Festa Festa

A dance troupe started the St. John's Day festivities. "Sorgin Jaiak" are "witch games."

Party of unknown provenance with dancing and accordions-we stumbled on this one while hiking.

 It is San Pedro week in Lasarte, which started with St. John's Day. There are festivals all over the region throughout the summer to celebrate patron saints (and well, to celebrate, full stop). Here are some photos of the events.

Saint John's fire was held right in the central square. Students typically burn their notes from the prior school year.

MOAR BRASS! This is no reluctant teenaged marching band in polyester uniforms, y'all. People parade up the street, the sidewalk, whatever during festival weeks at all hours of the day. It's like living inside a Beirut video. Or maybe I have it backwards.

Explanation of the tradition of Gigantes and Cabezones:

  F: "So there are big giants that are in the streets and people who run around with big heads. The big heads have cow bladders." Me: "Cow bladders??" F: "Yes. They're for hitting people." Me: "Hitting people???" F: "Yes. Children, mostly."

Sorgin Dantza (witch dance)

There was this incredible group called the Falcons from Catalonia. They do these human tower exercises while moving from one place to another, sometimes in tower formation.

There are a bunch of big dudes at the bottom who hold all these people on their backs and a tiny kid climbs to the top. It takes them a long time to work up to this kind of complex formation, and it is incredibly tense while you watch them all shaking and teetering. No one fell, but I did have some sympathy vertigo.

For this one, each person was added from below, pushing the others up.