Street dance
A street dance is a dance style that evolved outside dance studios in any available open space such as streets, dance parties, block parties, school yards and nightclubs. A street dance is a vernacular dance in an urban context. Vernacular dances are improvisational and social in nature, encouraging interaction and contact with spectators and other dancers; these dances are a part of the vernacular culture of the geographical area. Examples of street dance include b-boying. Clogging is a early form of street dance, since it evolved in the streets and factories of Northern England in the mid-19th century. Various street dances have lent themselves to the style of urban dance, which arose from the collegiate dance scene. Urban dance is choreography-oriented but is inspired by different street dance styles and fundamental moves, such as house and popping. Urban dance should not be mistaken with hip hop, the culture and art movement that began in the Bronx in New York City during the late 1970s. List of street and vernacular dances List of ethnic and folk dances sorted by origin Media related to Street dance at Wikimedia Commons
Treasure of Villena
The Treasure of Villena is one of the greatest hoard finds of gold of the European Bronze Age. It comprises 59 objects made of gold, silver and amber with a total weight of 10 kilos, 9 of them of 23.5 karat gold. This makes it the most important find of prehistoric gold in the Iberian Peninsula and second in Europe, just behind that from the Royal Graves in Mycenae, Greece; the gold pieces include three bottles and 28 bracelets. The iron pieces are the oldest found in the Iberian Peninsula and correspond to a stage in which iron was considered to be a precious metal, so was hoarded; the archaeologists estimate the date of this trove at c. 1000 BC. The hoard was found in December 1963 by archaeologist José María Soler 5 km from Villena, since has been the main attraction of Villena's Archaeological Museum, its discovery was published in most of the Spanish media and some abroad in France and the United States of America. It has been exhibited in Madrid, Alicante and Kyoto, now there are two sets of copies of the whole treasure to be shown in exhibitions while the originals are permanently conserved in an armoured showcase at Villena's Archaeological Museum.
The same type of metalwork is found in the big Eberswalde Hoard, discovered in Brandenburg, Germany, in 1913. Casco de Leiro Prehistoric Iberia Prehistoric art SOLER GARCÍA, José María. El tesoro de Villena: memoria redactada por José María Soler. Alicante: Editado por Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2005.: Otra ed.:, Ministerio de Educación Nacional, Servicio Nacional de Excavaciones Arqueológicas, D. L. 196, 75p,p. de lám: il. M. I. Ayuntamiento de Villena, Villena ¡Un tesoro!, Touristic Guide to Villena. Referring to the Treasure of Villena. Museo Arqueológico José María Soler, where it is exhibited
Dahi Handi
Dahi Handi or Utlotsavam is one of the festive events and a team sport during the Hindu festival Gokulashtami, known as Krishna Janmashtami and celebrates the birth of Krishna. Dahi Handi is celebrated the day after Krishna Janmashtami, it involves communities hanging an earthen pot filled with dahi or other milk-based delicacy, at a convenient or difficult to reach height. Young men and boys make a human pyramid and attempt to reach or break the pot; as they do so, girls surround them, sing with music, cheer them on. It is a public spectacle, well organized historic tradition of Hindus, with media attendance, prize money and commercial sponsorships; the event is based on the legend of the Krishna stealing butter and other milk products as a baby, the community hiding the products by hanging them high out of his reach, but he finding creative ways to reach what he wanted. A participant in this festival is called a govinda pathak, it is popular in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and nearby regions of India.
In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana this festival is celebrated as Utlotsavam. The child-god Krishna and his friends used to form human pyramids to break pots hung from the ceilings of neighbourhood houses, in order to steal curd and butter; this was in Vrindavan, a village in Uttar Pradesh, where Krishna was brought up. According to a legend, though there was an ample supply of milk products, the children were denied the nourishment during the evil king Kamsa's rule because the king seized the milk products produced. Krishna with his friends would share the milk products. In the Hindu tradition, Krishna is referred to as Makkan chor. In Maharastra, Janmashtami is celebrated as Dahi Handi It is organized every August; the festival Gokulashtami, known as Krishna Janmashtami in the rest of the country, is the celebration of Krishna's birth and Dahi Handi is part of it. The event involves making a human pyramid and breaking an earthen pot filled with milk, butter and water, hung at a convenient height, thus imitating the actions of child Krishna.
