Festival Parade in San Miguel de Allende

The Valle del Maiz festival, based in one of the oldest parishes of San Miguel, parades throughout the city on successive weekends in May. Sunday the 28th it paraded through the central Parroquia, where we chanced upon it. The seemingly never-ending sets of dancers were mostly representing indigenous groups in varied costumes, some maize-like, some skeletal, some more typical Indian dress, all dancing to drumbeats. We first notice that the drummers were strangely not-costumed, as if they were randomly recruited at the last minute. The dancers were mostly seriously focused on their synchronized dance – each group had a slight different step-pattern. But we also notice the syncretism between the Church and the local culture, wherein all the banners had a cross and holy phrase – and each group, no matter the costume, paused when it passed in front of the Parroquia church, took off their hats and knelt in homage, most making the sign of the cross as well. Then they stand up, the drumbeat starts again.

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String Quartet Broken String

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Música Tunas e Boémia

We attended an unusual concert last night: Música Tunas e Boémia (bands and parties) University student folk-music groups — big groups of 40 and more each! put on a great show of singing, playing, flag-twirling, tambourine-swinging, all at the major (private) concert hall. The most unusual thing about it was that nobody used any electronic device (except for microphone amplification)—no electric guitar or keyboard, no big drum set…every instrument and prop was hand-held. The singing was quite good, given the effort to synchronize 40 voices.

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