Sardana
A Catalan circle dance.
What it means
The sardana is a Catalan circle dance: dancers form one or more rings, join hands, and move sideways in small, precisely counted steps.
Beyond being a folk dance, the sardana is regarded in Catalonia as a cultural symbol, at times suppressed under the Franco dictatorship and all the more closely tied to Catalan identity ever since.
Musical use
The sardana is accompanied by the cobla, a fixed Catalan wind ensemble of woodwinds and brass featuring the double-reed tenora and a small drum. The music is built from short and long phrases (curts and llargs), whose exact step count the dancers must track so that the ring falls back into sync at the end of each phrase.
Its present-day form took shape in the nineteenth century out of older Catalan ring dances, was systematized by composers such as Pep Ventura, and was declared Catalonia's official national dance in the twentieth century.
The sardana should be distinguished from other European ring dances such as the farandole, which is also danced in a circle or chain but lacks the fixed counting scheme of curts and llargs.
Performance practice
When accompanying a sardana, keep the rhythmic distinction between short and long phrases clear, since the dancers rely on it. Hold the tempo steady across the whole performance so the ring stays synchronized.