Sometimes the prize money is added to the pot instead. The terms govinda or govinda pathak are used to refer to the people who participate in forming this human pyramid, they practise in groups weeks before the actual event. These groups are called mandals and they go around the local areas, attempting to break as many pots as possible during the event. Pyramid formation needs focus; the outer layer individuals need to focus on maintaining balance. As lighter people are needed higher up, the topmost layer has a single child. Breaking the pot ends up with the contents spilling over the participants. Traditionally, spectators threw water on the participants to deter them and people chant in Marathi "Ala re ala, Govinda ala"; the pyramid formation is accompanied by crowds and dancing. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana this festival is celebrated as Utlotsavam. At the famous Tirupati Venkateswara Temple, this ancient sport is celebrated with great fervor on navami; the processional deities of Sri Krishna Swamy and Sri Malayappa Swamy will be taken in a procession around the temple to the place just in-front of temple where Utlotsavam will be performed.
The Deities will be watching the sport being played by local youth who will be divided into groups to grab the Utti. Utti with prize money will be tagged to the end of 25 feet long wooden post, smeared with sticky and other oily substances; the participants form a pyramid consisting below 9-tiers, are given three attempts to break the earthen pot. Every year thousands of people and hundreds of govinda teams gather at Mumbai and Thane's Dahi Handi events; as of 2011, the prize money for the events range between ₹1 lakh –₹12 lakh depending on the organizers and its sponsors. Each year, the prizes and scale of the celebrations increase due to the participation of political parties and commercialisation. Local and state political parties like the Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, are active during this event, with each offering their own prize money; each party sponsors its own set of mandals. Their involvement has increased in the 2000s, thereby increasing prize money.
Thus, numerous teams compete against each other in successive events for the prizes throughout the city. Actors from Bollywood, Marathi actors and singers take part in this event; some mandals incorporated social messages like female foeticide or about the environment into their act. In some years, Castellers from Catalonia take part in the competition. In 2012, a mandal called Jai Jawan Govinda Pathak from Jogeshwari, made an entry into the Guinness World Record by forming a human pyramid of 9-tiers 43.79 feet at the Dahi Handi event held in Thane. A lobby pushed for the possibility of making it an official sport in the same year, which critics said that it should remain just a street celebration; the presence of these mass celebrations and mandals cause traffic congestion and problems like excessive littering. It causes the issue of sound pollution, with the Supreme Court of I
Arabic
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that first emerged in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. It is named after the Arabs, a term used to describe peoples living in the area bounded by Mesopotamia in the east and the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west, in northwestern Arabia, in the Sinai Peninsula. Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form, Modern Standard Arabic, derived from Classical Arabic; as the modern written language, Modern Standard Arabic is taught in schools and universities, is used to varying degrees in workplaces and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, the official language of 26 states, the liturgical language of the religion of Islam, since the Quran and Hadith were written in Arabic. Modern Standard Arabic follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic, uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties, has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties.
Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-classical era in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, construed as a multitude of dialects of this language; these dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are acquired in families, while the latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children; the relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Latin and vernaculars in medieval and early modern Europe. This view though does not take into account the widespread use of Modern Standard Arabic as a medium of audiovisual communication in today's mass media—a function Latin has never performed. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe in science and philosophy.
