Culture initiates the declaration of the Jota as an Asset of Cultural Interest

The Department of Culture, Linguistic Policy, and Sport of the Principality of Asturias has initiated administrative proceedings to declare the Jota in Asturias an Asset of Cultural Interest of an intangible nature. This is done through the Resolution of October 6, 2026, signed by the counselor Ana Vanessa Gutiérrez González and published in the Official Gazette of the Principality of Asturias no. 204, of October 21, 2026, in its section I (Other Provisions), with the official reference 2026-08292. The initiation is the mandatory preliminary step for the maximum protection granted by regional heritage regulations.

A file with three previous precedents

The resolution does not start from scratch. The text links three administrative milestones that support the proposal:

• Royal Decree 600/2023, of July 4, from the Ministry of Culture and Sport, which declared the Jota as a Representative Manifestation of Intangible Cultural Heritage (published in the BOE on July 18, 2023).
• Resolution of January 9, 2024, from the Presidency of the Principality of Asturias, which included the Jota in the Census of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Asturias.
• Agreement of May 14, 2024, from the Plenary of the Cultural Heritage Council of Asturias, which issued a favorable report on the initiation of the proceedings.

The invoked legal framework consists of articles 10, 11, and 14 of the Law of the Principality of Asturias 1/2001, of March 6, on Cultural Heritage, and chapter I of title one of Decree 20/2015, of March 25, which develops it, along with article 2 of Law 10/2015, of May 26, for the safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Department also applies article 9 of Decree 20/2015 to simplify the content of the file, considering the documentation already gathered to be sufficient.

A dance of facing couples with at least six variants

The annex of the resolution summarizes the values of the asset based on the technical report prepared by Llorián García Flórez in 2023. The Jota is described as a dance of facing couples, with a calm rhythm or posáu and ternary subdivision, in which the so-called “jota step” usually appears; the name coexists with other popular ones such as “lo pesao” or “lo suelto.” Its practice extends to virtually the entire Asturian territory, and at least six generic variants are distinguished according to their geographical distribution: northwestern, southwestern of Cangas, southwestern of Ibias and Degaña, central, and eastern.

The file also identifies the associated material repertoire:

• Instruments such as the bagpipe and the drum, the tambourine and the panderu, as well as accordions, flutes, violins, and everyday “cotidiaphones.”
• Clothing for dance groups, based both on historicist criteria and those established in the 20th century.
• Memory supports: discs, cassettes, vinyls, sheet music, photographs, and digital archives.
• Ephemeral dance architecture (stages, platforms, tents) and fixed spaces such as rehearsal rooms, music schools, archives, and museums.

The text recognizes that the practice is “eminently minority” in quantitative terms, although it emphasizes its qualitative relevance, and places the Nuechi in dance movement, popularized around 2015, as the main guarantee of continuity along with the multiplication of bearer collectives.

Publication, notification, and appeal process

The resolution orders the proposal to be notified to the General Registry of Assets of Cultural Interest of the General State Administration and published in both the BOPA and the Official State Gazette. The act concludes the administrative process: a contentious-administrative appeal may be filed before the High Court of Justice of the Principality of Asturias within two months from the day following its publication, or an optional appeal for reversal within one month, provided that both are not pursued simultaneously.

The declaration directly affects folkloric collectives, city councils that program festivals and pilgrimages, and heritage managers, who from now on have a formal framework to articulate safeguard measures. The initiation opens a period during which the Jota remains under administrative tutelage pending the resolution that closes the file and confirms the declaration.

Source: Official Gazette of the Principality of Asturias, no. 204 of October 21, 2026, section I (Other Provisions), pp. 1-6 (official reference: 2026-08292).