ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the musical and dancing performances orchestrated by the Female Organization of the Falange under the umbrella of the “Choirs and Dances” section. From 1942 to 1976, annual festivals and gatherings of local dance groups from all over Spain took part in competitions and performed different versions of regional and local tradition. This was parallel to the invention of regional and provincial “typical costumes”, as well as to the selective crafting of a “new” and purportedly refined tradition, which was carefully reinterpreted by the Falangist local female groups. Spanish diversity certainly took to the stage and was even projected abroad as the many international tours of the “Choirs and Dances” revealed. However, territorial diversity was re-catholicised, to some extent “domesticated”, and prevented from using any content that could contradict the regime’s core values. Mutual knowledge of Spain’s diversity was also favoured. Thus, Catalan groups were encouraged to play Andalusian songs and Castilian groups to perform Catalan dances. Despite this, from the 1960s on, the tasks of re-exhuming folklore were also employed by some cultural activists on the periphery in order to use folklore as a tool against the dictatorship.
