Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Vol.18, Number 1, 2008 (ISSN: 1016-3476)

Festivals of Moors and Christians. Performance, commodity and identity in folk

celebrations in Southern Spain.

©Maria J.C. Krom PhD-researcher

CRIA-Centre for the Research in Anthropology Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Summary

Festivals of Moors and Christians are celebrated in great profusion in Southern Spain.

These festivals, combining religious ceremony and secular entertainment, are widely

divulged in books, newspapers, on the Internet, and on local and regional television.

The number of festivals is growing each year; celebrations fallen in disuse are

revived and new ones are created. While continuing to rally the local population as a

focus for the expression of identity, in the last few decades, many of these festivals

have also become the object of processes of commoditization and heritagization, and

a focus for identity politics. Based on fieldwork and literature research, the essay

analyses the festival in its contemporary form, from the perspective of performance,

arguing that the performative character of the celebration constitutes the foundation

for both its marketability and its efficacy as an emblem of local identity.

The context. The festival of Moors and Christians in Beneixama.

The festivals of Moors and Christians in Spain, depicting the Christian re-

conquest of the Iberian Peninsula occupied by the Moors, are a combination of

religious ceremony involving the veneration of the local patron saint and the

evocation of real or fictitious historical events, by means of recited dialogue and

staged battle scenes. The festivals are of great audiovisual and emotional impact,

comprising parades, processions, dancing, battles, rifle shooting and fire works,

invading the streets of towns and villages during three to five days, and involving a

large part of the local population.

The Festes de Moros i Cristians de Beneixama take place every year in the

beginning of September. Beneixama is a small village of some 1500 inhabitants,

situated in the fertile valley of the Vinalopó, in the province of Alicante, part of the

Comarca of Valencia, in the southern part of Spain. The Mariola Mountains and the

valley of the Vinalopó are well known for their festivals of Moors and Christians. The

region boasts some of the eldest celebrations of this kind (Alcoi, Villena, Biar,

Banyeres, Bocairent), most of which are said to have appeared in their current form

in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the wake of the industrialization of the

region. Although they have evolved out of an older type of celebration, the simulacra

or soldadesca, these are decidedly modern celebrations, emerging in a context of

social upheaval and change, when the bourgeoisie started its ascent as the leading

class in a liberal society based on the principle of civic participation (Alcaraz i

Santonja 2006:37).

The festival of Beneixama, considered amongst these older and authentic

celebrations, has been celebrated in its current form, according to historical

documentation, from at least 1840 onwards (Alcaraz i Santonja 2006:145; Festes de

Moros i Cristians de Beneixama 2008:146).

The program of the festival is divided over five days. The official opening

begins at noon, with the raising of flags on the balcony of the town hall, and

accompanied by the notes of the various festival hymns. This is followed by a special

kind of fireworks, a mascletada, on the square in front of the town hall, and a

musical presentation of the bands that will accompany the comparsas and esquadras

during the festivities.

At five o’ clock in the afternoon the captain (capità) of the Christian company, or

comparsa, receives an official salute from the other comparsas: de Moros,

Estudiantes and Llauradors 1. This is the starting signal for the entradas, the grand

opening ceremony, to begin. The filaes of Moors and Christians, consisting of the

respective comparsas, lead by the capità, his family and the flag bearer, the

abandarado 2, with their various subdivisions, the esquadras, present themselves to

the public, parading in their best finery along a predefined itinerary. The parade,

comprised of some seven hundred elaborately dressed participants - ranging from

babies to elderly people - moving slowly to the beat of a Paso Doble or the rhythm of

a Moorish march played by one of the twenty bands, takes several hours, ending on

the square in front of the Ajuntament (village hall). The final part of the entradas

consists of a succession of open-ended trucks from which costumed festers throw

the most surprising kind of surprises (regalos): sweets, toys, household appliances,

etc.

After the entradas are finished, late at night, a solemn procession transports the

statue of the patron saint, the Divine Aurora, from her chapel near the town hall to

the parochial church in the centre of the village. A ball with live music concludes the

day.

The following days of the festival begin at dawn with the ringing of church

bells and volleys of gunshots. The festers gather in their respective masets – the

headquarter of the comparsa - for the Diana, a parade in which one or more of the

esquadras marches in the direction of the church, directed by their cabo, on the

notes of a paso doble or Moorish march played by their band of musicians. On their

way to the church, the esquadras pass by the house of the captain of the day to

bring him an honorary salute3.

The esquadras and their captain assist at mass in the parochial church after which

the esquadras and their cabo perform El Rogle, a kind of military choreography

carried out in front of the church entrance, applauded by the gathering of

spectators. After El Rogle, once more accompanied by the musicians, the esquadras,

led by their cabo and capità, return to their maset where they eat breakfast and can

relax for a little while.

At noon it is time for the Missa Major, followed on the second day of the festival by a

procession of the sumptuously dressed comparsas through the streets of the village

that ends in an offering of flowers to the patron saint, the Divine Aurora, also called

Mare de Déu (Mother of God), displayed in the church.

