Original in Spanish: Chirigotas y comparsas
A whole month of competition in a theatre to decide who sings the hard truths best. That’s the Cádiz carnival.
Its heart is the COAC, the Official Contest of Carnival Groups, at the Gran Teatro Falla: preliminaries, quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final on the Friday before Ash Wednesday. Four categories compete (coros, comparsas, chirigotas and cuartetos), and every performance follows the same script: presentation, pasodobles, cuplés, chorus and medley.
- The chirigota is the one that makes you laugh: irony, double meanings, the most absurd costumes. About twelve members, two guitars, snare drum and bass drum.
- The comparsa is the one that makes you think (and sometimes cry): poetic lyrics, social and political criticism, pasodobles for getting serious. About fifteen members and three guitars. Paco Alba established it as a category of its own in the 1960s.
And outside the theatre there are the callejeras, the “illegal” ones: no contest, no fixed number of people, singing on street corners during carnival week. The most anarchic category, and for many the most truly Cádiz.
Singing the truth in verse and with a guitar. What a healthy way to protest.
Cousins on the shelf: the garrotins, which also sing the satire of the day.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurso_oficial_de_agrupaciones_del_carnaval_de_C%C3%A1diz