"(...) What are the Dwarfs? Much can be said of them: a marvel of innocence, originality and enthusiasm, and as the poet Nervo might say: who saw them; they can not ever forget them. Of them can say anything but not what they are... "

Luis Cobiella Cuevas, 2000

The most important celebration on the Island of La Palma is produced every five years with the “Bajada de la Virgen” (Descent of the Virgin), festivity honouring the patron saint of the Island, the “Virgen de las Nieves” (Virgen of Snow), held during the months of July and August every five years. These festivals are reminiscent of the 1676 ecclesiastical provision delivered by Bishop Bartolomé García Ximénez that, the picture dropped from her revered shrine in the capital, thereby seeking her intercession to end a prolonged drought, which hit areas, people and livestock. Prelate García Ximénez, watching the popular fervour, decided that the act is repeated every devotee five years from 1680.

The most important part of the Bajada de la Virgen is called the “Semana Grande (Great Week), which begins the second Sunday of July, which involved the Giants and “Cabezudos” ("Large Heads"), and other pastimes of a very colourful and literary and musical recognized tradition. As in many towns and cities of Spain, the Giants are very popular, but in Santa Cruz de La Palma, the capital of the Island, there is every Thursday from the “Semana Grande,” the most distinctive and original interpretation of the Bajada de la Virgen: the Dance of the Dwarfs (Danza de los Enanos), undoubtedly the strength of the whole festivity, whose origins, according to the acknowledge erudite researcher of the Island Jose Alberto Fernandez Garcia, dates back to the celebration of Christ Habeas. Apparently the oldest story we know  seems to have held its first Dance of Dwarfs - which came from the Giants who danced during the festivity of Corpus Christi since the sixteenth century - in Santa Cruz La Palma in 1833, during the proclamation of the Spanish Queen, enthroned by the Liberals, Isabel II. Then, on Christmas of that year, six dwarfs and many other women dwarfs danced in the capital of La Palma. Over time, women dwarfs vanished, but they always were interpreted by men, and still today in Santa Cruz de La Palma that dance is performed only by men.

The creation of this very original dance as interpreted today is due to Manuel Díaz, parish priest of the principal church of El Salvador, which hosts the Virgin during the festivity, after her move from her sanctuary in the mountain on the shoulders of “palmeros” (the native of La Palma) to the capital of the Island. Father Díaz was a liberal man in his time and a lover of the arts and popular revelries. Díaz masks made of paper were modelling for dance, a work continued by Félix Pérez Martín, a teacher at the “Escuela de Artes y Oficios (School of Arts and Crafts), the Spanish institution of adult education with historical tradition, which still exists today. In 1905, the merchant and head of the dance, Miguel Salazar, devised and introduced to the transformation of men into midgets giving to the dance its today’s appearance.

The Dance of the Dwarfs is the number of the festivity of the Bajada de la Virgen which joins the most intimate sense of the people of La Palma. It consists of two parts, in the first dancers represent any character (monks, Japanese sailors, astronomers, pilgrims, old University students, Dominican friars, Athenians, Muslims…, who are wearing bright and colourful dresses, in the past used to be paid by the wealthy families of the city and later by the City Town which assumed all costs for this event), while dancing and singing, changing the lyrics and music in each edition. The second part begins when the dancers above are entering a small hut and leaving in a few seconds turned into dancing dwarfs to the strains a popular schnell polka played by a band of musicians to delirium and disbelief from the public. The second part in choreography and music is always the same in each “Baja de la Virgen”.

In the Santo Domingo Square the group of dwarves are packed and moved to the cobbled streets of Santa Cruz de la Palma, where they continue dancing throughout the night until the first rays of sun reflected on the mast of the famous “Barco de la Virgen (Boat of the Virgin), in the Alameda, the last of its scenarios for another five years.

Both the organizers of the dance as the performers are natives of Santa Cruz de La Palma, a tradition zealously transmitted from fathers to sons preserving the secrets of this rare and unique event. Dance performers are usually young, as only they can support the effort and sacrifice involved in the long evening of the several performances of the Dance of the Dwarfs.

Adapted from "La Palma: La Bajada de la Virgen de las Nieves" in Expocultur (San Sebastian de los Reyes, Madrid) (No. 7, 2005, pp. 16-18, located at: http://expocultur.com / expocultur/revistas/07Julio2005.pdf)