El ritmo de la sociabilidad festiva en las rallas de Valencia

Abstract

This paper is concemed with the experience of time in the Festival of the Fallas of Valencia. It attributes a central role to the concept of festive sociability. The first section summarises basic concepts. A second part describes the Festival. The third section deals with the community's collective memory and its cyclic sense of history. The fourth describes the annual cycle of the permanent festive sociability of the Falla. A fifth section is concemed with the intensification of the rhythm of festive sociability during the Festive Event; it produces a reorganisation of time and space which go along with other relevant changes at the personal and community levéis. The participants have an opportunity to joyfiíUy re-experience their time of childhood by means of play and humour; this helps them to search a deeper experience of the ephemeral in the context of a cyclic sense of time.