On the third and fourth days of the festival the Holy Mass is followed by a Cercavila,

a parade leading esquadras and capitàns of all four comparsas through the village,

under lively accompaniment of their respective bands.

The evenings of the second, third and fourth days are dedicated to the

embaixadas, negotiations between the Moorish and the Christian ambassador,

recited in verses written by the 19th century local poet Pastor Aycart. The

embaixadas begin with the serreta, street battles in which members of both parties

fire deafening blasts of harquebusiers while advancing on the wooden castle erected

on the square near the town hall. On the evening of the second day the skirmishes

and negotiations are followed by the attack of the Moors and their conquest of the

Christian castle. The conquest ends with the placing of the effigy of La Mahoma on

the ramparts of the castle4.

The evening of the day dedicated to the Mare de Déu, the Christian troops take the

castle back from the Moors, expulsing La Mahoma. In the Cordà that follows - a

rather violent and noisy kind of fireworks - the effigy of La Mahoma is dismantled

and his clothing burned. Later that night, the statue of the Divine Aurora is once

again carried in solemn procession through the streets of the village before returning

to the church, preceded by all four comparsas led by their capitàns and

abanderados, and accompanied by bands playing their special hymns.

In the embaixada on the third day, the Moorish ambassador recites a speech of

surrender and conversion to the Christian faith.

On this day, the Divine Aurora is led once more in a solemn procession ending on

the square near the chapel where she will remain until the celebration in the

following year. The Moorish and Christian ambassadors, the capitàns and

abanderados line up forming an honorary corridor in front of the chapel. Before

entering the chapel, however, Aurora’s bearers make her sway to and fro to make it

seem like she is hesitating, not really wanting to take her leave. A single male voice

starts to sing the hymn to Aurora: “Goodbye, Aurora, goodbye”; a very dramatic and

moving moment that brings tears to the eyes of many elderly habitants. As one of

my informants later explained: “The old people cry because they do not know

whether they will be here next year to see their beloved Aurora”.

When the virgin is finally placed in the chapel the village harmony once more plays

her hymn and another round of fireworks bursts into the sky, ignited by the Christian

comparsa. The crowd disperses; the members of the comparsas return to their

maset for a late meal.

Then something unexpected happens: the Moors assemble at the entrance of the

town hall, waiting for the arrival of the mayor and the other notables. When they

arrive and start entering the building, the Moorish band plays a short salute. Only

then, the Moors return to their maset.

Festival as performance

‘In the twenty-first century, people as never before live by means of performance’,

states Schechner (2006:29) in his already classic work on performance5.

Borreguero (2006:418), in her analysis of the festival of Moors and Christians of

Villajoyosa describes it as ‘(…) a theatrical performance with the streets and historic

squares as the stage. The main actors in this drama are the people of the village,

either playing a part, or cheering and encouraging the main characters.’

The festivals of Moors and Christians - with their parades, make belief,

musical intervention, reciting of poetry, dancing, doing battle, firing rifles, and

religious ceremony - seem indeed a perfect example of performing, of what

Schechner calls ‘showing doing’ and which function it is to ‘display doing’.

‘Doing’ , defined by Schechner as the activity of living everyday life, and ‘showing

doing’, or performing (excerpts of) everyday life, are conceived as activities in

constant flux that interact with one another in a reciprocal relation (Schechner,

2006:28).

Of the various kinds of performance Schechner distinguishes, performance in

everyday life is of particular interest for the analysis of the festivals of Moors and

Christians. As Schechner (ibid:ibidem) indicates, this kind of performance has the

purpose of marking identity, playing with the notion of time, embellishing the body,

changing it’s shape, and telling stories. From childhood onwards, people are trained

in the appropriate kind of behaviour for different circumstances and according to

different social roles. Just like in art and ritual, performance in everyday life consists

of a repetition of this kind of learned behaviour, displaying what Schechner calls

‘restored or twice-behaved behaviour’. To make sense, this symbolic and reflexive

behaviour needs to be decoded, which is generally reserved for insiders.

Participation in collective performances, such as the festivals of Moors and Christians

in which participation starts from a very young age onwards, is one of the means by

which appropriate social and cultural behaviour is learned and transmitted.

Such everyday life performances can have the objective of changing the status quo,

maintaining it, or of establishing a common ground.

Although all performances are built up from a similar set of elements of ‘restored

behaviour’ as mentioned by Schechner, as embodied practice each performance is

also unique in the sense that it presents a temporal and spatially circumscribed

combination of elements of this behaviour. Its uniqueness is expressed not only

through its materiality (costumes, setting, lighting, number of participants, sequence,

etc.) but also through the circumstances in which it takes place and its relation and

interactivity with other objects, beings or performances.

Performances consist necessarily in a combination of action, interaction and

relationship (Schechner, 2006:30-31). This helps to explain why festivals of Moors

and Christians seem all the same and yet also different, maintaining a general basic

structure of similar elements but changing from one year to the next and from one

context to the other.

