Palio 1: The Concert and the Dance Competition the Night Before

Friday, 2nd July 2010.

The Palio is the annual horse race held twice a year in Siena, the first on the 2nd of July and the second on the 16th of August. The race is a celebration in honour of the Madonna. However it has emerged over the years to become the final battle of the on-going (healthy) rivalries between the 17 contradas ( wards/precincts/quarters) of Siena.

Preparation for the Palio takes place for the whole year. These events bring together individuals and families of each contrada with the common focus and objective fo winning the Palio. Grand banquets and dinners will be co-operatively organised ( like our gotong-royong) to raise funds for the palio. Funds are needed to pay for the best jockey ( which can cost up to 200k Euros) and for buying the best horse to win the race. The rich individuals and the successful businessmen of each contrada would normally be the main financial contributors while the ordinary folks contribute by preparing and cooking the meals for the banquets and dinners. Dinners would be organised in the squares of the contradas on the nights preceeding the Palio. The cost of each dinner may just be 5 Euros but the dinner tickets were sold for 100 Euros or more. In such a way the contradas will be able to raise a sizable amount of funds to support their race.

What a great way to bring the community together.....

tables being laid out for the fund-raising banquet of one of the contradas..

Perhaps our politicians can come out with some original ideas like this to cement the sense of belonging between the various communities in different quarters or districts of say Kuala Lumpur. Contradas of Kampong Baru, Kampong Pandan, Jinjang, Sentul, Brickfields etc etc could be orchestrated into some form of a competitive festival or event which will encourage them to prepare and work together towards winning finally, something meaningful for the contrada. Perhaps a competition at unearthing the cultural roots of the community and presenting it on competition day....for example folks of Kampong Baru may want to present their Minang heritage or whatever....so research of their roots, and ideas on how to present them in a cultural extravaganza may take weeks of working together involving the community will harness a lot of godwill and togetherness in them....The folks of Jinjang may want to trace their roots to Hainan or whatever and the folks of Brickfields to their roots in Kerala or Tamil Nadu, the folks of Kampung Pandan of the Boyan heritage etc etc...

All our politicians and beaureaucrats require is a bit of creative thinking......

On the first night that pakdokter arrived in Siena, there was a concert at the Piazza del Campo, the main square of Siena, which pakdokter had already reported earlier. It appeared the dance competition was probably also taken part by teams from differnet contradas...

Below are some short recordings of the dances...

Pakdokter will be writing more about the Palio in the next few postings...