Festival of San Miguel 2012

The festival of San Miguel begins in the wee hours of the morning tomorrow so I thought I would publish the schedule of events which varies little from year to year. Along with it, slideshows of years 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011.

Click on the photo below to view the 2007 Slideshow

Click on the photo below to view the 2008 Slideshow

SATURDAY
3 am: Meeting of the dnacers & Mojigangas, corner of San Francisco/Nunez & procession to Jardin
4 am: Alborada – fireworks in the Jardin
7 am: Mananitas – happy birthday to San Miguel at the Parroquia
8-11am: Dancers in the Jardin & Plaza Civica
11 am: Mass to honor San Miguel Arcangel, Parroquia
12 noon – horseback riders from the ranchos parade from the train station to the Parroquia.
1pm: Voladores of Papantal in the Jardin
2pm: Blowing up the paper mache monos in the Jardin, 2pm (Parade down Calle San Francisco before)
5pm: Big Parade! Mojigangas, Xuchiles, dancers from all over Mexico (Calzada Estacion to Jardin)
7pm: dancers in Jardin
8pm: voladores
9pm: Rockets and fireworks

Click on the photo below to view the 2009 Slideshow

SUNDAY
7-9am: Dancers in the Jardin
11am: Another big parade through the downtown starting on Zacateros near Calle Nuevo
1pm: tribute to San Juan de San Miguel, the city founder
3pm: 7pm Voladores
9pm: The BIG fireworks

Click on the photo below to view the 2011 Festival Slideshow:

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Virgen de Guadalupe

Last night was the 6th Novena for the Guadalupe in our neighborhood.
Each day more people come and live music arrived on the fourth Novena. (Video below)

Don’t let the peacefulness of it fool you or make you nostalgic for simpler times because once it got started, about 30 boys under 12 showed up.

Half of them went down into the arroyo behind me to play soccer and yell, lighting sparklers that caused a raging bonfire
and causing every rooftop dog to bark like crazy while everyone recited prayers and sang and ignored the cacophony.

2011 6th Novena for the Virgin of Guadalupe from Suzanne da Rosa on Vimeo.

Click on the photo to view the video of this Novena

The rest of the boys stood in front of me pushing and shoving each other around for fun, their mothers slapping at them as they ducked away. By the end of the night, it was almost an old time religious revival with people singing, clapping and dancing, every bit of it heartfelt with love.

These novenas are a crescendo building toward the big party they have at the end, you can feel it coming.

If it’s anything like last year’s party on the 12th, it’s going to be fun, locos and all.

 

 

© 2011 Suzanne da Rosa

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The Blessing of San Miguel

Pilgrimage of San Miguel to the Parroquia to be blessed for the upcoming town celebration – The Festival of San Miguel 

This Weekend’s Festivities:
Midnight Friday:  Procession of the estrellas to the Parroquia for las mañanitas
4 a.m Saturday:  The Alborada and fireworks in the Jardin
2 p.m Saturday: Parade of los monos to the Jardin to be blown up
5 p.m Saturday:  The procession of the Xúchiles and dancers
9:30 – 10 p.m Saturday night: Castillo fireworks in the Jardin
11 a.m. Sunday: The big parade of dancers up Zacateros, around town and to the Jardin
9:30 – 10 p.m Saturday night: Castillo fireworks in the Jardin

Throughout the day the Voladores perform in front of the Parroquia

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Locos Parade 2011

Every June in San Miguel de Allende, they celebrate the feast day of San Antonio de Padua with first, Rockets beginning at about 4am, followed by religious processions and masses and a full size carnival with lots of kiddie rides, ending a week later with the Locos blessing and Parade.

Ten years ago this parade lasted about thirty minutes and was a rag tag group of neighborhood youth dresses as indians, pirates, skeletons, nothing so elaborate as you see now. It has grown into a full blown major parade with whole neighborhoods spending a good part of the year creating colorful elaborate costumes around a theme as you’ll see in the video.

They say about 10,000 people participate in it now.  They begin about a mile and a half outside of the center of town, ending up in the Jardin (the town plaza) to dance and have some fun. The parade itself takes a good couple of hours or more to loop through the town.

Here’s a video of parts from this year’s parade.

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/166309376″>2011 Locos Parade</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user43839345″>Suzanne da Rosa</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Gallery:

They know how to have fun!

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Living in the Neighborhoods

I won’t say that wonderful events don’t happen downtown, because they do. But when things happen out in the neighborhoods they have a character all their own, an organic feel to them – like everyone just chipped in whatever they had that day and said let’s throw a party.
And they do.

It was the birthday of San Felipe this weekend – the WHOLE weekend, from Friday afternoon until 11pm tonight and they didn’t miss a trick. Carnival rides with six different kinds of loud music going all at once. Sirens go non-stop from about noon until it closes.

There’s loco music, bandas, religious processions and masses. Half of the homes in the neighborhood sell some kind of food, sweet, bread, tacos, and ice cream.

Little boys and old men set up tables of games and charge you to play. Mixed in with all it all are tables with people  selling groceries, fruit, toilet paper, chips and plastic containers.

People come from all over to play games, ride the rides, eat, dance, pray, carry the saints around the neighborhood singing.  They are outside all day and night talking to each other and sometimes you’ll find the tired ones  against a wall on the street sleeping.

The neighborhood locos get dressed up and dance all day.

2011 Fiesta, Locos in the Colonia San Felipe from Suzanne da Rosa on Vimeo.

How can one resist buying one of these?
Works of art for only 40 pesos, the size of a pizza.

Or taking the neighborhood kids for a ride on one of these?
Here’s a little movie for the kids – sounds and all –
loco dance music and a banda in the background,
each ride has it’s own music and they are all going at once.
No one seems to mind. (video to come)

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Semana Santa Processions

Photos from the stations of the cross processions and Good Friday’s  Santo Encuentro procession.

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Palm Sunday, 2011

For starters, a few photos.. more to come

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