An interesting example of this idea is the relationship and interaction between

the festivals of Moors and Christians celebrated in the towns of Biar and Villena near

Beneixama, described by Albert-Llorca (1995). Villena’s festival can’t be celebrated

without the collaboration of Biar, a neighbouring town and former vassal of the now

more prosperous and economically important Villena. This collaboration consists in

the loan of the symbolic figurehead of the festival, La Mahoma, belonging to Biar and

kept in this town during the greater part of the Year. Each year, the effigy of La

Mahoma is transported to Villena, where it stays for a period of four months during

which it performs its function in the local Moors and Christians festival. Disputes over

the value of this loan and the proper recompense, and differences over the correct

treatment of the effigy, influence both performances in practice and in perception.

In fact, the festivals tend to function in a kind of continuous chain-reaction to each

other, with each village or town vying to put on a more beautiful, more authentic,

more sumptuous performance than its neighbour.

What elements make up a performance?

As Schechner (2003:22) has pointed out, all performances share a set of basic

qualities: they order time in a special way; they attach a special value to objects;

they are non-productive in terms of goods; they adhere to a set of rules; and they

often take place in non-ordinary locations. Let us take a look at each of these

qualities in turn.

The first quality of performance is that it organizes time in a manner that

differs from ordinary time and which is adapted to the event (Schechner 2003:8). In

the festivals of Moors and Christians, time varies in kind and in duration, depending

on the act that is being performed and the location in which the performance takes

place. In terms of real clock time, the duration of the performance can go from one

up to three, four or even ten days, as is the case in the festival of Beneixama.

Although, in principle, the acts that make up the performance correspond to a

previously determined actual timetable laid out in the festival program, in fact, they

take place in event time, a time mode in which a particular activity takes place

according to a set sequence which must be completed no matter the actual clock

time this requires (Schechner: 2003: 8). This time mode applies for instance in the

entradas, the opening parade on the first day of the festival, when all of the

comparsas in the Moorish and Christian filaes march through the streets of the town

showing off their best finery. It also applies to the parades held on the remaining

days of the festival, to the processions which transport the patron saint from her

chapel to the church and vice versa, to the skirmishes between the Moors and

Christian troops, and to the pull and push of the conquest and re-conquest of the

castle by the Moors and Christians respectively. These acts have to be completed no

matter the amount of real clock time it takes.

The second time mode at work in the festival is symbolic time; a mode in which the

activity performed refers another time span, which may be longer or shorter - as in

the case of actual history - or may be of a different dimension. The embaixadas - the

recited poetic verses that make up the negotiations between the Moorish and the

Christian embaixadores - take recourse to this time mode, as do the holy masses

held during the festival. In the latter case, however, it is not actual historic time that

is referred but rather a different dimension of time (eternity, life after death).

The second quality of the performance is the special value given to the

objects, or props, used in the staging of the same. These props generally have little

monetary value outside the context of their usage. Sometimes they are very

common objects, of little material value, which can easily be replaced (Schechner

2003:11).

In the Moors and Christians festivals, some of the objects used are very expensive,

as for instance the jewels that adorn the statue of the Divine Aurora during the

processions, or the finer costumes worn by the capitáns during the official

ceremonies. Nevertheless, even here the monetary value is relative, since the

costumes only make sense in the context of the festival and are produced and

bought specifically for this purpose.

All of these objects are, however, of great symbolic value within the context of the

performance; they may even constitute the focal point of the whole activity. The

festivals of Moors and Christians would be completely different without the elaborate

and colourful costumes and without the dramatic musical accompaniment. The props

thus are essential for the creation of symbolic reality.

Likewise, the giant effigy of La Mahoma, that plays such a crucial role in the festivals

of Biar and Villena, is of little value in terms of its material components, existing as it

does of a dressed up wooden structure. Its symbolic value, on the other hand, is

enormous.

In Biar La Mahoma is venerated as a Saint and attributed the same weight in the

celebration as the statue of the Virgin. In Villena, where the effigy is not perceived

as a saint - although its presence is considered crucial - it has at times been

maltreated or ridiculed, and even on occasion been partially destroyed in the course

of the festivities (Albert-Llorca, 1995).

In comparison, the effigy of La Mahoma in Beneixama is neither revered nor

ridiculed, but is nonetheless taken apart when the Moors are expelled from the

castle, although nowadays its head is no longer filled with fireworks and made to

explode. Despite recent criticism of this custom, which supposedly has led to its

abandonment in several nearby localities, Beneixama maintains La Mahoma up until

now, limiting itself to leaving out the name and simply designating it as ‘the effigy’.

The people on the street, nonetheless, continue to call the figure by its name.

The adherence to a set of rules and the marking-off of often non-ordinary

locations are two other qualities of a performance (Schechner, 2003:22).

In the case of the festivals of Moors and Christians in the Mariola Mountains, the

village or town as a whole is involved in the celebration through an endless series of

processions, parades, and ceremonial acts. The continuous ringing of church bells,

salutes of harquebusiers and playing of festival tunes, make it virtually impossible to

escape the festival whilst it is taking place. Special locations do exist, however, and

these are the focal point for the staging of particular acts: the church, the square in

front of the church, the chapel of the patron saint and its adjoining square next to

the town hall, the wooden castle erected on this square, the real castle towering

over the town, and of course the masets or headquarters, where the comparsas

gather.

