More Castells

Castells – the human towers that the Catalans make -- are so special that I think they deserve another mention here.  Castells are unique to Catalunya.  As an expression of Catalan culture, they stand for working as a team, making an effort while enabling the spirit of personal achievement.

A team (called a colla, which means a group) might have dozens and sometimes hundreds of members.  The members vary in age from about 5 to over 80.  It is one of the very rare activities, outside of family gatherings, and probably the only sport, that brings people of such disparate ages together.

There are 7000 castellers (people who make castells) belonging to 54 colles.  Altogether they make 16,000 castells in a year.  The groups compete starting in spring and running through summer.  They perform at the festa major (the festival honoring the patron saint of the town) of their own town or village and are invited to perform at festes majors in other towns as well.  Every time a team performs, it is competing.  The teams get points for the difficulty of the construction and how well they pulled it off, that is to say, whether they succeeded in building it all the way up, and then were able to dismantle it without falling apart.

The large base upon which the rest of the tower is built is called a pinya (which also means pineapple).  To fer pinya (make the pinya) has come to mean to work together in Catalan, an expression that originated in this sport and has become part of normal speech.  It is usual to see people from other colles helping make another team’s pinya, thus enlarging upon the meaning of cooperation.  You can tell from the colors of the shirts at the base when other teams join in.

It’s the small children who climb to the top.  This top can be as high as nine or ten storeys in the best of the castells.  One of the videos below shows what that looks like if you’re up there looking down.  From my perspective of standing on the ground looking up, I have to say that seeing those people, with the small child as the final climber, reach the top and lift his or her hand with four fingers up (representing the four bands of the Catalan flag) it quite simply takes my breath away.

As someone who is not happy past the second rung of a ladder, I can’t imagine standing on the shoulders of another person, who is also standing on the shoulders of another person, etc. on the eighth storey of this living tower.  How do they do it?  They practice and practice and practice.  And either they are fearless or they overcome their fear.  They also practice falling and, those below, how to receive the falls.  

The accompanying music is always the same, played by two or more gralles (shrill-sounding wooden flutes) and a small drum.  If I hear that music, even from another room when the television is on, it brings tears to my eyes.  It seems that some people cry in response to things they find very beautiful, and I’m one of those.

Last year (2010) Catalunya succeeded in its bid to UNESCO to have Castells entered on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list.  Flamenco and the Chant of the Sybil from Majorca were also included on the list that year.

Any performance is always more moving in person, but if you can’t get here to see one, or if you’ve seen it before and just want to see it again from the comfort of your own home (like I sometimes do with operas) use the links below.  Don’t forget while you’re watching that the pinya, the foundation, is on ground level and isn’t visible through the crowd.  If you’re counting, don’t forget to include it! 

If you want to read or reread my earlier post on Castells, here’s the link for that.

Video Links of Castells:

This video, from the UNESCO site, was prepared by the Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan government) as part of their application for Intangible Cultural Heritage status in 2010.  You have to scroll part way down the page and the click on “video” to see the film which is almost 10 minutes long.  After a minute, before the narration beings, the cap de colla (head of the team) is shouting out to his group saying they’ve done it!  They made a 4 by 9, which means the tower was of four people on each level and the whole castle was 9 storeys high.  It’s only at the end with the credits that you hear the music that always accompanies the performance.  Actually, the music begins after the pinya is made (sometimes there is a second smaller pinya atop the first called a folre, and for the tallest and heaviest, sometimes even a smaller third called les manilles), and the cap de colla decides he has a viable structure going.  So, if you watch the video and want to hear the music and get the sense of the whole thing, watch it to the very end! 

http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00011&RL=00364

Filmed by Mike Randolph, the 3-minute video below has no narration, but the music is there and it shows some of the castles falling apart. Shot in Tarragona in the bi-yearly competition held in the bullring, it’s a good place to shoot because at the festes you stand on the ground and can’t get the same good angles as from the stands.  My best photos are also from that bullring (the only time I’ve ever entered a bullring!).

http://vimeo.com/16392519

This 5-minute BBC production was filmed in Vilafranca in 2010 before the UNESCO decision.  It begins with an advert and then goes into the program in which there are some errors in narration, she has no idea which team is which, (the green team is not the green team, it’s the Castellers de Vilafranca, always one of the top three teams and number one this year) but it’s a good video overall and allows you to get a good feel for the music.  My favorite shot is of the middle-aged casteller with the cigar!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11742399

Catalan Castles

On 11 September 1714 the Catalans, who had supported the Hapsburg claim to the Spanish throne, surrendered to the Bourbon victor. Oddly, this monumental defeat marks the national day of Catalunya. La Diada is celebrated with flags, wreaths commemorating the heroes of that war, speeches, Catalan poetry, and music. Last night I listened to the annual La Diada address of the President of the Generalitat (Catalan government), and later today I plan to go to dance sardanes, the Catalan national dance.


