Last September Maya and I met a Spanish family shopping in our local toy store. I introduced myself and asked where they were from; remarkably, they were from Sevilla, but living in Menlo Park for the year for work reasons. We enjoyed a couple of meals with them over the course of the fall, which gave us a nice introduction to Sevillano culture before heading off on our Spanish adventure. Juan, Rocio and their three beautiful kids returned to Sevilla at the end of February, but we had not managed to connect with them in March. However, last week I received an amazing invitation from Juan. He sent me an email describing his love of Semana Santa in Sevilla; he describes the week succinctly and powerfully: “para mí lo mejor que tiene Sevilla con mucha diferencia, independientemente de las creencias religiosas de cada uno. Es un espectáculo para todos los sentidos: vista, oído, olfato… y para el corazón.” As I now set out to try to describe Semana Santa, I will try to hearken back to his simple description of the Semana Santa as the “best that Sevilla has to offer, despite your religious beliefs - A spectacle for all of the senses: sight, sound, scent...and for the heart.” Perhaps what is most powerful for me about Juan’s description is that he is an MIT educated CEO of a biotech start-up, and yet he is fully enamored of an ancient religious ceremony. He would not describe himself as deeply religious, but it is utterly devoted to Semana Santa.
Juan invited me to join him and Julian, his best friend from childhood, on the morning of Palm Sunday, the first day of Semana Santa, to have breakfast, visit many of the pasos (the floats), have a beer, and then join his family for lunch. Juan and Julian have met every Palm Sunday for the past twenty years to enjoy this ritual together, and Juan asked invited me to join them, which really felt like quite an honor. There was a distinctly Spanish note to the invitation; Beth and Maya were invited to lunch, but not to visit the pasos. We would collect them to head to lunch around 1:00. I was pretty sure that I would end up underdressed, as I do not have a suit here, and I was basically right. Most men were wearing suits, including Julian, so I wore the nicest clothes I had - khakis, button up shirt, sweater, leather shoes. I was saved by Juan who was wearing exactly what I was wearing. He said that the work casual approach of Menlo Park had rubbed off on him. This might be true...or he might have known I wasn’t going to wear a suit, and he wanted me to feel comfortable. Thank you, Juan.
Julian and Juan provided a remarkable insight into the workings and culture of Semana Santa. After a coffee and toast, we headed out on a brisk tour of 12-14 of the churches, which were set up to receive visitors who wanted to visit the pasos on Palm Sunday. As the morning went on, the churches got busier and busier. Let me offer a quick explanation of what happens during Semana Santa, so this all makes a little more sense.
From Palm Sunday until Easter Sunday, each of the Brotherhoods (groups associated with a particular church) will process through the streets of the city, passing through the Cathedral and returning to their home church. Each brotherhood has a single procession during the week - always on the same day and always covering the same route. Sevillanos know where the processions will be and when they will be there, and many people have various rituals of where they want to be to see each one. The best way to think about this is to imagine the Rose Bowl Parade or Macy’s Day Parade happening 6-10 times a day on different routes through the city - no kidding. Many of the processions take 10-12 hours to complete their route; on Thursday night some will leave the church at midnight and return after 1:00pm on Friday afternoon. Almost all of the processions take the same basic form: A marching band of up to 150 musicians, followed by up to 1000 Nazarenos (men and women dressed in capes and pointed hoods..that look like KKK capes...carrying huge candles), followed by a massive Paso (A float made of ornate carved wood or silver, decorated with flowers and candles with a life-sized or bigger sculpture of a scene from the Passion of Christ. The scenes depicted progress through the story throughout the week). The paso depicting the scene from the Passion is followed by another marching band, followed by another 1000 nazarenos, who are followed by a second paso (This one topped with a sculpture of the Virgin - each version of the Virgin is well known), which is followed by yet another marching band. A single procession might take up to an hour and a half to pass a single point on the road. Perhaps most amazing, the floats are carried through the streets on the backs of 30-50 men and maybe a few women (costaleros) who are hunched over under the floats. Each float weighs between 4000-5000 pounds and is truly a work of art. Many of the pasos were carved/sculpted in the 16th and 17th century. They are stunning (and priceless) works of art being carried through the streets.
