Dancing in the middle of all summers

At eleven o’clock in the night of the feast of Saint Jacob the church of Algaida is illuminated as never before throughout the year. With the main door of the church wide open we can hear, in the midst of the soft murmur of the fans of the women, how the beating of the drums and the whistle of the flutes is coming nearer and nearer. It is now, in this precise moment, that we know we are in the middle of the summer. The true summer, the only and one summer of all ages.

The cossiers come dancing in the church, and the air is filled with the smell of the fresh basil they are shaking in their hands. I am convinced that all the men and women of the village now sitting in the banks are children in this precise moment. I am that, for sure, and I am watching their eyes for confirmation. And in the eyes there is everything, of course… I cross the look of Biel Majoral whom I remember dancing with the cossiers since his childhood when the feast had to be saved from the Francoist oppression, and who has just recently published his CD of Republican songs. His nephew María is in this year the “lady of the feast”, the Dama dels cossiers.

In this moment, while the dancers, one after the other, led by their Dama approach the altar, suddenly there appear, as if evoked by the whistling of the flutes, by the hot air, by the hypnotic rhythm and by the excessive light, all the summers that have brought us to this one revealing the core of all of them.

The little square in front of the church door is surrounded by people waiting for the end of the Mass and the beginning of the dance

And there is the demon, too, whose task is to make room for the dance

The cossiers only dance on two occasions in a year: on January 16, the feast of Sant Honorat, and on July 24-25, the feast of Saint Jacob, both on its vigil and on the main feast itself.

In all but one dances they dance facing the center of the circle.

Finally the demon falls on the earth, and the dancers all trample upon him, in the midst of the loud clamping of the bells on their hoses.

Danza en el centro de todos los veranos

A las once en punto del día de Sant Jaume la iglesia de Algaida está iluminada como nunca en todo el año. Con la puerta del fondo de la nave abierta de par en par oímos, por entre el suave murmullo de los abanicos de las mujeres, cómo se acercan los golpes del tamboril y el silbido de la flauta. Es entonces, en ese preciso momento cuando sabemos que estamos en el centro del verano. El verano de verdad, el verano de todos los siglos de los siglos.

Els cossiers entran danzando en la iglesia y el aire se llena del olor a albahaca fresca que agitan en las manos. Estoy convencido de que los hombres y las mujeres del pueblo que ahora están sentados en los bancos son niños en ese preciso instante. A mí me pasa, por lo menos, y miro en sus ojos buscando la corroboración. Y en los ojos hay de todo, claro... Cruzo la mirada con Biel Majoral, a quien recuerdo de muchacho bailando con els cossiers, cuando aún había que rescatarlos del vacío franquista, y que hace poco ha sacado un disco de canciones republicanas. Su sobrina María es este año la Dama dels cossiers.

En este momento, con los bailarines yendo de uno en uno hacia el altar conducidos por la Dama, se amontonan de golpe, convocados por la melodía de la flauta, por el aire caliente, por el ritmo hipnótico y la luz excesiva, todos los veranos que nos han traído hasta este que ahora revela su núcleo.

La pequeña plaza, a la puerta de la iglesia, cercada de gente que espera a que la misa acabe y empiece la danza

Y allí está también el demonio, encargado de despejar el espacio para el baile

Solo en dos fiestas anuales bailan los cossiers, el 16 de enero por Sant Honorat y en verano por Sant Jaume: primero la tarde de la víspera, el 24 de julio, y luego en la fiesta mayor del día 25

En todas las danzas menos una bailan mirando hacia el interior del círculo

El demonio muerde al fin el polvo y es pisoteado entre el alboroto de los cascabeles que llevan en las medias

House-warming

Andrei Soroker is a programmer, musician and Russian. He threw these three talents into the scales when, in order to pay off the mortgage of their house, created the genre of virtual street music.

The house stands in the old quarter of San Francisco, a charming Victorian building, and as such, it has a thousand problems, accurately described by Andrei in his blog. The reason of its main problem is, however, not its age but our age, namely that as a consequence of the present crisis, it is worth only half of the mortgage that Andrei still has to pay off on it.