For this reason Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998:58) sees festivals as a scripted form of

‘environmental performance’ with acts staged at different locations that correspond

to more private or more public parts in the celebration.

We can illustrate this taking Beneixama as an example. Here, the ‘public’ opening of

the festival is preceded by five days in which more ‘private’ parades are held by all

four of the comparsas on the four consecutive nights preceding the official entradas.

On the eve of the official opening of the festival, the comparsas hold the Nit del

Sopar, uniting all festers in their own maset, the headquarters of their respective

comparsa, for a joint evening meal. These acts are quite private even when the door

stands wide open, as are the gatherings in the maset during the festival, or the final

ceremony at the chapel of the Divine Aurora.

Another example of this mingling of private and public acts can be seen in the

festival in Banyeres de Mariola, where the last day begins with the priest saying

mass on the local cemetery, allowing the population to commemorate and bring

homage to the deceased. Although not formally closed to the public, the atmosphere

here is one of absolute privacy, making it difficult for possibly present visitors to

disrespect an unspoken code of conduct of non-interference.

The performance, as we see, is staged in accordance with a set of rules – a

tradition if you will – that not only scripts the actors’ behaviour, but also defends the

performance against ‘encroachment from the outside’ (Schechner, 2003:13). This

might explain why some festivals continue to have a truthful, genuine ring to them,

in spite of increasing pressure to turn them into an instrument in the politics of

culture.

This brings us to the last point in the characterization of the basic qualities of

a performance: its non-productivity.

Schechner (2003:11) pointed out that performances stand apart from ordinary day-

to-day life because, like play, they are not considered a productive or serious activity

in the sense that they results in the creation of wealth or the accumulation of goods.

However, if we look at the way in which festivals of Moors and Christians in general

have of late been evolving, especially in areas where towns compete with each other

on the economic and cultural level, we see an increasing trend towards their

commoditization; the celebration as a commodity does become productive in the

economic sense of the term.

The colourful festivals of Moors and Christians, with their aura of ‘cultural

authenticity’, are in fact attractive targets for marketing strategies directed at the

attraction of tourists, which sometimes lead to the creation of new celebrations of

this kind where these previously did not exist. The festival of Moors and Christians in

Calpe, on the coast near Alicante, is a case in point (Perles Ribes, 2006).

The market value of the festival as an ‘authentic’ expression of local culture,

as a heritage-commodity, hinges, as Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998) shows, on its

capacity for display.

Festivals as modes of display, extending over a varying period of time, place

spectators and participants in an ‘environment of sensory riot, engaging all the

senses – olfactory, gustatory, auditory, tactile, kinaesthetic, and visual’ (Kirshenblatt-

Gimblett 1998:58).

In my view, this sensorial rapture constitutes an important motive for the continuing

– and growing - participation of local inhabitants in the festivals of Moors and

Christians, and it is this same quality that turns the celebration into an attractive

object for strategies directed at the creation of heritage, and identity politics at a

local and regional level.

In relation to the link between the sensorial impact of folk festivals and their value

for identity politics, Bendix (2005:10) remarked that,

“the distance between ‘enacting the real thing and actually feeling like the real thing

persuasively connects to arguments about identity. The aesthetically elaborated cultural

practices are singled out for political and economical purposes precisely because they affect

our senses and cloud over rational value judgements about the simplified version they often

present of complex reality. The role this sensory appeal plays in the nostalgia that often

surrounds folk expressions is an important factor in the success of the political use of culture”.

The festivals of Moors and Christians seem to be the perfect gambit in the politics of

culture. As Kirshenblatt-Gimblett pointed out (1998:65), ‘Having a past, a history, a

‘folklore’ of your own, and institutions to bolster these claims, is fundamental to the

politics of culture’.

Recently created celebrations such as the one in Calpe which dates from 1977

(Perles Ribes, 2006) – that claim to offer the visitor a glimpse and a taste of

‘authentic’ culture, pretending that what is shown is not a re-creation but the real

thing, hitch a ride on the wave of interest surrounding long established celebrations

like the ones in Villena, Alcoi and Villajoyosa (dating from the mid 19th century, 1741

and 1876 respectively).

The problem, as Kirshenblatt-Gimblett points out, lies in the fact that they ‘sell’ the

visitor the illusion of having an ‘unmediated encounter’, an authentic experience,

while in fact he witnesses a staged performance in which the people performing

‘become signs of themselves’:

“We have here the major tropes of ethnographic display, from the perspective of the tourist

industry – the promise of visual penetration; access to the back region of other people’s lives,

the life world of others as our playground; and the view that people are most themselves when

at play and that festivals are the quintessence of a region and its people”.

