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Festivals and celebrations are a particularly important part of Hispanic culture. They are a way to remember our ancestors, they give us an opportunity to come together to enjoy music and dance and they help us to keep our traditions alive.
In this lesson we are going to explore some festivals from all over the Hispanic world and learn more about the countries where they take place.
El carnaval de Oruro
This Carnival takes place every year around the end of February in the Bolivian city of Oruro. This is a religious festival. People dress up as in very colourful masks and costumes, some of them are dressed like devils. They parade around the town playing music and doing traditional dances. They dance all the way to a shrine inside a silver mine which used to be an ancient religious place. At the end of the festival, the people dressed as devils enact a fight with an angel. The angel always wins and after this people go on partying, enjoying the fireworks and eating delicious food.
Fiestas patrias
This party is to celebrate Chile’s independence from Spain in 181 0. It takes place every year on the 18th^ and 19th^ of September. People decorate their houses with the Chilean flag, they celebrate in the streets dancing the traditional dance called Cueca (you dance it in pairs both holding a handkerchief). People drink a special drink called ‘ Terremoto ’ (it means earthquake in Spanish), which is made with wine, grenadine and pineapple ice cream. At the end of the festival there is a huge military parade.
Inti Raymi (festival of the Sun)
The ancient people of Peru and Ecuador were called Incas. They used to celebrate the Sun as their God. In this incredibly old festival people keep this tradition alive. During this party, every June, an actor dressed as the Inca emperor rides a horse cart through the city of Cuzco in Peru. The parade finishes in the top of a mountain where they pretend to sacrifice a llama, but do not worry, no llamas are hurt during this festival, they are too cute!
Cinco de Mayo
This festival celebrates Mexico’s victory in a battle against France (battle of Puebla). People eat traditional food, dance and sing traditional Mexican songs. This is an extremely popular festival in United States, where lots of people celebrate Mexican culture, music and food every 5th^ of May.
El carnaval de Santiago de Cuba Both in Santiago de Cuba and in the Cuban capital, Havana, on July, Cubans celebrate the Carnival. There are performances by music bands and dance demonstrations. It is a celebration of Cuban culture. People wear very colourful costumes and there are decorated floats and cars. There are dancers carrying decorations that look like streetlights and they spin them constantly while they dance, they are called ‘ Faroleros ’. Some dancers wear stilts on their legs.
Festival Petronio Alvarez
Festival Petronio Alvarez takes place in Cali (Colombia) in August. It celebrates the culture of the African-Colombian people living in this country. There are shops to buy crafts and accessories or clothes, concerts and delicious food being cooked by the best chefs in the area.
Feria de Sevilla
For this festival, a small town is built inside the city of Seville (Spain) , it is called ‘ La F eria’. The houses are built of wood and canvas and are called ‘ C asetas’. Sevilla’s citizens decorate the ‘ C asetas’ with lace, mirrors, lights and paper flowers. People visit each other’s casetas to dance and eat fried fish and other delicious food. They play music and people dance Flamenco. Most people wear traditional dresses. Only horses and horse drawn carts can be driven in la Feria. Every evening there is a horse parade around the feria, you can admire very well- trained horses.
Carnaval de Ponce
This carnival takes place in Ponce, Puerto Rico, generally in February. It is one of the oldest Carnivals in the world. During this festival people dress up as ‘ Vegigantes ’ , wearing masks made out of paper that have many horns. These masks are normally painted in bright colours and are worn with vat-like capes.
Instructions to use the festivals worksheet
You are going to check your festivals’ knowledge now. Print the worksheet for this lesson.
You have a grid with colourful illustrations, this is what you can do with them:
**- Matching game: cut them up and try to match them to each festival.
- Memory game: you can print two sets of these cards, place them upside down on a table. You could play this with a friend or by yourself. Turn two cards, if they match you can keep them, if they do not match you turn them facing down again. Try to remember where the images are. If you play with a partner or want to make the game more challenging, you can ask them to describe the festival that matches those cards.
- Sequencing game: can you put the cards in these di** ff **erent orders: from your most to your least favourite, looking at when they take place from the beginning to the end of the year.
- Snap game: you can play this with a friend. Print two, three or four sets of these cards and shu** ffl e them very well. Make sure that each one of you has the same number of cards. You and your friend put down a card each on the table at the same time (no cheating!), if the cards match you shout ‘snap!’. Whoever says snap fi rst gives the cards to the other person. If it is not clear who said snap fi rst, do not fi ght... keep calm... do paper, scissors, rock. Whoever gets rid of all the cards fi rst wins. To make it more di ffi cult, you could test each other’s knowledge of the festivals. If your friend cannot name the festival, they keep the cards even if they said snap fi **rst or won at three rounds of paper, scissors, rock.
- Quick lottery game: you chose four festivals and get your friend to call out the di** ff erent festivals, if that festival is in your list you can cross it. When you cross all the names you shout ‘Bingo’. Whoever shouts Bingo fi rst wins.