There is talk and there are posters proclaiming that Catalonia is not Spain, and if anything supports that sentiment, the sardana surely does. Compared to the iconic Spanish national dance, flamenco, it is at the opposite end of the dance spectrum. Everyone knows what flamenco music sounds like and what the dance looks like – fiery, almost violent, full of sexual innuendo and manifesting individual pride. Contrast that with the sardana, and you would assume that the two dances came not only from different countries and cultures, but possibly from different planets.

To dance the sardana is to bob up and down, doing one of only two patterns of steps, sometimes with arms down and other times with arms up, in a circle, with no partner required, no evident leader, no individualism, no fire, and definitely no sex. It is staid, some think it is boring, it is danced totally in unison, it has no variety. But when done well, a circle of dancers looks like one living, bobbing organism, and I happen to like that. It is symbolic of what you see a lot of here – community spirit.

Another excellent symbol of community spirit is the uniquely Catalan sport called castells. Castell means castle in Catalan -- you could say these are castles or human towers. The towers can reach as many as ten storeys. Each storey is made of people who have climbed up onto the shoulders of those below while accompanied by the music of gralles, a whiney-sounding flute that sounds like a sick seagull.

Castells are formed on a square base of four very formidable men, who use their arms to lock themselves into an extremely tight position that will directly support the tower. The weight of as many as nine human storeys, each of two, three, or four persons, will go up above them and will bear down directly on them. The core four are then surrounded by others – dozens of people, sometimes over a hundred -- who hold onto them and each other and provide the buttressing to help the four anchors withstand the weight and pressure from above. This construction is called a pinya, literally a pine cone or a pineapple. To fer pinya (make a pinya) means to work or band together towards some common end. Sometimes a second pinya is formed above the first. Bear in mind when you look at the photos that you do not see the base pinya in the sea of people on the ground.

Once the pinya is deemed solid (by the cap de colla, the director or head of the group) the persons who will make the tower begin to scramble up. Storey by storey they set themselves up, each layer climbing up the backs of those before them and doing it all to the traditional music played by a drum and gralles (small wooden flutes). The castle must be made as quickly as possible – the whole thing takes three or four minutes -- for the weight bearing down on those below cannot be withstood for long. The castle is finished when the top person, called an anxaneta who is usually a small child about 7 years old, holds up his or her hand to signal completion, but the whole thing is not concluded until those who went up all climb back down.

When I watch them make castells, whether in person or on television, they give me goose bumps and inevitably make me cry. It’s an incredible cooperative effort, so suspenseful to watch, and I always find it very beautiful and moving.

This is THE typical Catalan sport, unique to Catalunya, and is one of the things that sets it apartment from the rest of Spain where the equivalent sport is to torture and murder bulls. Ironically, I took these photos at a special competition that was held at the Tarragona bullring a few years ago! When I wrote on this blog some months ago about the move here to forbid bullfights, someone posted a comment saying that the Catalans are against bullfights only because they want to appear different from other Spaniards. But I beg to differ. Catalans ARE different. Their national sport, the castells, and their national dance, the sardana, contrasted with bullfighting and flamenco, typical in the rest of Spain, demonstrate that difference perfectly. In both there are no stars, no soloists. Both are cooperative efforts of people doing something together and in the making of castells, it is for the simple pleasure of creating something wonderful that lasts only a moment.

Making castells is a popular sport in Catalunya -- children and mature adults all belong to the teams.  It is not nearly as big as soccer, but important enough to be covered regularly in newspapers and on radio and TV. Many towns have a team, the bigger towns sometimes have more than one. They hold competitions throughout the season where they earn points for the difficulty of the construction and whether or not they put it up and then brought it back down without mishap. They always participate and are a highlight in the festes. Castells are one of the grand cultural manifestations of Catalunya.  There is a video on UTube about the castells, narrated in Catalan, if you don't understand Catalan you can still enjoy the images.  If you want to take a look it is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N6gYDTXk1U