"This is life." That's what Mercè March thought the first time she entered La Paloma in the late seventies. She had just graduated in Law, where she had met her husband. One day he suggested they go see the dance hall his uncle, Ramon Daura, owned in the Chinese quarter. She would end up inheriting it, but he preferred to practice as a lawyer, while she was "very much into show business." When the doormen drew back the velvet curtain to let them pass and revealed all those people dancing, March felt a love at first sight that has lasted ever since. And it has despite everything: the decline in audience, neighbors' complaints, tensions with the city council, the closure for 16 years, some failed reopening attempts, soundproofing works, and the return to activity after the pandemic.
Since 1903, La Paloma has contained within four walls with Versaillesque touches a part of the city's past that seems distant but still battles to survive. "It's such an emblematic venue, so linked to the city's history, that people kept asking us when we would open," explains its owner.
Like when it was used as a shooting range during the Civil War or when a serious watchman, known as La Moral, had to be hired so that the Franco regime would not close the venue and would allow celebrations, always under the watchful eye of a serious man who prevented women from dancing with each other and would tap the floor if he saw a couple getting too close. If he gave three cane taps, they were expelled.
For many, it will sound like science fiction to think that there was a dermatologist who held consultations on the benches surrounding the dance floor or a psychiatrist who prescribed dancing at La Paloma. The venue on Tigre Street hosted a universe of everyday characters with proper names like the Artist, a former chorus girl from Paral·lel who needed a dressing room reserved for her to change dresses several times throughout the night, and the Mayoress, unofficially in charge of distributing seats, not on the venue's payroll and with unquestionable authority.
But Tarzan and the Tiger were also there. The first would start doing gymnastics in the middle of the dance floor while showing off muscles and medals, bare-chested, and the second, very short and squeezed into an immaculate white suit, would make his way until he conquered the center of the room to dance. The Tiger always ended up throwing his scarf, also white, to the girl he wanted to dance with, but only if she was younger than him, with his 60-something years. Oh, and like in a good movie, there was a sheriff, who appeared dressed as a cowboy with a fake revolver so they would give him two tickets, obviously, without paying for them.
The venue hosted a universe of everyday characters with proper names like the Artist, the Mayor, Tarzan, the Tiger, and the Sheriff"The charm of La Paloma is these people," summarizes March, without losing his joy despite the latent nostalgia. These mythical individuals of La Paloma, "popcorn vendorsof race," corrects the owner, have been left behind on a path that has lengthened, no more and no less, for 120 years. Thanks to the Raval venue, its attendees have not only danced, they have also fallen in love and out of love, some have even married and others have fought.
But new protagonists are emerging. One of them is Pepita, who has frequented the venue since she was 18, regardless of having to escape from her home in Cubelles and having to play some more tricks to be allowed in. During the years La Paloma was closed, Pepita kept calling to find out when it would reopen because she was going to turn 100 and wanted to celebrate by dancing. That's why, and looking great at 104, she didn't hesitate to be among the first to return when the venue raised the curtain last New Year's Eve.
With the reopening, a palomera like Pepita has returned, who has frequented the venue since she was 18 and is now 104.The return to activity of Europe's oldest dance floor in its 120th year has been gradual, emphasizes its owner, with a first party on the night of December 31st followed by concerts, filmings, private parties and events for companies and political parties, even more so with the repeated electoral campaigns. They have even started programming a "petardo" bingo once a month, adapting to the new trend ofafternoon party"We wanted to see how people receive La Paloma," says March.But the date many pigeon fanciers marked on their calendars was last July 2, when ballroom dancing with a live orchestra returned. Obviously, Pepita did not miss it.
After closing in August and with an eye on the next academic year, La Paloma has a ballroom session every Sunday and plans to do more starting in September. The first orchestra to liven up the dance floor again has been Los Tigres del Raval, formed by eight musicians from ESMUC and Taller de Músics. After the Olympics, the venue saw that younger audiences no longer liked orchestras as much, but the reopening brought them the surprise of seeing how young people also join their sessions and not just the DJ sessions they also program: "They find La Paloma very authentic, there's nothing plastic about it." On the other hand, the Sant Joan festival was the first club night at the venue, replacing the orchestra with house and disco, sessions that will also intensify for the rest of the year.
"My life has been La Paloma," concludes March, at 71 years old, seeing that he was not wrong when he first entered and was not even 30. Protected from above by an imposing ceiling lamp and some slightly faded paintings depicting dances like those performed on the floor, he says it without forgetting the Cibeles venue, in Gràcia, also managed by the family, but which he had to sell to face the reopening in the Raval, with a long legal battle that began in 2007 when the music stopped playing. Then came years of lawsuits and renovations to give a new life to La Paloma, one of the many it has already had. Where metals were once melted, with the suspicion that those of the Columbus statue originated on Tigre street, people are now dancing again.
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