My return from Hungary marked the beginning of May and the approach of La Feria de Abril, the second part of Sevilla’s enormous and ostentatious religious celebrations occuring every spring. This spring festival, though it is named for April, happens 2 weeks after La Semana Santa, the big holy week, and since the latter happened very late this year, the feria actually occurred in early May. The two aforementioned celebrations are among the largest continuous contributors to Sevilla’s cultural fame and aesthetic, and are a tremendous tourist draw. Regrettably, due to my poor planning, bad luck with weather, confusing procession schedules, and a demanding work schedule, I missed most of the beauty of semana santa and accordingly didn’t have sufficient material to give the celebration a blog post of its own. Instead, I’m opting here to go a tope on a major post about la Feria.
Having missed the first of the two major cultural events in Sevilla, I was not about to miss the second, and my preparation began early. During Semana Santa itself, I had already begun taking lessons in baila Sevillana, the traditional dance performed (or perhaps better put, enjoyed) by attendees of the Feria. Aesthetically, it’s a lively mix of flamenco and squaredance, and is done with a partner to it’s own energetic and syncopated style of traditional music. There are (at least) four letras or versions of the basic Sevillana, which can be learned in sequence, and which, though differing in difficulty (at least for me!), recycle enough basic movements that they can all be learned (with passable mediocrity) somewhat quickly. Fortunately for me, a fellow postdoc at EBD was both an incredible dancer and a generous, helpful person, and she volunteered to teach other interested biologists the letras if we could pool cash to rent a practice space. This we did, in a beautiful studio in the old quarter of Sevilla, and between traveling to Hungary and a hectic work schedule I managed to bumble my way through enough classes to grasp the basics.
Before I get too much into my experiences at the Feria, a bit more about what kind of party it actually is. In many ways, the Feria is analogous to large state and county fairs in the United States: a big, temporary event where everyone goes to have a great time and enjoy great weather outside in a large public space. There is even a large section of the Feria itself that has the same sort of carnival rides, rip-off games, opportunities to win giant stuffed Minions, and so on. But it’s much, much more than the typical U.S. county fair. For one, it’s enormous. In 2010, as many as 5 million people passed through the Feria over its 1-week duration. Held on the Real de la Feria, a huge (~110 acre) park space south of the neighborhood of Los Remedios, the majority of the actual Feria is composed of long marquee tents, lined up shoulder to shoulder, in a veritable pop-up village. In recent years, there are often over 1,000 of these on the grounds of the Feria. These brightly-colored tents are primarily private, an idiosyncrasy that makes the Feria distinctly different to what Americans are used to.
The casetas are ornate and apparently extremely expensive (many feature a bathroom, kitchen, bar, dancefloor, and often live music, as well as private security). They are typically run by social clubs, colleagues at companies, or other large associations that can pool funds to cover their fees and expenses. The key to enjoying a proper Feria is having the social connections to get into a few casetas; these are of course where most of the real action happens. There are larger, public casetas which can often be a real blast, but they don’t have the same intimacy and special feeling as in the private ones. Especially at the beginning of the Feria week, casetas are typically filled to the brim with elegantly dressed people, men in crisp suits and women in spectacular dresses, fanning themselves continually to combat the intense heat. Dancing, standing around, or sitting with some tapas, everyone seems to be continually refreshing themselves from pitchers of rebujito, the popular drink of the Feria which is a mixture of 7-up or sprite, some herbs (occasionally mint), and manzanilla (a form of fino sherry), and copious amounts of ice. This rebujito, while it absolutely hits the spot and goes down very easy, results quickly in intense inebriation well before one expects, and can be a bit dangerous in that regard.
Beyond the tapas, Sevillana, and rebujito, people also take the opportunity to show off by riding decorated horses and carriages around the Feria grounds. Such people are typically dressed traje campero or traje Cordobés, a snappy traditional style well-adjusted for equestrian travel. Although you can still find popcorn stands, people dressed as giant cartoon characters, and even a ferris wheel, la Feria is a very, very different kind of celebration to that which I knew back home.
My first Feria experience was with other personnel from la Estación Biológica de Doñana; a giant gang of postdocs and PhD students who were piggybacking on the availability of an easy invite to a few casetas to which other members of EBD belonged. Deciding it was best to arrive at the Feria in style, we also took advantage of a promotional offer from a local rum company to get a free ferry ride down the Guadalquivir to the site of the feria. After a quick, loud ride down the river, we arrived at the fairgrounds, and made our way to our caseta of choice. It was small and unbelievably crowded, and for the most part we ended up drinking our rebujito outside, and doing some improved Sevillana in the streets, for lack of space.
