La Jota Moncadeña - Moncada, Tarlac

La Jota Moncadeña was adapted from an old Spanish dance. It is a combination of Spanish and Ilocano dance set to Spanish music and castanets. A more solemn version of the dance is sometimes used to accompany a funeral procession, but it was also performed at the festival. La Jota Moncadeña is one of the most famous interpretation and adaptation of the Aragonese Jota dance. People of Moncada, Tarlac, call it rather by a different name: Jota Florana. The Jota Folrana was danced to the Ilocano/Yogad bamboo musical instrument ensemble called tallelet. Dance anthropologist Ramon Obusan said that the Jota Florana was danced to accompany a bereaved family to the burial of a loved one. The high pitched clicking of the bamboo clickers are supposed to represent melancholy wails. The slow portion of the dance is in fact named patay (death) or desmayo (fainting) that is performed to a very slow marcha funebre. The same dance figure is found in another Ilocano dance, the Ti Liday (which in Ilocano means ‘sorrow’ or grief