By Kathryn Straach
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2007 The Dallas Morning News
VALENCIA, Spain — The quiet is deafening.
For nearly three weeks, the bangs, booms and bams of fireworks have ricocheted off the buildings of Valencia day and night. Small children light firecrackers in the street and run with glee.
The big kids, expert pyrotechnicians, set off some of the largest, loudest and most rhythmic displays to be found anywhere. This happens every afternoon for more than two weeks, as well as during numerous nighttime events.
It’s all part of Fallas, Valencia’s biggest festival, held annually in mid-March for the past 200 years. With endless firecrackers, fire, food, flowers and finery, Fallas is a bit like Mardi Gras gone wild.Commissions, which are year-round social clubs similar to Mardi Gras krewes, work with designers to build fallas (also called ninots), enormous Disneylike figures that are sometimes a bit bawdy but usually have a biting political theme.
Not all ninots are created equal. The fancier, higher-priced exhibits that are expected to win top prizes charge visitors admission for a closer look. Frugal visitors can stand outside the low metal gate and gawk for free. There’s no hiding these structures.
Ninots used to be made of papier-mâché, but now papier-mâché is pasted over molded Styrofoam. None of this is cheap. Some ninots cost about $500,000.
Here’s the wacky part: After a year of planning, financing and building these whimsical monstrosities, the commissions set them all on fire.
All, except one. Popular vote determines which ninot is saved from the flames lighted around midnight March 19, the night of the feast of St. Joseph. Ninots spared over the years are exhibited in the Museum of the Ninot in Valencia.
But all the others burn. First the flames slowly lap away the bodies and faces of the figures. As the fire spreads, crowds step back from the intense heat just as the towering effigies start to fall under a black cloud of smoke.
Legend has it that Fallas (pronounced FI-yas) began when carpenters burned their wood scraps each spring in a sort of a spring cleaning. One thing led to another, and the Spanish spirit blossomed, resulting in the festival that attracts about a million people to Valencia.
Although Fallas technically runs March 15-19, the afternoon fireworks display called mascletá takes place at 2 p.m. March 1-19 in the city hall square. Daytime fireworks, you might ask? Locals explain that the seven-minute ceremony is more than fireworks. It is about the rhythm the fireworks produce. Each day, a different pyrotechnician demonstrates what he is capable of doing with an inordinate amount of gunpowder in various forms.
The day the king and queen of Spain attend, the sounds of the fireworks play Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.” As the sky fills with a whitish-gray smoke, each mascletá builds to a climax that makes your clothes shake.
Nighttime fireworks show off the latest designs, including hearts, stars in a circle and strings of what look like firecrackers floating dreamily from the sky. A half-million people eagerly gather for each 1:30 a.m. fireworks display.
Valencia lays claim to the creation of paella, so paella cook-offs are held with the same zeal that chili cook-offs are in Texas. Open fires heat the flat pans filled with rice, chicken and rabbit paella. People mingle, sip beer and check out the competition. After judging is complete, families swarm into giant tents to eat.
And what’s a festival without pageantry? Each commission has its own fallera (queen) and her court. Young women are dressed in elaborate and expensive 18th-century dresses.
Of course, parades are a big part of Fallas. The biggest is the two-day parade in which women bring flowers to the Lady of the Forsaken. A huge wooden structure of the lady is built in front of the basilica, and women file in to the sounds of the song, “Valencia,” to hand over their bundles of flowers. Workers tirelessly catch the thousands of bouquets, stuffing them into the wooden slats to form a flower-filled saint.
It’s an emotional experience for the women, many of whom can be seen crying when they round the corner and get their first glimpse of the Lady of the Forsaken.
Bullfights are held daily in the old bullring in downtown Valencia as part of the Fallas celebration. The matadors are pop heroes in Valencia.
And all the while, fireworks are heard. Sometimes, the sky lights up from the gunpowder. Buildings shake. Tourists jump when a firecracker lands near them.
But now it is the morning of March 20, and all is quiet. Disturbingly quiet. Not a single firecracker is set off. No booms. No bangs. It’s business as usual, despite a few hangovers.
But don’t let the quiet fool you.
Planning for next year’s Fallas is already under way.