Getting back to my time with Juan and Julian, I was struck by how intimately they knew each paso. We only visited a church for a few minutes, but in each they told me stories about the particular brotherhood or paso. One virgin is referred to as courage because she was the only paso to process in on Semana Santa in the early thirties when the Anarchists were threatening the Church. Another is known for having tall costaleros and a bunch of movement in the procession. Another stops in front of a monastery so the cloistered monks can sing to her from within their cloistered walls. A few of the brotherhoods process in silence, without any bands/music. Juan joined one of these, called Silencio, because he was so moved by their discipline and intensity. They process through the night on Thursday, and apparently the whole crowd is silent as they pass, and the neighborhoods shut off their lights during their procession. There is also a great rivalry between the Virgin of Esperanza de Triana and the Virgin of Macarena - which is the most beautiful? Apparently, all Sevillanos have an opinion. It would be easy...for my untrained eye...to see each paso as quite similar, but in my time with Juan and Julian, I learned that the Sevillanos revere each as unique, meaningful, and powerful. However, as impressive as each paso was sitting in the churches, both Juan and Julian were emphatic that you need the combination of the movement of the paso, the scent of candle wax and incense, the music, and the engagement of the crowd to appreciate the power of the paso.
What struck me while visiting the pasos was the way in which religion, community, culture, and place are so deeply intermingled. Certainly most of the people visiting the churches on Palm Sunday are Catholic, but it felt more like a combination of a social interaction, celebration, civic pride, and piety all mixed into one. Often in the US, or at least in California, religious ceremony seems like a somber or serious practice separated from much of daily life (I recognize my own ignorance here and am only offering my singular impression). As we have experienced the first half of Semana Santa, we have seen a city in almost constant celebration and brimming with civic pride. Throughout the week men have worn suits and women have dressed to the nines; they are as likely to be enjoying a long lunch with friends as following a procession. The streets are full of teenage boys wearing suits and cruising around in groups meeting up with teenage girls sporting their coolest pants (yes - fancy pants are all the rage) and frilly shirts - every school is off this week. Little kids hold out their hands for candy given by the nazarenos, and others work on building wax balls by getting nazarenos to drip wax from their candles on a ball they save from year to year. Every restaurant sets up a window to sell beer and water and sandwiches on the street. It is a week long party. However, when the Virgin passes, the crowd becomes silent and reverent - last night we watched as a young woman wept as the paso with the Virgin passed. She and her boyfriend were otherwise enjoying a beer during a street party - a pretty striking scene.
It turns out that our apartment is directly along a number of the procession routes, so we can watch them pass directly under our balcony, providing a nice respite from the crowds. Last night, the pasos stopped a few hundred feet before our apartment so that a man on a balcony could sing an aria to the paso, unexpected and amazing. I have taken a huge number of photos, but they don’t capture the size of the pasos or the immensity of the processions, and they certainly do not record the sounds, scents...or heart that Juan describes as being at the core of Semana Santa. We are eager to see what happens tonight, which is the night of the Madrugada...the all night processions, which are the most famous of the week. The streets are already full of women dressed in black with the mantilla (The huge hair comb covered with lace that drapes down the back) and men in dark suits. We will follow some of the processions at midnight - 1:00am, and then we will wake up early...4:30am to watch some of the most famous processions pass under our balcony. I will report back on how well we do following through with that plan.
A quick note: our lunch with Juan and his family was pretty memorable. We watched part of the first procession to leave on Palm Sunday near their house, and then we chatted and ate for three hours or more. Maya and Beth both went shopping in order to have appropriate clothes...Maya wore a dress - yes, it is true...and they both managed to maintain conversation in Spanish the whole time (Maya managed to maintain more than converse). I was impressed that Maya made it without wilting. Beth did a great job of engaging in conversation with Rocio’s mother (la abuela), who was fully animated and hilarious. Perhaps our favorite comment from her was that Gran Poder (one of the brotherhoods) is the best procession...and that Silencio is “okay for Juan.” Gran Poder is the other silent procession that leaves in the middle of the night on Thursday. We were certainly in the presence of the beautiful people: Rocio’s brother and sister were also there, and there might not be a more attractive young Spaniard than Tio Luis. Even I thought he was striking and charming.
We are off to dinner and then moving on to see the scene.
