Beñesmer Festival – El Agujero, Gáldar

Name: Beñesmer Festival – El Agujero, Gáldar
Start: 2024-08-16
End: 2024-08-18
Location: Gáldar

Gáldar is preparing to embark on a journey to the indigenous past of the Canary Islands with a new edition of Beñesmer, the harvest festival of the ancient Canarian settlers. This 2024 the program of activities will take place between 16-18 August, with the ancestral seal that characterizes it, in the Plaza Mr. Leacock in the El Agujero neighbourhood, Bocabarranco beach and the Teatro Consistorial. Objective is to preserve and honour Canarian culture, traditions and legacy.

The program starts on Friday 16 August with the opening of the event and a tasting of cereals that are part of the traditional Canarian diet, led by Temosen, an initiative that has managed to reintroduce the cultivation of organic barley in the Vega de Acusa. The agenda will continue with the presentation of the documentary ‘Indigenous memory, ancestral Canarian traditions’ and an astronomical activity with a double interpretation by Astroeduca and the archaeologist and presenter of the Tenderete program, David Naranjo Ortega, on Bocabarranco beach.

The event on Saturday 17 August starts at 10:00 with the opening of a Canarian crafts fair in which around twenty Gran Canarian artisans will participate and in parallel there will be a planting of Canarian flora. The program will continue with a guided visit to the La Guancha archaeological park, folklore, stone lifting exhibitions, and workshops on shepherd’s jumping and Canarian whistling.

The Beñesmer Festival was revived last year by the Gáldar Town Council and the Attidamana collective, after several years of absence, in order to rescue an ancestral festival taken back from the calendar of the ancient Canarian settlers, which places the month of August as the season for harvesting their grains. For the organisers, this cultural tradition deserves to be preserved and disseminated, and it is an opportunity to celebrate Canarian history and promote the heritage of the islands through activities that show the way of life of the Canarian population, its traditions, history, archaeology and crafts that still survive.

The Attidamana Heritage Association is a group that works from the island of Gran Canaria with the aim of studying, disseminating and protecting the archaeological, historical and ethnographic heritage inherited from previous generations and calls for greater public participation in the protection of these spaces, which are largely abandoned.

The Beñesmer 2024 program, a cultural event with an ancestral and identity-based seal, made with all the enthusiasm and love to enjoy with your family or friends.
🟠All activities are free.
🟠The astronomical observation activities and the guided visit to the archaeological site “La Guancha” require prior registration and have limited capacity.