Ball de Bastons de Barcelona

The Ball de Bastons de Barcelona is a truly special gathering, made up of dancers from several of the city's bastoners or traditional stick dancers. It is tasked with representing Barcelona's ball de bastons [stick dancing] at the city's big festival events, which is why it only it is only held for the Santa Eulàlia, Corpus Christi and La Mercè festivals. It was presented in February 2015, for the Santa Eulàlia festivities, and sponsored by the Ball de Bastons d'Igualada and the Ball de Bastons de Montblanc.

It consists of nine of the groups that usually take part in the activities organised by the Ball de Bastons de Catalunya Coordination Committee: the Ball de Bastons del Clot; the Bastoners de Gràcia; the Bastoners del Casc Antic; the Bastoners de Barcelona; the Bastoners del Poble-Sec; the Bastoners del Raval; the Cos de Bastoners de Ballets de Catalunya; the Cos de Bastoners de l’Esbart Català de Dansaires and the Bastó de Sarrià. The gathering was created especially for raising the profile of traditional ball de bastons jointly, independently from the associations already established in the city.

The Ball de Bastons de Barcelona has its own music project, made up by several choreographies and five expressly composed dances: ‘Ball de Bastons del Seguici’; ‘La Dretana’; ‘Els Bastaixos’; ‘El Trencafiles’ and ‘Els Miquelets’. The music is played by the group La Rambla de Ball de Bastons to the rhythm of pipes and violins.

One of the group's most typical features is their outfits, which are full of symbolism. They are inspired by a full de rengle [picture of people lined up] preserved of the Santa Maria del Mar Corpus Christi parade of 1855 in which a bastoner group took part. The component members of the dance wear a white hat from which nine ribbons of different colours hand, representing the groups the dance is made up of. The members' trousers and shirts are white, but the rest of their garments are quite colourful: they wear a damask waistcoat, a white overskirt with a blue edge, red gaiters and a blue sash.