Dancers of Anguiano.

This spectacular dance performed on 45 cm high wooden stilts by eight young men from the village, dressed in colourful waistcoats and yellow skirts is an internationally renowned tradition. The stilt walkers hurtle down the steep slope from the church to the main village square.

Each year, on the 22nd July, the Feast day of Mary Magdalene, after mass the dancers start to dance the “El Agudo” before an image of the Virgin; the dancers have castanets and are accompanied by music played on pipes and drums. The dancers first need to negotiate the six stone steps separating the church square from the street. Once at the bottom, one by one, the dancers set off down the steep slope, twirling dizzily round and round until they end up on the “mattress” of people awaiting them in the square. They then return to the top and this time they come down with the image of the Virgin on a portable platform. When they have all reached the square, they dance the “Troqueaos” dance with sticks. The dance is repeated in the afternoon, after the Rosary.

Fuente: lariojaturismo.com