CarnivalI

Anyone wishing to delve into the history of Santa Cruz de Tenerife’s Carnival has to go back to the 18^th century. According to the testimony of writers and travellers of the period, well-off families of the island regularly held fancy dress balls in their homes. The lower classes also had street carnivals of their own, despite the prohibition by the authorities and the church of dances and pranks in disguise in public. The forerunners of the tradition of Carnival masks were the women of Santa Cruz who turned up to the grand fiestas in the Calle Pilar with their faces hidden. Following the fall of the II Republic, Carnival was banned until 1945, when the people of Tenerife began to secretly organise masked celebrations in their homes. In 1965 the growing popularity of the Carnivals led to calls for the "Winter Fiestas", as they were then known, to be officially declared of "interest to tourists", a status achieved two years later. One result of this bid to attract tourists to the Winter Fiestas was the exchange set up between representatives of the Santa Cruz and Puerto de La Cruz Carnivals and their counterpart in Dusseldorf, Germany. The link between the Tenerife capital and the German city is still going strong today. In 1976, once the prohibition and censure of the Franco dictatorship came to an end, the Winter Fiestas changed their name officially to Carnival. On 18 January 1980, the Secretary of State for Tourism conferred on the Carnival with the highest form of recognition, declaring it an event of International Tourism Interest. In 1987 the Tenerife Carnival earned a place in history when over 200,000 people took part in an open-air dance, an achievement that merited a mention in the Guinness Book of Records. On the night in question the audience revelled in the company of the queen of salsa music, Celia Cruz, and popular Venezuelan band Billy’s Caracas Boys. Today, the various Carnival groups carry the name of Tenerife to all parts of the world. The island’s celebrations have become the second most famous Carnival in the world, after Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).

 As Carnival itself has grown, so too have the numbers and quality of the participating groups. The colourful "comparsas" or dancing troupes, the murgas (satirical singing groups with their cardboard instruments), and the more classical "rondallas" or large bands of singers and musicians who perform Spanish traditional songs and opera pieces, are without any shadow of a doubt the true protagonists of Carnival

Comparsas  : References to these dancing troupes date back to the first third of the 19th century. Several documents contain references to groups called "comparsas". They became more common as of the turn of the century, and came into their own as a separate entity with the introduction of the competitions for the "rondallas" in 1910.

Murgas :  These satirical bands emerged during the 1920s and 1930s and were tremendously popular during the Winter Fiestas. Initially sporting painted faces and playing reed and cardboard instruments, they have evolved considerably and now wear highly elaborate fancy dress uniforms.  The words to their stingingly critical songs are full of satire and irony, and convey to the audience the bands’ views on current political and social issues. The amazing success of the bands led to the creation of female and children’s versions. 1972 saw the birth of "Las Desconfiadas", the first all-girl "murga". Mention should also be made of the pioneer "murga" band, the Ni Fu-Ni Fa, founded by a splinter group from another one, Los Bigotudos. As of 1961, the Fufa, as the band is popularly known, lifted the top award five years in a row and became the standard bearers in the category.

Rondallas :  These bands of street musicians originally dressed similar to the "murgas" and sang witty songs also. However, unlike the latter they have always used string instruments (guitars, lutes etc) to accompany their songs.   Although during the 1960s there were so many rondall as that competitions were introduced to Carnival, they fell into decline after this period. Nowadays they are overshadowed by the spectacular increase in the number of "murgas" and "comparsas".

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