Eventually, we made our way to a very cool, hippy-ish public caseta, where there was an eclectic mix of music that had us alternating between salsa, sevillana, swing, hip-hop, reggaeton, and other music styles. The walls of the caseta were painted with creative murals pertaining to social and environmental justice, my personal favorite being the rather blunt “No hay feria sin planeta.” (“There’s no feria without a planet”). We hopped between some other public casetas for the rest of the evening, getting some more dancing in, before turning in at something like 3 in the morning. I dragged myself back up north to Triana and slept like the dead.
The following day, I somehow managed to get myself up and out the door in time to return to the Feria for my second day, which was scheduled to start at the ungodly hour of 2pm. I met with my martial arts familia from the Yawara Jitsu class, and we enjoyed a classy lunch at the Sevilla sailing club, right beside the fairgrounds themselves. Having wanted to dress a bit more festively, I was lucky to have a brand new, and intensely bright shirt that they had given me as a birthday present the month before, and which fit perfectly. I nursed my hangover and politely declined repeated offers for rebujito while guzzling water, and then we made our way about the feria.
My martial arts teacher and good friend Alvaro seemed to know everyone at the sailing club and in the feria as a whole. He humbly explained this was because his father was a social butterfly, but I had a strong feeling his own friendly nature and respectable character had a lot to do with it. Due to Alvaro’s extensive local connections, we hopped between a huge number of casetas as the afternoon wore on, hugging an aunt here, shaking a cousin’s hand there, and always with a continual flow of snacks and rebujito. For me it was a much more authentic look at the smaller private casetas and the festive environment within. Things were a bit less hectic than the day before, and we even (thankfully) had space to sit down for a good proportion of the time. There was less dancing this time around, but I was alright with that. I focused instead on taking in the sights and sounds of a very authentic feria experience, and enjoying some great conversation with some of my best friends in Sevilla.
This more restful Feria adventure concluded mercifully with iced cream and tea by a much more reasonable 11pm, and I was home in time to fall face-first on my bed and catch up thoroughly on precious sleep. Up until that point, it had been my general impression that my feria experience had ended; I had no other invitations to enter private casetas, and figured two intense days would be enough; after all I had loads of work to do on my research project at eBD, and several jobs to apply for. So I spent that day, and the next hard at work in the office, coming home just to sleep, and trying to get my routine back in order. Then, out of the blue, I received an unexpected text from fellow Fulbrighter Danielle Porter. She had just arrived in town with several other Asturias Fulbrighters, who were going to be visiting the Feria for its last couple of days. As the only Fulbrighter in Sevilla, and one of only two in Andalucia this year, I was thrilled at the opportunity to spend more time with my cohort-mates, and rushed out to meet the on Saturday afternoon for the last night of the Feria.
And what a night it was! We managed to meet up with another friend from EBD who had the “in” at a great little caseta, where we did quite a bit of Sevillana, and I finally got the chance to really put all of my Sevillana classes to use. From there, we managed to find our way into some other casetas (this late in the Feria, people had stopped really checking at the door) and got in loads more dancing. It was a delightful time, and the managed to tire ourselves out dance enough to stay quite sober despite all of the rebujito coming our way. A great combination! Finally, at around midnight, the Feria officially ended with a massive fireworks display over the river.
With the feria week having officially come to a close, we ate a (very) late dinner and parted ways to get some much-needed shuteye. The next morning, I was blown away at the silence and stillness of Sevilla. The whole city, including a metropolitan area of several million, seemed hung over. From the vantage point of my terraza, where I can typically watch the ceaseless activity of the city and continuous flow of traffic toward the city center, I saw nor heard hardly a soul. It wasn’t until at least 6pm that I started to see signs in my beloved home city, and even that was just a handful of stray cars and pedestrians, the odd bus, and nothing like the normal pace and rhythm of activity. This was, evidently, the effect of about 156 hours of partying on a populace: the most peaceful Sunday I’ve ever seen in an urban area.
With a tremendous sleep debt, I prepared for the week ahead, satisfied that I’d properly experienced Sevilla’s biggest cultural event, and thinking about what I’d like to wear next year.
Charles van Rees, Ph.D 