Passion and the Penitents on Parade
Seville
by Sarah Shuckburgh
Seville welcomes its Easter
festival - Semana Santa - with noisy enthusiasm,
reports Sarah Shuckburgh.
Seville’s Semana Santa must be one of the world’s most
impressive and surreal pageants. Throughout Holy Week, brass
bands play sombre dirges as gigantic floats are lugged
through the city, accompanied by many thousands of penitents
in floor-length robes and conical headdresses. This
startling spectacle dates from the 13th century, and
Seville’s 58 cofradías - religious brotherhoods - maintain
the medieval tradition with extraordinary flamboyance and
devotion.
I am staying in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, a bewildering
labyrinth of tiny streets, mostly too narrow for traffic. On
my first afternoon I venture out, hoping to visit the Casa
de Pilatos, but immediately get lost. The alleys curve in
unexpected directions, and my map is no help, with few
street-names, and north not at the top of the page. Semana
Santa makes navigation even more confusing and exciting.
Every street throngs with Sevillanos dressed in their Sunday
best, the adults immaculate in tailored suits and polished
leather shoes. Little girls wear velvet-collared coats of
pale blue or pink, with exactly matching tights, shoes and
hair-ribbons; their brothers wear old-fashioned shorts, with
co-ordinated socks and jerseys. I haven’t seen such neat
partings in such well-oiled hair since the 1950s.
The crowds are huge – most of Seville’s 1.3 million
inhabitants must be here - but the atmosphere is calm and
good natured. Some have brought deck-chairs, others crouch
on kerbs during the long wait. Families lean from
festively-draped balconies. Everyone is nibbling sunflower
seeds, discarding husks on the cobbles. Suddenly, all heads
swing towards the street corner as a phalanx of Nazarenos
shuffles slowly into view. They make an extraordinary sight.
The penitents are identically clad in floor-length tunics
and capes of shiny blue satin, with conical capirote hoods
covering their faces. These are the concealing robes that
were adopted by the Ku Klux Klan, but during Semana Santa
there is nothing sinister about the anonymous forms. Even
toddlers and babies in prams are dressed in miniature
costumes, although some of the youngest have the visors
fastened back with safety pins. The pace of the procession
is so slow as to be almost stationary. The eerie silence is
broken only by children banging tin drums. Cassocks billow
in the breeze as eyes peer from roughly-cut holes in the
sheeted cones. Some Nazarenos are fingering rosaries or
small crucifixes which dangle from woven girdles. Some carry
tall candles, others hold banners, maces or gigantic wooden
crosses. Most penitents, old and young, wear pale leather
sandals, but many are barefoot, and a few stumble along with
feet shackled and chained.
Spectators hold out their hands, and pilgrims reach into
deep pockets to bring out prayer cards or sweets. Glimpses
of bifocal glasses and wristwatches are sudden reminders
that this is the 21st century. Hundreds or perhaps thousands
of sky-blue conical heads inch past us before we hear
distant drums beating a mournful largo. Gradually, the
percussion becomes ear-splittingly loud, echoing through the
canyon-like street, and sending shivers down my spine. BANG
pause BANG pause BANG BANG BANG. Soon, the stirring sounds
of a brass band reach us, and eventually slow-footed parish
musicians approach, uniformed and solemn, playing funereal
hymns and marchas in plaintive minor keys. Several
trumpeters manage to smoke as they play, cigarettes clamped
between two fingers, ready to puff during every pause. In
the wake of the band, agonisingly slowly, flows another
river of faceless blue hoods. At the edge of the crowd,
stocky young men loiter, distinctive in black cotton
trousers and plimsolls, with folded towels draped over their
heads. These costaleros – sackmen - draw admiring glances as
they smoke, flex their muscles and tighten their
weight-lifters’ corsets. Now, thrillingly, the first paso
appears at the end of the street and there is a burst of
applause. The vast platform supports a vast and glittering
tableau, in which a dozen life-size wooden saints are shaded
by the quivering fronds of a copse of twenty-foot palm
trees. The float, weighing more than a ton, lurches
alarmingly with each rhythmic thump of the cornermen’s
staves on the cobbles.