Andrei is obviously irritated by the fact, and he decided that before he would call in the mortgage and abandon the house with all they had hitherto paid, he would try to get some extra money to his programmer’s salary through virtual street music. On the site created for this purpose a couple of weeks ago he performs his own and his friends’ songs as well as those of classical Russian bards and of the heroic age of Russian underground in the 80’s. If you liked them, then by clicking on the house you can throw through PayPal one dollar per pixel into the virtual guitar case.


About this heroic age wrote Wladimir Kaminer in his first and perhaps most sincere book, the Military music of 2001:

In 1983 I got to know the innermost circles of the Moscow rocker world. This was at that time the most interesting society among all. My friends and I were looking for our heroes and we found them on the street. They were older than us, but they often behaved like children and they all played on the guitar. It was a wonderful time. The heroes of the 80’s simply started off and swept off the mock-heroes of the Soviet Union.

By clicking on the above image of the site you can watch Andrei singing one of the “hymns” of this heroic age, The man from Kemerovo of the legendary Akvarium group. He accompanies himself on guitar from playback, and the following English translation is also from him:

У меня были проблемы; Я зашел чересчур далеко; Нижнее днище нижнего ада Мне казалось не так глубоко, Я позвонил своей маме, И мама была права - Она сказала: "Немедля звони Человеку из Кемерова". Он скуп на слова, как де Ниро; С ним спорит только больной. Его не проведешь на мякине, Он знает ходы под землей. Небо рухнет на землю, Перестанет расти трава - Он придет и молча поправит все, Человек из Кемерова. Адам стал беженцем, Авель попал на мобильную связь, Ной не достроил того, что он строил, Нажрался и упал лицом в грязь; История человечества Была бы не так крива, Если б они догадались связаться С человеком из Кемерова. Мне звонили из Киева, Звонили из Катманду; Звонили с открытия пленума - Я сказал им, что я не приду. Нужно будет выпить на ночь два литра воды, Чтоб с утра была цела голова - Ведь сегодня я собираюсь пить С человеком из Кемерова.

I had some problems; I took things a little too far; The lowest bottom of the most-remote hell Appeared not terribly far. I called my mother, And my mother was right — She said: "Immediately, you must call The man from Kemerovo". He uses words sparingly, like De Niro; One must be mentally ill to argue with him. Catch him with chaff, you cannot, He knows how to move underground. The sky will collapse on the ground, The grass will cease to grow — He will come and silently fix everything, The man from Kemerovo. Adam became a refugee, Abel got caught in a mobile web, Noah didn't finish what he was building Got drunk and fell face-first into mud; The history of humanity Would not have been as skewed, Had they had the wisdom to connect With the man from Kemerovo. They called me from Kiev, They called from Kathmandu; They called from the start of the plenary session — I told them I will not attend. It is imperative to drink two liters of water before bed, So my head remains whole the next day — Because tonight I'm planning on drinking With the man from Kemerovo.

The identity of the man of Kemerovo is unknown even to my Russian friends who lived through this period, but this is exactly the mystery of the thing. Of course you can find the song also in the performance of the original author, the great guru of the Russian underground Boris Grebenshchikov, of whom Kaminer says:

If I listen to him now, I just laugh. Borya still lives and still sings. Sometimes I think he would do better to stop it.

But in the performance of Andrei you can hear exactly that gentle, meditative and absurd metaphysics that one loves so much in things Russian.

Andrei, his son Boris, and the house

The flat was very small, but we already knew the trick how to pack together a hundred persons on ten square meters. The youth of Kiev were even willing to stand in queue in the evenings just to listen to the play of Mammut for three rubles

– writes Kaminer. Follow their example. Shell out those three rubles, or thirty dollars or as much as you like. Or only five, but each time you regularly come back. And write your signature and address on the wall of the house. To leave your memory and to have your own little place in the house. Just like one did it in those good old time house-warming parties.

(Julene Harrison’s paper cut from Andrei’s blog)