03.05
Yesterday, it was the Tenerife Carnival closure. The Coso (closure parade) was eventually celebrated this Saturday, after being cancelled last tuesday due to weather conditions.
I’m not very fond of Carnivals, but I think it’s a beautiful event. Many tourists come to the island every year to see them.
The music (mainly Salsa) plays very loud until day dawns, and a 300.000 people crowd fills the street as a human tide.
This year, however, due to bad weather conditions and to citi council decision to forbid music on the street in some places (due, they say, some local neightbour protest) carnival has gone rather poor. Just the shadow it use to be.
Even though carnival is free, and everyone dress up on his own, there exists several ways of disguising which you will see very often:
- Queen of Carnival Candidate: This is the dress of the Queen of Carnival (to whom I couln’t take a photo
) and Nominees (some of them along this post). These cotumes can easily cost above 20.000€, and are usually sponsored by local companies. They are rather heavy and require some body-build training in a gym to be wore by the girls. They’re carried in carnival chariots. Queen and Bridesmaids are elected during the main Carnival spectacle. - The Character: Ones who disguise the same character year after year, becoming very popular among local people. They usually are famous character: Charlie Chaplin, Fidel Castro, and more recently, Michael Jackson (dressed as in Bad video clip).
- Musical groups: Murgas (amateur singer groups, singing satirist lyrics about domestic matters), Comparsa (see picture below, groups mainly dedicated to carnival-dance – batucadas), Rondallas and others (dedicted to lirical singing and more traditional music).
- Street Carnaval: Is the way everybody dresses, even people from above, when the parade ends and the street dance party starts lasting for hours.
If you happen to come here during carnivals, and like disguising, don’t miss it!
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