Just visible beneath the shimmering swags of the valance are
dozens of black plimsolls – 120 sackmen are sweating under
the load. The costaleros practise throughout the year to
perfect the swaying shuffle that moves these immense
structures. Leaving the ocean of turquoise penitents, I
weave through a maze of alleys, staring in vain at my map.
At every corner, pointed headdresses of other fraternities
loom like strange moving landscapes – a mass of swaying
purple spikes, then hundreds of white pointed stalagmites,
later a jagged skyline of black peaks, or a bobbing forest
of green velvet conifers. I am still looking for the Casa de
Pilatos, but instead I happen upon a fascinating flamenco
museum. Imaginative displays point to flamenco’s diverse
roots in Asia, Africa, Egypt and Greece, and illustrate the
passion with which Andalucian dancers express grief and joy,
solitude and seduction, power, grace, nostalgia, loss and
death. Film clips show young men strutting and stamping with
arched backs and greasy curls; mature, curvy women dance
with ruffled skirts and haughty looks, clacking castanets
and clapping in unfathomably syncopated rhythms. Back in the
jostling streets, there’s still no sign of the Casa de Pilatos, but I find my way to the imposing Alcazar palace.
In these stately rooms, Spanish kings were born and married,
and plans were made to explore and administer the New World.
Courtyards, some dating back to 1409, link a series of huge,
airy apartments, the exquisite mudéjar decoration blending
Christian and Islamic architecture. The gardens are cool and
restful, with sandy paths between mature trees, and shady
gazebos overlooking pools and fountains.
By now I’m getting thirsty, but luckily the Barrio de Santa
Cruz is packed with irresistible tapas bars. Hams dangle
from every ceiling, dripping fat into artfully positioned
paper cones. Posters of bullfighters and old photographs
cover tiled walls, between teetering racks of bottles. There
is more drinking than eating in these bars – indeed tapa
comes from the word ‘tapadera’, a thin cover of meat or
cheese to keep the dust out of your glass of wine.
Later, at Modesto’s crowded restaurant, I tuck into cola de
toro, an alarming-sounding but deliciously rich local
speciality (bull’s tail) followed by tocino de cielo
(heavenly bacon pudding). Cigars were invented in Seville,
and the menu lists 24 types, each one elaborately described.
By now it is 11pm, but families with young children are
still streaming into Modesto’s, and the streets are still
packed with hooded processions. I push through the pilgrims
and head for a cobbled street near the river. El Arenal’s
flamenco programme is aimed at tourists, but it is a
marvellous show – 90 minutes of music and dance with three
guitarists, three singers, seven dancers and countless
changes of costume. One dance is accompanied only by
castanets, another by a trio of clapping musicians, their
oily locks drooping over furrowed brows. As I try to
remember the way back to my hotel, I come upon another
snail-like throng. These penitents are clad in crimson, with
trains tucked into woven belts. Beyond, a paso hoves into
view – it is a kitsch masterpiece, with a life-size
sculpture of the grief-stricken Virgin, with sparkly halo
and crinoline. Her canopied throne is festooned with plastic
garlands, glittering swags and tassels and golden filigree.
Spectators weep, cry out and applaud. As the massive tableau
lumbers by, the clapping stops and the silence is punctuated
only by the staves’ dramatic thuds on the cobbles. High
above us, a tear seems to roll down the Virgin’s flawless
face, and her lace veil flutters in the breeze. Suddenly a
poignant song rings out – the saeta is an improvised lament,
as piercing and heart-rending as an arrow. This lone voice
provokes renewed sobs and applause, and I find I have a lump
in my throat. The next morning, I pass a parish church and
glimpse through its open doors three huge, ornate floats,
safely stowed. A group of weary penitents heads for home,
some of them young children, still wearing conical hoods and
robes. Turning my map around, I finally work out which way
is north, and I find the elusive Casa de Pilatos - a lovely
house dating from the early 16th century, with cool tiled
rooms, painted ceilings and verdant courtyards. The guide
asks me whether I am enjoying the Semana Santa. “You should
return in two weeks,” she says, “For the Feria de Abril. It
is much more impressive.”
Kirker Holidays:
www.kirkerholidays.com
First published by the Telegraph
©SarahShuckburgh |