Historical Recreation as a Pedagogical Project: “Don Quixote in Niebla” Historical Recreation as a Pedagogical Project: “Don Quixote in Niebla” Centro del Profesorado Bollullos-Valverde

Introduction -2005: Spain celebrates the 4th Centenary of Don Quixote. -The street Theatre “Don Quixote in Niebla” is the final activity within a group carried out throughout the year. It is the culmination of the Cultural Week Program. -Taking advantage of the monumental landmarks in Niebla, they created five natural settings/scenarios in the village streets. - Participants: the complete school community of CEIP SAN WALABONSO in Niebla (Huelva). 428 students take part in the scenes organized in groups of 50.

Goals Introducing the students to the time of Don Quixote. Getting to know the costums, clothes, etc. Using the vocabulary and the language of the time. Enjoying the adventures in the novel. Introducing the novel to the people of the village. Creating different stories based on the original one. Recreating facts and historical situations. Understanding, enjoying the village historical heritage. Promoting parents’ participation. Neighbourhood’s in general.

Setting 1 - Location: School yard. - Character: D. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. - Outline: The writer, having lost his inspiration Muse, arrives at the school in Niebla with the clear intention of writing the most important chivalry novel in the world. As he comes into the school, he finds strange creatures (girls and boys disguised as mills, knights, ladies, wineskins…) and he asks them to help him find the main characters for his novel in the village with the promise of writing about them in his book.

Setting 1

- Location: Castle outer ward. - Character: D. Quijote de la Mancha. - Outline: The girls and boys find D. Quixote, but he is a bit absent minded and they must help him remember who he is. This done, Don Quixote tells them, with their help, of course, about the importance and meaning of being a knight-errant, how to be made one and explains some expressions of the time. D. Quixote also tells the candidates how to rescue a young damsel in distress. Setting 2

- Location: Santa Maria Square. - Character: Dulcinea del Toboso. - Outline: Dulcinea is desperately looking for his beloved don Quixote and asks the people arriving to help her find him. Meanwhile, she tells them how sad she is because Don Quixote has gone mad reading chivalry novels and explains all they have done to cure him: burning books (imaginary bonfire with the things we don’t like: war, hunger…), confining of his library, how the barber and the priest disguised themselves in order to persuade him to go back home when he was in Sierra Morena, etc. Setting 3

- Location: St. Martin’s Church. - Character: Sancho Panza. - Outline: Sancho explains to the girls and boys how difficult it is to be a squire, how bad his life is and all the blows he receives. This way, they show some of Don Quixote fights in which it is Sancho the one who always gets the worst. We can see the fight against the mills, against the sheep, against the wineskins and, finally, they toss Sancho in a blanket. Setting 4

- Location: Jerusalen Avenue. - Character: D. Quixote and Sancho. - Outline: “The Surprise” When the girls and boys are going back to school, believing everything has finished, they meet Don Quixote and Sancho riding their horse and donkey respectively. The knight attacks the girls and boys as he did with the mills, then he seduces “Dulcinea”(in this case the teacher) and at the end they sing “Don Quixote” song together. Setting 5

Other characters - Secondary characters. - Different groups in the streets.

Other characters

Other Characters

Other characters