CATALAN CULTURE

The department of the Pyrénées-Orientales, known as the "Catalan Country", whose history, linked to France since the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) has shaped its double identity: French and Catalan over the centuries. Attached, in their vast majority to the French Republic, its inhabitants always defend their roots by maintaining their cultural traditions and especially by the use of their native language, "that of emotion", the Catalan.

Catalanism, that is to say, to feel and / or claim to be Catalan, is expressed in the use of the Catalan language, present in literature, music, popular theater, songs, sardana. Cultural entertainment, rugby, gastronomy, processions and religious festivals, urban bilingualism are for hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the Pyrenees-Orientales as many symbols of their Catalanity and their personal way to express it.

THE SARDANE

La Sardane is a group of traditional Catalan dances and music.The Sardane is danced in circles, sometimes in concentric circles (up to 3 circles in each other).

To make a correct Sardane, you have to be quite numerous, the circles are rather large. It obeys the rules of musical composition very strict, which requires the dancers to be extremely attentive. If you have the opportunity to follow a Sardane, observe them well, you will see that they count their steps!

Traditionally the dancers are in Catalan costume: they wear the "barretina" (headgear), the "faixe" (belt) and the "vigatanes" (espadrilles). The music is played by a "cobla", the traditional formation composed mainly of instruments with exotic names: "Tibla", "Flaviol", etc. Also the members of the coblas are dressed the Catalan way.

BOITACLOUS

"The association was founded in 1983, and today it is the one that politicians, the world of professional entertainment and the press alike recognize as the radiant "Boite à plaisir " so to say the « leasure box » of the South of France.
Hundreds of shows, thousands of artists, millions of spectators An artistic and cultural proposal aimed at everyone, without any discrimination, who knows, who has always known how to propose different projects, daring, hard-hitting, funny, beautiful, or even conventional ... "

For more information www.boitaclous.com

THÉÂTRE DE L’ARCHIPEL

The Théâtre de l'Archipel offers a varied cultural program: numerous concerts, as well as dance performances and plays.

For more information www.theatredelarchipel.org