionally attractive air.
It is no exaggeration to say that almost every street corner has its own falla and fallas commission. During the festivities, Valencian women wear their best traditional clothes and parade through the streets in colourful pageantry under their fallas standards to the sound of regional music.
At midday, each falla stages its own sound fireworks display, harmonizing the booming sounds of rockets with the smell of gunpowder.
At night there are spectacular fireworks displays that brighten up the night time sky.
In the Fallas casales (places where fallas celebrators gather) there is no time for sleep. It is party time for five whole days.
The flower offering to the patron saint of Valencia, Our Lady of the Forsaken, is staged on two consecutive days. Thousands and thousands of flowers are placed over a wooden structure that serves as the framework upon which her image is formed. This is located in front of the Basilica and the entire Plaza is perfumed with the fragrance of endless bouquets of flowers.
Almost 100,000 Valencians take part in the procession. And of course, every day at five o´clock in the afternoon there is an important bullfight within the framework of the March Bullfighting Fair.
On the night of the 19th, Valencians burn down their creations, saving only what is known as the “Ninot Indultat”, or the “reprieved figurine”, which becomes a museum piece. The children’s fallas are burnt at ten in the evening, with the exception of the first prize in the children’s category, which is set alight at ten thirty, and the city council children’s falla, which goes up in flames at eleven.
At twelve o’clock midnight, preceded by a grand fireworks display, the large fallas are set to the torch.
The entire city is filled with flaming fallas. At twelve thirty the first prize Falla is burnt and at one o´clock at night the Falla in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento is set alight, symbolically finishing for another whole year this semi-pagan, semi-patriotic, semi-religious fiesta that stirs the hearts of the Valencians.
On the day after the ‘night of fire’, a few marks on the asphalt is all that remains of the falla that stood so proudly the night before. On this very same day, the next fallas campaign gets under way.
The fallas festival was born in Valencia and quickly spread to other towns in the region, even outside the immediate area.
As a traditional Valencia festival, it is in the capital city where the Fallas command the most colourful, greatest fallas with the most impact.
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