Anguiano is a small town with just 500 inhabitants and has a unique tradition. For more than 400 years, eight dancers, dresses for the occasion with a white shirt, a colorful vest and a wide skirt – which is called Saya – and casteñuelas in their hands, cobbled to the rhythm of the dulzaina and the drum. of a minimum of 45 centimeters high and turning on themselves. The public that crowds the narrow streets of this town serves as a parapet to stop these brave ones in their challenge of not falling to the ground during the dance.
A custom whose first written reference dates back to 1603 and has reached our days to enjoy a tradition that is celebrated three times a year: in May, the day after the ascension; in July, during the festivities in honor of the Virgen de la Magdalena; and on the last Saturday of September, on the occasion of the Thanksgiving parties.
Precisely, this year’s party will remain for the story because, for the first time, a woman has participated in after more than four centuries. This is Adriana Rueda, a 14 -year -old girl resident in Logroño but with roots in this town, which. One day for memory with maximum expectation in the streets and after his father – a dancer – helped him to put on the stilts.
“I have not done what I would have liked because I became very nervous with so many people,” Adriana said with sincerity in wave zero La Rioja. His father, with whom he shared the last moments, repeated again and again that he was “in his things” and put aside the impression that causes the concentration of so many spectators to live this tradition closely. “We had not told many people not to get nervous,” she adds, but it is difficult to contain emotions when you are in the prelude to a unique moment.
“Adriana was nervous, it’s true, but her face smile was not going,” said the mayor of Anguiano, Gema López, in the SER chain of La Rioja. Although it had not transcended the participation of the young woman in the Thanksgiving party, “we all knew in the town that this moment was going to arrive sooner or later,” López insists, also in Anguiano. Not surprisingly, Adriana had dreamed since childhood with that moment. With four years, the Magi brought him some strides and very soon entered the dance school, the quarry where the participants arise in this traditional dance.
“”, Says López about holidays – thanksgiving in September – that have a “more intimate” and “family” atmosphere for the residents of this town. The mayor is waiting for other women to follow her wake in a tradition that excites and lives with special admiration.
