[ Nov.2016 ] Jerez de la Frontera in the south of Spain is famous for its equestrian arts.
There is a school called The Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art Foundation and they hold shows for the public.
They do not seem to do the show everyday, but it just happened that when we were there, they did the show, so we booked tickets and went to see it.
The venue was like a big gymnasium with sand on the ground.
As many as 1600 people can be seated around the ground.
Before the show started, a man carrying a basket came around the audience seats.
I looked over and found that he was selling nuts in some narrow bags, which was interesting for me as I have never seen anything like that and felt the cultural difference.
And I was amazed to see the show itself was titled was “How the Andalusian Horses Dance”.
It was a ballet of horses.
They did not do the pirouette, but they did the entrechat.
I have seen an acrobatic horse riding show in Hungary a long time ago, but this was completely different.
Here, the horses themselves perform dance steps to the music.
Of course they are the riders’ skills.
And the riders’ costumes were something special, too.
Apparently they are the costumes from the 18th century.
Among them, there was only one woman.
The show was about 90 minutes long and it cost 21 euros for an ordinary seat.
It was definitely worth watching.
Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos during the performance, so I will show the photo of the leaflet I bought.
This school was a little far from the centre of the town, so we took a taxi to get there, but on the way back, we decided to walk.
And we came across the town’s bullring.
I have never seen bull fighting, but this is another important part of the culture in this country, isn’t it.
We saw some placques introducing the bulls.
