No dance for the single men

We were up in Valencia a little while ago. One of the places we went was a museum called L'Etno. I'd heard on the radio that it had won the 2023 European Museum of the Year Award so, while we were in town, it made sense to go and have a nosey. My 'two and two' skills being what they are, I'd failed to realise that it was an ethnology museum. Ethnology isn't a word I use every day but, in essence, it's a museum about society and its artefacts; old cars, 8 tracks, telephone boxes, rolling pins and fridges. Like everyone else, as we gawped at the exhibits, we reminisced. "We had one of those in our kitchen" or "My mum used to swear by Oxydol."

One of the many things that drew my attention was a photo with the title "El baile de los solteros." The museum people had interpreted that caption into English as "No dance for the single men."

It's a black and white photo. The background music is a chotis, a Madrileño folk dance. In the photo, a few men wearing caps and dark, slightly old-fashioned suits lounge against the wall, looking on, as couples dance in what looks like a typical Saturday night village hall do. With a bit of imagination you can see them moving forward from time to time into the space reserved for the dancing couples before they retreat, abashed, to the wall. All of the unmarried thirty-something men of the village are there. Not one of them is missing. Other men of their age, who are already married, have stopped going to the dance. These unmarried men, these perpetual bachelors, never dance and the day of the photo is no exception. At dances like this these men have nothing to do. The dances are for younger people, for the unmarried. The village dance was the socially acceptable place for the two sexes to mingle without too many restrictions. But our bachelors have already passed their sell-by date, they have missed their chance, they are the male equivalent of old maids. Men and women go to dances to dance but these men will never dance. They will stay until about midnight amidst the noise and the lights of the dance. All night long they will gaze at the inaccessible girls before sloping off home.

The photo is illuminated in such a way that, behind it, from time to time we can see some everyday articles related to this dance without dancing. The cut-throat razor to make sure the men look their best, the essential caps; fashionable headgear, and a cigarette case, to chain smoke the evening away, watching other people dance.

Until 1914, in rural Spain, marriage functioned as an economic transaction, as an operation between two families, not two individuals. The firstborn male would inherit the property and the negotiation was basically about the property, about the redistribution and consolidation of the wealth that the land represented for the two families. The other sons and daughters were left much more to their own devices. They might marry for love, to cover the shame of an unintended pregnancy or any of those other well-established reasons why people choose to get married. The First World War caused a boom in the Spanish economy which started the transfer of wealth from the countryside to the towns and cities. That change continued all through the 20th Century. People left the countryside in droves and the old patterns of marriage began to crumble. The second, third, and fourth-born sons suddenly had the opportunity to make something of themselves in the towns and cities rather than being the labourers on their eldest brother's farm. Minimal as they may seem to us the opportunities of domestic service and factory work also gave opportunities for women to "better" themselves. The firstborn son was no longer the catch he had been for decades and centuries. A woman could do better for herself with a second-born who made good in the city, and a second-born son in the city had better possibilities to choose a wife for pure fancy from a far larger pool of women and for selfishly personal reasons. The firstborn remained tied to the land, in a reversal of fortunes they were now the ones with limited room for manoeuvre, and it was this group that became the sad coterie of permanent bachelors in the photo doomed to celibacy or paid for sex.

Dancing the night away

We've just had a bit of a debate about where we were going to go this evening. The wine harvest fiesta in Jumilla is in full swing and tonight they have a Queen tribute band. Down in La Romana there's a Moors and Christians parade with music and bull running later. Chinorlet, the nearest village to Culebrón, is also partying for the weekend. Tonight they have a children's parade and then a band. In fact, within 45 minutes maximum travelling time we could go to Elche, Aspe, Cañada del Trigo or Fortuna instead. Oh, I nearly forgot and one of the outlying villages of Pinoso, Paredón, is at it too. In fact August 15th, a bank holiday for the Assumption of Mary, is the day when there are more fiestas in Spain than on any other day, the official count is more than 1,000.

Jumilla is probably our first choice but the tribute band are not due on till half past eleven which means a start nearer midnight in reality. My guess is we wouldn't be home till maybe 2.30 and we're a bit old to miss out on our nightly Horlicks. Maybe we should go to the less exciting La Romana and pop in to see the live band in Chinorlet at eleven? Given the inevitable late starts we'd still be home by around one which would leave time for a soothing hot beverage before bed.

The fiesta programmes reminded me of the importance of music in these events and of one sort of music in particular. The band on in Chinorlet (Permanent population 192) is called Kalima, last night in Caballusa (where just four families live all year round) there was a singer called Leandro. At the recent Pinoso fiestas (the official population of Pinoso is only just over 7,600) there were several bands. We did go to see the top twenty band Dvicio but we missed most of the rest including Trio Amanacer, Me and the Reptiles, Grupo Zafiro and Orquesta Athenas. We could make amends for missing Athenas by seeing them in La Romana tomorrow. La Romana has another orquesta, Orquesta Shakara the day after.

Spain, obviously enough, has every sort of musical grouping you can imagine. There are individual musicians doing the rounds, there are groups that do rock or pop or indie or grime, there are brass bands, string quartets, opera singers backed by pianists and flautists, there are folk groups, bagpipe bands, symphony orchestras, Colombian Cumbia groups, Mexican Mariachis and lots of Brazilian Samba bands to name but a fraction of the styles. There is, though, a species of band that exists predominantly to do fiestas and verbenas (verbena is a loose term but it usually means a bar, food, dance and music area which constitutes part of a larger, city wide fiesta) and that's the orquesta. Guess the English translation.

The orchestras have a simple enough mission - they have to ensure that everyone from the smallest child, to the least nimble grandma and even the sulky teenagers get up and dance. They fulfil their mission with a mixture of timeless classics and this summer's hits. It's a while since I've seen one to be honest but they have a style which is sort of trashy and glamorous at the same time. The men often have a bit of a belly whilst the women wear tight clothes with sequins and short skirts or shorts. Obviously that's a massive over-generalisation - some of the men are bald and wear sequins too! The repertoire is international though Spanish hits predominate even if they were originally sung by foreigners like Shakira or Luis Fonsi. I've just read four different lists of "indispensable" songs for orquestas and, apart from the incredibly successful and timeless Paso Doble tune Paquito El Chocolatero there wasn't a single song that was present in every list. That doesn't mean that all the lists weren't very similar with the same styles and names turning up again and again. A very danceable style called reggaeton was definitely over represented and Rosalía, the fusion flamenco/pop artist seemed big this year too.

Anyway, whilst I've been typing we've decided and it's nearly time to go. Jumilla it is and Queen  - so songs that we'll know. No Soldadito Marinero, Princesas, No rompas más, Cannabis or A quién le importa to add to my cultural education this evening then.