The Morisca Dance

The Morisca Dance is the traditional dance of the village of Gerri de la Sal

. It is danced on the third Sunday of August, coinciding with the village festival, and its name refers to a very old legend about this dance.

It is danced in couples, repeating the refrain thirteen times. In it, the female dancer strikes the ground twice with her heel while the trabucaires fire from the balconies of Plaça Sant Feliu in time with the heel strikes. In the first three refrains, the dancers perform hand in hand; then the male dancer remains in the middle of the square while she continues dancing apart, turning her back on him and spinning around as if trying to escape, until he turns to face the female dancer again. In the past, spectators threw sugared sweets and almonds at them from the balconies to make them lose the rhythm.

It is said that, during the Saracen invasion of the Pyrenees, the Muslims were preparing to invade Gerri de la Sal and wanted to capture the heiress of Gerri, whom they believed to be the queen of those lands, since everyone called her the queen of the dance. When the heiress learned of it, she asked the people of Gerri for their help in defending the village: she would dance with the Muslim foreman, and when she struck the ground twice with her heel, all the villagers of Gerri would come out of their homes making noise and firing into the air as if a great army were arriving. The surprise and confusion succeeded in frightening the Saracens and driving them out of the village. For this reason, every third Sunday of August the Morisca is danced in memory of that feat.