Dancing in the Dock
The fandango is Spain’s most alluring national dance, and the story goes that even the most solemn clergyman could not resist it.
1797
‘Fandango’, by contemporary Colombian artist Oscar Sir Avendaño.
© Oscar Sir Avendaño (artist), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
‘Fandango’, by contemporary Colombian artist Oscar Sir Avendaño, who teaches at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universidad del Atlántico.
Introduction
Jean-François de Bourgoing was secretary to King Louis XVI’s legation to Spain from 1777 to 1786, and served as Ambassador in 1792-93. The French Revolutionary government mistrusted him, but his diplomatic career revived under Napoleon. In 1807, he brought out a fourth edition of his popular study of modern-day Spain, first published ten years earlier, which included this account of the fandango.
abridged
NOTHING forms a stronger contrast to the gravity of the Spaniards than their favourite dance the fandango, a truly national dance, full of expression, at which foreigners that are a little scrupulous are at first shocked, but soon become enchanted with it.
As soon as the fandango is struck up by the musicians at a ball, all faces begin to be animated, and the spectators, if even their age condemns them to a state of immobility, have great difficulty to keep from falling in. A very ingenious apologue* has been formed, to give an idea of its irresistible fascination.
It is related that the court of Rome, scandalized that a country so renowned for the purity of its faith had not long ago proscribed such a profane dance, resolved to pronounce the solemn condemnation of it. A consistory was formed;* the cause of the fandango was tried according to all the rules of law. Sentence was going to be pronounced, when one of the judges very judiciously observed, that a criminal ought not to be condemned without being seen and heard.
* An apologue is a myth, especially a brief fable created to make some moral point in a pleasantly exaggerated way. Aesop’s Fables are apologues. The word implies that the tale Bourgoing told was not true.
* A consistory is a church tribunal or governing body; in the Roman Catholic Church, it is more specifically an assembly of cardinals summoned by the Pope.