(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998:62)

Identity politics or the festival as commodity

In his essay on commodities and the politics of value, Appadurai (1986) proposes a

new way of looking at the circulation of objects in social life, stating that

commodities are objects of social value and that these objects, just like people, have

a social life. Their economic value is not a quality inherent in the objects themselves

but is something that is defined by people through the value judgements they make

about such objects and that politics create the link between the exchange and value

of the same. Appadurai’s analysis of commodity, value and politics is interesting in

the context of the festivals of Moors and Christians.

Folk festivals in general – promoted as emblems of cultural tradition – have

for quite some time played an important part in the attraction of tourists, forming

the basis for economic competition between Spanish tourist destinations (Perles

Ribes, 2006:147). The festivals of Moors and Christians, in particular, are responsible

for a considerable part of the income generated by the tourist market on the

southern coast of Spain.

Perles Ribes’ analysis of the festival in Calpe – a seaside town situated between

Valencia and Alicante, and a tourist destination since the 1950’s - shows that the

local celebration of Moors and Christians, on the two principal days of the festival,

generates between 11 and 18% of the net annual revenue resulting from tourism, in

the municipality.

The celebration in Calpe, which originated in 1977, was integrated in a process of

tourist development that was already well under way at the time. Apart from the

positive effect it had on the municipal budget, the festival has also led to a change in

the affluence of tourists. The tourist season, which formerly went from the 1st of

June to the 30th of September, now continues until the celebration of the festival of

Moors and Christians, taking place in the 3rd weekend of October.

The fact that the festival in Calpe initiated in the 70’s, some twenty years after Calpe

started to develop as a tourist destination, suggests, according to Perles Ribes

(2006:148) that the celebration was an intentional creation, integrated in a strategy

of tourist competitiveness, instead of an inherited tradition.

The economic impact of the festival of Moors and Christians on the municipal budget

of Calpe, directly related to its capacity for the attraction of tourists and other

visitors, results in a figure of nearly five million euros on a yearly basis. Some 56% of

this figure results from the expenses made by visitors and tourists in the acquisition

of daily necessities and other goods, while the remaining percentage corresponds to

expenses in terms of lodgings for these same visitors and tourists.

The number of people that visit Calpe on the two most important days of the

festival, is estimated at around eighty six thousand, not counting the individuals that

habitually visit Calpe on any given day of the week, nor the inhabitants of Calpe

(Perles Ribes 2006:157).

The same author also refers that, when questioned, most of the owners of

commercial establishments in Calpe consider the celebration to have a positive effect

on the budget of the municipality in general, while only some - mainly hotels, real

estate agents and local commerce situated in the town centre - claim to feel the

effects personally in their own businesses (Idem, ibidem:161).

Obviously, the celebration of the festival does not only bring economic benefit, but

also implies expenses for the municipality, related for instance to illumination, the

construction of the castle - normally a wooden structure, cleaning, fireworks, security

and publicity. In Calpe, this investment represents a figure of more than forty seven

thousand euros per year (Idem, ibidem:153).

Apart from representing a substantial value in terms of income, the festivals of

Moors and Christians also have an important non-material and symbolic value.

Promoted as an icon of local culture – an authentic expression embodying the

identity of the local community – the value of the celebration translates in terms of

social status and political prestige at a local and even regional level, made visible in

abundant media coverage both locally and regionally.

The process of authentification and heritagization is also eloquently

expressed in the panoply of materials produced at the local level with the objective

of promoting the celebration.

Every year, many of the municipalities celebrating a festival of Moors and Christians

produce a thick commemorative book on the local festival. The 2008 edition of the

municipality of Banyeres de Mariola counted nearly three hundred pages, the first six

and the last hundred and fifty pages of which filled with advertisements and publicity

of local and regional firms. These ads serve, obviously, to cover a part of the

expenses implicated in the organisation of the festival, reserving the biggest and

most prominent space for the most important contributors.

Fundraising, however, is not the only purpose of the book. Aimed also at the

affirmation of the celebration’s authenticity – upon which depends its value as local

heritage – the book stresses the prestige of the festival, opening with public

salutations from all of the politically relevant entities at local, regional and national

level. In descending order appear consecutively: the Royal Family, the Presidencia

de la Generalitat, the Diputación Provincial, the Alcalde (Mayor) del Ajuntament de

Banyeres, the Chairman of the Comissió de Festes, the Alcalde de Festes, Municipal

Representatives, and, finally, the Commissió de Festes.

The book also figures as a portrait in miniature of the local community. In

subsequent chapters it presents the most diverse types of information: greetings and

information from the comparsas; the program of the current edition of the festival;

the prizes attributed in the various categories of the festival (floats, flags, music,

children’s drawings on the festival, etc); a little bit of local history; news from the

social and cultural associations and other civil entities; memories of and homages to

the already deceased; commemorative texts; and even a contribution of the official

chronicler of the festival6.

All of these chapters clearly aim at the reinforcement of social cohesion within the

community, and at the stimulation of feelings of belonging. These aims are neatly

expressed in the salutation of the Mayor of Banyeres: “The infra-structure of the

festival has spun a web of personal relations that has converted itself in the

backbone of the social life in our town (….) the festival integrates, unites, connects,

and maintains bonds and strengthens friendships, while at the same time stimulating

the respect for others” (Festes de Moros i Cristians de Sant Jordi 2008:25)7.