As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Arabic influence in vocabulary, is seen in European languages Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese, Catalan, owing to both the proximity of Christian European and Muslim Arab civilizations and 800 years of Arabic culture and language in the Iberian Peninsula, referred to in Arabic as al-Andalus. Sicilian has about 500 Arabic words as result of Sicily being progressively conquered by Arabs from North Africa, from the mid-9th to mid-10th centuries. Many of these words relate to related activities; the Balkan languages, including Greek and Bulgarian, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history; some of the most influenced languages are Persian, Spanish, Kashmiri, Bosnian, Bengali, Malay, Indonesian, Punjabi, Assamese, Sindhi and Hausa, some languages in parts of Africa. Conversely, Arabic has borrowed words from other languages, including Greek and Persian in medieval times, contemporary European languages such as English and French in modern times.
Classical Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims, Modern Standard Arabic is one of six official languages of the United Nations. All varieties of Arabic combined are spoken by as many as 422 million speakers in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, an abjad script and is written from right to left, although the spoken varieties are sometimes written in ASCII Latin from left to right with no standardized orthography. Arabic is a Central Semitic language related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, various other Semitic languages of Arabia such as Dadanitic; the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense; the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense.
The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms. The development of an internal passive. There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of the northern Hejaz; these features are evidence of common descent from Proto-Arabic. The following features can be reconstructed with confidence for Proto-Arabic: negative particles m *mā.
Joan Fuster
Joan Fuster i Ortells was an influential Spanish writer. He is considered a major writer in Valenican-Catalan language, his work contributed to reinvigorate left-wing, pro-Catalan nationalism in Valencia during the Spanish transition to democracy. In his influential political essay Nosaltres, els valencians he coined the term Països Catalans to refer to the Catalan-speaking territories, for which he claimed independent statehood from Spain, he was born in the village of Sueca near Valencia, Spain, in a prosperous middle-class family. Both his parents were Carlists, his father was a renowned local sculptor of religious sculptures. In 1941 he became a member of the fascist organization Falange. In 1947 Fuster graduated with a degree in law and he received a doctoral degree in Catalan philology in 1985. From 1946 to 1956 he co-directed the magazine Verb with José Albi. Of his first books, all of which are poetry, Escrit per al silenci stands out. In 1952 he began his collaborations with the press of Valencia in Levante: this would be one of his more prominent facets.
He would continue with it in La Vanguardia. With El descrèdit de la Realitat he started a notable career as an essayist of vast thematic breadth and whose incisive style was noted for its precise use of adjectives. Another aspect of his work was his erudition and concern with the craft of storytelling and he worked to maintain a literary reviewal he pushed forward in anthologies, his dedication to Valencian themes culminated in 1962 with the publication of what remained as his most known work: Nosaltres els valencians. This book, together with Qüestió de Noms and El País Valenciano, are basic books on the history and national identity problem of the Valencian Community from a Catalanist point of view, he went on with this subject matter with the release of Raimon, Combustible per a falles and Ara o Mai, among others. These, parts of his numerous studies and erudite historical and biographical articles, have been collected in the I and III tomes of the Obres completes; the Diari occupy the second volume.
Within the realm of essay writing, he published Figures del temps, Yxart award, Judicis Finals, Diccionari per a ociosos, Causar-se d'esperar, L'home, mesura de totes les coses, others—always within the tradition moral root of classical humanism, close in spirit to the moralists and French reformers, as a critic and skeptic noted for his acid humor. Within his works on history and literary production, he published La Poesia Catalana, Moriscos i Capellans, Revoltes i Sermons and Literatura Catalana Contemporània, in addition to three extensive prologues for the works of Joan Salvat-Papasseit, Salvador Espriu and Josep Pla, joined together in Contra el Noucentisme. In 1987 he collected his poetry into Set llibres de versos; the studies joined together in Llibres i problemes del Renaixentisme are the fruit of the research carried out in his last few years. In 1994 the works Fuster Inèdit and Fuster Sabàtic were edited. Despite having written a number of fiction pieces, he is best known for his essays the political ones.
