Michael Coy
BRITISH people have certain days of the year which are special to them, such as Bonfire Night, Pancake Day or maybe the FA Cup Final. Well, so it is in Spain. One of the big ones is “Carnaval”, which is dependent on Easter.
Because Easter is exceptionally late this year, “Carnaval 2025” will be celebrated on the weekend of 14-16 February. It’s fun. In Andalucía, two traditions have merged over the centuries.
First, let’s talk about Shrove Tuesday. (This year it falls on 4 March, but ‘Carnaval’ can’t wait!) Lent almost doesn’t exist today, but within living memory, it was a big deal. Lent (‘cuaresma’ in Spanish) is the six-week period leading up to Easter.
The idea used to be that Christians (there was a time when everyone in Europe was Christian) should imitate Jesus Christ.
Forty days before His death, He went off into the desert and meditated. He hardly ate anything. This is why we used to ‘give up’ things we like (chocolate, cakes &c.) for Lent.
In the days before every house had a fridge and freezer, this was a problem. If milk, eggs, butter and other perishables were not going to be used during Lent, best to eat them the day before – ie, Shrove Tuesday, before they ‘went off’.
All over the Christian world, the eve of Lent turned into a party day. The other tradition is mocking the rich, powerful and famous. The city of Cádiz is well-known as a hub of democracy (it’s where the Spanish people first told the king he had to obey a constitution).
The citizens (known as ‘gaditanos’) have a reputation for being funny, and for laughing at pretention. They developed a tradition of ‘chirigotas’, which can’t be translated into English, but means something like ‘joker’. Groups of young men get together in secret and make up scurrilous, insulting but very funny songs about anyone in the news – the king, Rafa Nadal, Paris Hilton.
This year we can expect a lot of Donald Trump jokes. These ‘chirigotas’ go around town over the Carnaval weekend, entering into bars and restaurants and singing their libellous songs. It has been the custom for a long time now for them to dress up in identical costumes: if you’re out having a drink and a chat on Saturday February 15, your evening may be interrupted when five guys dressed as pirates (or bullfighters, or cartoon characters) burst in and start singing.
It has become a kind of art form, and is taken very seriously in some places. Cádiz and Málaga have major theatre evenings devoted to chirigotas. Málaga is gearing up for COAC (the official singing groups competition), and the city centre will be full of chirigotas. There will be parades, performances and all kinds of wildness.
Anyone who wants to show up at ESAD (Málaga’s School of the Dramatic Arts, in the calle Béla Bartók) between 8 and 14 February, can watch the knockout rounds of the chirigota contest. The semi-finals will be staged in the Cervantes Theatre from 16 to 19. The Grand Gala Final is scheduled for Friday, 21 February. The knockout phase is free to the public: semi-finals tickets range from 12 to 19 euros, while the final costs from 35 to 59 euros per ticket.
We could add a third element to the mix of traditions. Many readers will know that in Brazil and the Caribbean Carnaval is celebrated with dance and street parades. This is thought to have originated with African slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries, who brought their voodoo religion to the New World (and had it co-opted by their European masters.)
The huge Brazilian and Caribbean population of the Canary Islands have made Carnaval one of Europe’s biggest street parties (and the LGBTQ community has not been slow to get involved).
Other fun activities are promised in Málaga, such as the election of a god and goddess of the festival (after the voodoo king, Rey Momo), and (on 28 February) a Drag Queens Gala. The Fancy Dress Day and the Great Anchovy Night (!) will also add to the festivities, but these last two don’t have official dates yet.