Sociability and the politics of identity

Since the 1950’s, the number of festivals of Moors and Christians in the Comarca de

Valencia, comprising the provinces of Valencia and Alicante, has increased from

about thirty to almost two hundred celebrations a year (Alcaraz i Santonja 2006:37).

This increase of celebrations has been accompanied by the exponential growth of an

industry in materials and services related to the festivals, which has the purpose of

supplying the nearly 800 comparsas that currently participate in the celebrations,

with recourses. A giant workforce of seamstresses, designers, wig makers, makeup

artists, choreographers, musicians and composers, craftsmen working with metal and

iron, suppliers of harquebusiers, etcetera, work throughout the year to satisfy the

orders of their demanding clients (Alcaraz i Santonja 2006:10).

How does the existence of a whole industry dedicated solely to the production of

materials and props used exclusively in the context of the festival, relate to the

expression of identity and the maintenance of social cohesion, referred by the mayor

of Banyeres?

Let us first look at the social dimension, or context in which the practices of

consumption in the festival take place, using as example the celebration in Banyeres

de Mariola, a town near Beneixama, and then see how these practices translate in

terms of sentiments of belonging and affirmation of identity.

The companies of Moors and Christians, called filaes, usually consist of multiple

units, the comparsas, which in turn are divided in esquadras, both of which play an

important role in the social life of the village and which find their most eloquent

expression in the setting of the festival.

People participate in the festival through their membership in one of the comparsas.

The comparsa has the legal stature of a cultural association, directed by a board, the

junta, composed of twenty to thirty people, dependent on the number of members in

the comparsa. The junta represents the comparsa in the festival committee, which is

headed by a representative of the municipality. The junta also is responsible for the

budget and for the general organization of the comparsa. Every two years the

comparsa elects a new board from the members that propose themselves as

candidate. Having an equalitarian philosophy, the new board members can be men

or women, young people or old. Curiously enough, the actual board of the comparsa

dos Maseros in Banyeres consists solely of women7.

In Banyeres de Mariola, there are, in total, ten comparsas – five on the side

of the Moors and five in the Christian filà. (In comparison, in Beneixama there are

only four: Moros, Christians, Estudiants and Llauradors). The number of festers

(members) in each comparsa varies between eighty and five hundred individuals.

The comparsas spend their annual budget mainly on expenses related to the annual

festival that takes place in April. The rest of the budget is for costs related to the

maintenance of the headquarters, the maset, and for other activities, such as a

smaller festival held in September. The budget consists of the quota (membership

fee) paid by the members of the comparsa. An example: the Comparsa de Maseros

in Banyeres – representing the class of landowners and labourers, which has been

performing uninterruptedly since 1928 – has three hundred and forty members.

Each member pays an annual fee of three hundred and seventy five euros, which

gives him or her the right to participate in the main festival in April, plus an

additional fee of a hundred and fifty euros for participation in the two-day festival in

September8. This makes a total budget of a hundred and sixty one thousand and five

hundred euros. To this amount accrues the income generated by incidental activities

directed at fundraising.

From this budget, the comparsa pays the fees for the musicians – which for the

festival in April alone rounds a sum of about thirty thousand euros for ten bands of

eight musicians each. It pays for the standard costumes for the members of the

comparsa, the floats that participate in the parades, the flowers for the procession,

the composition of special music for the sole use by the comparsa, food and

beverages for members and musicians, and general expenses related to

maintenance of the maset and organization of the association.

The comparsas are distinguished from one another by their typical costumes

and props. In return for their membership fees, the members of the comparsa have

the right to ‘come out’ during the parades in the esquadra of their choice, and

wearing the standard outfit. If they want a more elaborate outfit, they have to pay

for it themselves. This can be very costly, considering that the price of a typical

Valencia dress can cost as much as six thousand euros. Obviously, most members

wear only the standard outfit.

The capità and his family (or capitana in case it’s a woman), and the abanderado,

the bearer of the flag, wear a much more elaborate dress, which they themselves

pay for. In Banyeres, the role of capità is optional and rotates every year. Every

member has the right to propose him- or herself as a candidate. However,

considering the costs involved, in practice the more well to do families hold the

capitania, a function which obliges them to serve as host for the members of the

comparsa on some days of the festival, and to appear in full dress in all of the official

acts. If in a given year there are no candidates for the capitania, the comparsa itself

takes on this role.

In nearby Beneixama, on the other hand, the capitania is determined by rote, falling

to each of the members in alphabetical order, or by random election.

The esquadras, the most important subdivision of the comparsa, are usually

formed by people within the same age group, often a group of friends or classmates,

of the same gender or mixed, that parade together during the official acts of the

festival. Their leader, the cabo – who can be male or female, just as the esquadra

itself - is chosen by his fellow member in the esquadra, based on his or her abilities

as a performer. The cabo leads the esquadra during the parades and in the

choreographies, the military formations, and he has to incite the members of his

esquadra to a perfect performance and elicit applause from the spectators by the

way he directs the choreographed movements of his group. In Banyeres, prizes are

awarded for best cabo and best esquadra.