His most influential work by far was the book Nosaltres els valencians, whereas other titles such as Qüestió de Noms and Diccionari per a Ociosos are well known in the Catalan nationalism. He became the intellectual leader of Valencian nationalism by the end of the 20th century, was central in proposing the Països Catalans concept, which advocated for unity within Catalan culture as proposed by Catalan nationalists. In these books Fuster asserted that it was necessary to strengthen Valencia's relationships with the other Catalan speaking territories for there to be any chance of defending the autonomous culture of Valencia. In this way he sought to bring a Catalan-based cultural community into existence. In this sense, Fuster is, for some, the most remarkable political essayist in Catalan of the generations that appeared after the Spanish Civil War, he received the Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes and in the year 1983, the Medalla d’Or de la Generalitat de Catalunya. In 1984 he was named doctor honoris causa by the University of Barcelona and by the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
In 1986 he was appointed as professor of literature in the University of Valencia. On September 11, 1981, two bombs exploded in his house, damaging his library and archive. Nobody was prosecuted, but it is believed that it was the anti-Catalan far right's response to Fuster's political and cultural position. Joan Fuster in LletrA, Catalan Literature Online Web oficial del Centre Documental Casa Joan Fuster i la Càtedra Joan Fust
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula known as Iberia, is located in the southwest corner of Europe. The peninsula is principally divided between Portugal, comprising most of their territory, it includes Andorra, small areas of France, the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. With an area of 596,740 square kilometres ), it is both the second largest European peninsula by area, after the Scandinavian Peninsula, by population, after the Balkan Peninsula; the word Iberia is a noun adapted from the Latin word "Hiberia" originated by the Ancient Greek word Ἰβηρία by Greek geographers under the rule of the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula. At that time, the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. Strabo's'Iberia' was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass southwest of there. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the establishment of the new Castillian language in Spain, the word "Iberia" appeared for the first time in use as a direct'descendant' of the Greek word "Ἰβηρία" and the Roman word "Hiberia".
The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the Phoenicians, by voyaging westward on the Mediterranean. Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia, which he wrote about circa 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with... Iberia." According to Strabo, prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος" as far north as the river Rhône in France, but they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia." Strabo refers to the Carretanians as people "of the Iberian stock" living in the Pyrenees, who are distinct from either Celts or Celtiberians. According to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia as synonyms.
The confusion of the words was because of an overlapping in geographic perspectives. The Latin word Hiberia, similar to the Greek Iberia translates to "land of the Hiberians"; this word was derived from the river Ebro. Hiber was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro; the first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BC. Virgil refers to the Ipacatos Hiberos in his Georgics; the Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania. As they became politically interested in the former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for'near' and'far' Hispania. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces: Hispania Baetica, Hispania Tarraconensis, Hispania Lusitania. Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. Whatever language may have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones, preserved as a language isolate by the barrier of the Pyrenees.
The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so well known. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called "the whole of Spain" Hiberia because of the Hiberus River; the river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian, uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius states that the "native name" is Ibēr the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination; the early range of these natives, which geographers and historians place from today's southern Spain to today's southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed "Iberian." Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence on the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown, the meanings of the words, including Iber, must remain unknown.
In modern Basque, the word ibar means "valley" or "watered meadow", while ibai means "river", but there is no proof relating the etymology of the Ebro River with these Basque names. The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited for at least 1.2 million years as remains found in the sites in the Atapuerca Mountains demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina, where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to the species Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, or a new species called Homo antecessor. Around 200,000 BP, during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BP, during the Middle Paleolithic period, the last glacial event began and the Neanderthal Mousterian culture was established. Around 37,000 BP, during the Upper Paleolithic, the Neanderthal Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from Southern France, this culture extended into the north of the p
Castell
A castell is a human tower built traditionally at festivals in Catalonia, the Balearic islands and the Valencian Community, all in Spain. At these festivals, several colles castelleres attempt to dismantle a tower's structure. On November 16, 2010, castells were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Although based on the earlier traditional Muixeranga of Algemesí in Valencia, the tradition of castells within Catalonia originated in the Ball dels Valencians in Valls, near the city of Tarragona, first documented in 1712. Over the course of the 18th century, they spread to other towns and cities in the area, including Vilafranca del Penedès and Tarragona, though it was not until the last 50 years that the practice of building castells began to spread to the rest of Catalonia. Interest in castells began to grow in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the inclusion of women in the male-only discipline ushered in the època d'or of castells. While in Catalonia, the Ball dels Valencians began to focus more on the acrobatic nature of building taller human towers, their more religious and allegorical predecessors retain their traditions: the Muixeranga, performed in the Valencian city of Algemesí, in other places in the Valencian Land and Catalonia, where it is called the moixiganga.
