Las Parrandas

Two neighbourhoods, one night

According to UNESCO, the Parrandas were held for the first time in 1820 in the town of Remedios and are now celebrated by eighteen communities in the centre of Cuba. Each town is divided into two neighbourhoods or parties, which work all year to prepare their display and compete on the night of the festival, while “spies” try to spoil the surprise of the other side. Everyone takes part, regardless of class, age, religion or background, building replicas of monuments, floats and costumes, writing songs and dances, preparing fireworks and making lanterns, banners and emblems for their neighbourhood.

Besides Remedios, the best-known Parrandas are held in towns such as Camajuaní, Vueltas, Zulueta, Chambas and Guayos, in the provinces of Villa Clara, Sancti Spíritus and Ciego de Ávila.

Rumba, floats and rockets

The night follows a set order of events. Around 10 pm the first neighbourhood announces its rumba with a palenque, a firework that rises almost silently and bursts with a huge bang above the crowd, and its musicians and dancers try to drag as many people as possible along with them; then the other side replies. The rumba grew from children making noise into music and verses teasing the rival district, played on cowbells, drums and the local atambora, with trumpets added in the 1930s.

Next come the great displays. In Remedios these are the trabajos de plaza, huge structures of light in the square; elsewhere they are floats, towering constructions covered in bulbs and fantasy decor, hauled by a tractor, with costumed figures who must stand as still as statues while the legend of the float is read out. Finally come the fireworks: lines of rockets three or four blocks long, some 20,000 in a single run, ending with booming mortars that announce the end of a district’s display.