Usually, young people start out as participants in the comparsa to which their

parents belong, which they start to do at a very young age, often as babies or

toddlers. As they get older, they choose either to stay in the same comparsa as their

parents or to join another comparsa of their choice, based on the presence of friends

or classmates. Several of my informants indicated that this system of belonging

works as a form of social control and can cause problems if husband and wife belong

to different comparsas or if sweethearts belonging to the same esquadra separate,

since membership of the esquadra often overlaps with bonds of friendship.

The comparsas also provide a space where young people that do not live in

the village can experiment with identity, and serve as a means for the re-integration

of returning or new members of the community.

This is evident in Beneixama where a number of houses are occupied only during the

holidays and at the beginning of September, when the festival of Moors and

Christians takes place. The residents of these houses are primarily descendents of

inhabitants that have moved away, grandparents and parents - curiously enough

many of them to Pamplona, in the North of Spain. These temporary residents return

on purpose to take part in the celebration, or plan their holiday in this period. This is

the case with two informants I interviewed. One, a female pharmacist of fifty years

old, bought the old family granary in the village centre and remodelled it into a

holiday home. She lives in Pamplona but always participates in the festival. Both she

and her daughter are active festers, expressing the importance of their participation.

Her two sons, on the other hand, enjoy the festivities but do not care to dress for it

or take part in the official acts, preferring just to hang out with their friends in the

village.

Another informant, a female theatre producer of around the same age, who lives

near Valencia, grew up in the village. She comes from a family of festers: father,

mother, one of her brothers and she herself used to ‘come out’ as Moors. Her

mother had the important task of safeguarding in their house the jewels used to

decorate the statue of the Divine Aurora during the processions. Her husband, who

is originally from Pamplona, for some years also came out with the Moorish

comparsa. Nowadays, neither one of them partakes in the parades, preferring to

cheer on their two daughters who are both fervent participants. The eldest, 22 years

old, joined the Christian comparsa instead of coming out with the Moors, because all

of her friends are members there. The youngest (16) is not yet a member but wants

to join as well. Her mother, however, wants to wait until she is a bit older, because

of the costs involved.

The system formed by comparsa and esquadras thus reveals itself of great

importance in the construction and maintenance of the social structure and cohesion

of the community, uniting as it does generations and gender by means of a

multiplicity of social activities – joint meals, fundraising activities, excursions -

throughout the year, inspiring strong feelings of loyalty and belonging in its

members. The comparsa could be compared to an extended family, in the context of

which a major part of the social life of its members takes place. Within the comparsa

the esquadras are of particular importance, embodying as it were the spirit of the

festival and the sociability principle of the community, and which is maybe best

expressed in the proud affirmation, ‘Não disfraçamos, vestimos. Não desfilamos,

marchamos!’ (“We don’t disguise ourselves, we dress. We don’t parade, we

march!”).

Conclusion

In a relatively short time, the festivals of Moors and Christians have turned into

valuable assets in ongoing processes of heritagization and commoditization.

Concomitant with these processes, the festivals have become an important object of

consumption on the part of the population celebrating the festival, sustained by an

industry of recourses and services10.

In some cases, the local festivals of Moors and Christians have long passed from the

stage of consumption candidacy referred by Appadurai (1986:16) to a stage in which

they are in fact objects of consumption. Perles Ribes’ (2006) analysis is a case in

point, demonstrating how important the festival is for the municipality of Calpe, in

terms of money and prestige.

The aura of authenticity of the festival and its capacity for display are of the

greatest importance for the success of the commoditization strategies on the part of

local power entities that produce publicity materials to underscore the prestige of

their festival.

The consumption practices of the comparsas, who intervene in the festival as active

social agents, on the other hand can be seen as expressions of a reflexive process of

construction and affirmation of identity in which objects produced for the market are

transformed ‘from an alienable condition to an inalienable one’ (Miller 1987:190). A

process which Bendix (2005:197) defined as reflexive modernization, wherein people

look at their own practices and evaluate their economical and political worth.

These two complementary facets of the festivals can perhaps be clarified by

the distinction that Hill and Wilson (2003:2; 2004:2) make between identity politics

and politics of identity.

Identity politics is seen by these authors as a top-down process used by political,

economic and other social entities to shape collective identities on the basis of

ethnicity, race, language and to place these into ‘relatively fixed and naturalised

(essentialized) frames’ in order to achieve political ends. Identity politics are

expressed through the discourse and action of formal institutions – governments,

parties, and corporate institutions - aimed at articulating, constructing, inventing,

folklorizing and commodifying culture and identity within the public sphere of politics

and civil society. The strategies on the part of local powers directed at the

commoditization of the festival for economic and political benefit are an example of

this kind of politics.