In 2015 the Coordinadora de Colles Castelleres de Catalunya hosted 99 groups, including Castellers de Vilafranca and Minyons de Terrassa, who were able to construct the tallest human tower to date, the "4 de 10". In Catalan, the word castell means castle. A castell is considered a success when disassembly can be done in complete succession; the assembly is complete once all castellers have climbed into their designated places, the enxaneta climbs into place at the top and raises one open hand. The enxaneta climbs down the other side of the castell, after which the remaining levels of castellers descend in highest to lowest order until all have reached safety. Aside from the people who climb to form the upper parts of the tower, others are needed to form the pinya, or bottom base of the castell, to sustain its weight. Members of the pinya act as a'safety net' if the tower structure collapses, cushioning the fall of people from the upper levels, it is not uncommon—when not in competitions—for other colles to assist in the pinya when a small colla is attempting a specially demanding structure in terms of people needed.
The castell is built in two phases. First, the pinya— the base of the tower — is formed. People forming higher levels of the tower move to a position from which they can get to their places in the tower; this is done and and as subsequent base levels are completed the castellers in the pinya determine if their base is solid enough for construction to continue. When the signal to proceed is given, bands begin to play the traditional Toc de Castells music as a hush comes over spectators of the event; the upper layers of the tower are built as as possible in order to put minimal strain on the lower castellers, who bear most of the weight of the castell. The disassembly of the castell, done amidst the cheering of the crowd, is the most treacherous stage of the event. A'rising' castell consists of successive layers added from the bottom by lifting the castell into the air, stage by stage and is regarded as taking a great deal of practice and strength. Castellers wear white trousers, a black sash, a bandana, a shirt in a color characteristic of a given colla bearing the team's emblem.
For instance, Castellers de Barcelona team wear red shirts while Castellers de Vilafranca wear green shirts. The sash is the most important part of their outfit, since it supports the lower back and is used by other castellers in the team as a foothold or handhold when climbing up the tower; this tasselled piece of cloth varies in length and width and depends on the casteller's position inside the tower and on choice. The length of the sash ranges from 1.5 to 12m and is shorter for those higher up in the castell. Performing castellers go barefoot as to minimise injuries upon each other as they climb to their positions and for sensitivity when balancing and to have better feel and hold each other; the arrangement of castellers can be into a multi-tiered structure and the highest has a height spanning of nine or ten people from ground up. The motto of Castellers is "Força, valor i seny". Strength: Castellers at the base of the tower are stocky, while those further up, though lighter and agile, must still be strong.
The first castellers were peasants that were accustomed to holding great weights and were under much physical exertion. Balance: Supporting those above themselves in the castell, whilst relying on those below for support, requires a strong sense of balance and trust. Courage: The most important characteristic for castellers for young children forming the highest levels of the castell. Common sense: Rehearsing and performing requires a great deal of planning and reasoning. Any error can cause the structure to break apart. Accidents are rare during the construction of a castell. Fatal accidents do occur.
listen)) is the collective name given to the performance of ancient street dances and human pyramids or castells, originating in the ancient Kingdom of Valencia (currently the Valencian Community or Valencian Land), which are still preserved in the town of Algemesí, 30 km (19 mi) southwest from Valencia, and certain other Valencian towns.
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