Politics of identity, on the other hand, is defined as a bottom up process that takes

place in the everyday life of individuals and communities, in which local people,

acting within a framework of social and political institutions and collectivities, ‘choose

or are forced to interact with each other on the basis of shared or divergent notions

of identity’. For example: the strategies deployed by local populations to distinguish

themselves from the neighbouring towns through the idiosyncrasies of their own

local festival. This process, expressed through the negotiation of culture, power and

identity aimed at the creation of meaning, affirmation of identity, or economic

survival, can but does not necessarily coincide with the process of identity politics.

However, these two processes, do not, in my view, fully account for the force

of participants’ sentiments of belonging and the measure of social cohesion these

festivals generate. Analysing the festivals of Moors and Christians from the

perspective of performance, on the other hand, would seem to allow us to explain

and conciliate the existence, within the same event, of such apparently contradictory

tendencies as commoditization, expression of identity, maintenance of social

cohesion and sentiments of belonging.

As stated by Schechner (2003:157), these kinds of oppositions are an integral part of

every performance, it being always a dialectic process of action and interaction,

‘Performance originates in impulses to make things happen and to entertain; to get results and

to fool around; to collect meanings and to pass the time; to be transformed into another and

to celebrate being oneself; (…) to focus on a select group sharing a secret language and to

broadcast to the largest possible audience of strangers; to play in order to satisfy a felt

obligation and to play under an Equity contract for cash’.

The performances of Moors and Christians thus can be seen as continuously

oscillating between two poles on a binary continuum, similar to the one Schechner

(2003:130 fig. 4.4) indicated for theatre and ritual, which we can design

schematically as follows:

Community/celebration/identity --------- performance ----------- identity/commodity/entertainment

Moreover, Schechner claimed that,

‘the money, services and products (…) generated by these activities (performances) are not

part of them. (…) No matter how much is spent, paid, or bet, or in other ways implicated in

these performative activities, their respective forms remain constant. When money does

“corrupt” a form (…) people are able to recognize the misalignment’ (2003:13).

I do agree with Schechner that the money, services and products surrounding the

contemporary performances of Moors and Christians do not necessarily corrupt the

form in those festivals that build on a local ‘tradition’, as is the case in Beneixama,

Banyeres, Biar and Villena, because there they are an integral part of the social

structure of the communities in question. However, where such a local festival

‘tradition’ does not exist, nor is nor becomes embedded in the social structure, as

seems to be the case in Calpe, it seems doubtful that the celebration can remain

‘uncorrupted’ in form and content since from the outset the festival in these cases

arises in response to other exigencies, of a different nature.

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1 Beneixama has only four comparsas, three of which belong to the Christian filà : the Christians, the Students (Estudiants), and the Labourers (Llauradors). The filà of the Moors (Moros) has only one comparsa. Other festival may have many more, on both sides. In Banyeres de Mariola, for instance, five comparsas parade in the Moorish filà (Moros Vells, Moros Nous, Pirates, Marrocs, Califes), and five in the Christian filà (Christians, Estudiants, Maseros, Contrabandistas, Jordians). 2 The role of capità and abanderado can both be played by a man or a woman (capitana, abanderada). This is not always the case. In Alcoi, seen as the bastion of the tradition, women continue to be limited to mere decorative roles, while in Petrer, another one of the older and traditional festivals, women only relatively recently (1962) started interpreting other roles, due to the entrance of women in the workforce (Heuzé 1999). 3 In Beneixama the role of captain changes every day to aleviate the costs implied. 4 La Mahoma is an allegorical figure, originally referring the profet of the Muslims, which in the festival of Moors and Christians is represented by an effigy made of a wooden frame and papiermaché head, dressed to represent the profet. In earlier days, in Beneixama the effigy’s head was filled with fireworks and exploded from the castle, but due to protests about the political correctness of the habit, this practice has been abandoned. The effigy is still burned, but is officially no longer called La Mahoma. See for a more extensive treatment of this subject, Albert-Llorca, M. and Albert, J. 1995) 5 Schechner defines performance as “an activity done by an individual or group in the presence of and for another individual or group, (..in which…) the function of the audience persists (even when there is no formal audience): part of the performing group watches – is meant to watch – other parts of the performing group” (2003:22). 6 See also Blanc 2003 on this subject 7 My translation from Catalán. 8 According to my informants, in the Villena tradition, named after the neighbouring town of this name, in which both Beneixama and Banyeres participate, since the end of the Franco dictatorship women have always participated in the comparsas as equal to the men. The same can not be said about Alcoi, another nearby town, self proclaimed as the bastion of festival tradition, where the purists defend the segregation of roles based on gender, allowing the women to participate only in decorative roles (see: Heuzé 1999; Albert-Llorca, Gonzalez-Alcantud 2003). 9 Information provided by my informant G.B, who works and lives in Banyeres, member of the Comparsa de Maseros. 10 I use the term consumption as currently defined in the context of the social sciences, as “a dimension of the social order that comprises a set of practices which permit individuals to express their identity, mark their belonging to certain social groups, develop strategies of social distinction and assure their participation in social activities” (Rosales 2002:295).