Left: The Sabaté family believes in the educational value of tower building Below: Vilafranca’s lead casteller, Pere Almirall i Piqué. His day job is selling fire doors; as head casteller, he has to manage, and possibly console, 300 people
TITANS OF TOWER BUILDING The Castellers de Vilafranca are one of the greatest tower-building teams, with their record nine titles at the Catalan championships in Tarragona. The association has 500 members, 300 of whom are actively involved in building the human towers. President Josep Cabré has a theory about why tower building is so popular in his town. “We don’t see ourselves as an association,” he says. “We are a family.”
HUMAN BUILDING BLOCKS From the musclemen in the pinya to the little kid on top, Catalonia’s castells each unite 300 men, women and children in a living work of art. This is how they all fit together
Pom de Dalt (the crown) Enxaneta (rider) Acotxador (riser) Dosos (twos)
Tronc (the trunk) Quints (fifths)
Quarts (fourths)
Terços (thirds)
illustration: ruedi schorno
Segons (seconds)
to nine levels on their shoulders. Depending on weight distribution, he could have to support up to 350kg on his body. “It’s hard to breathe,” says Moreno, of his state when a tower is complete. “It’s pitch black where I’m positioned. I can’t see the people next to me, but we urge each other on.” The baixos have to be small and strong. Moreno is 1.69m tall and weighs 96kg. Castellers will tell you that a tower’s heartbeat is in the baixos. Moreno regularly works on his back muscles. The black cummerbund he wraps around his waist provides extra stability. “I still get back pain anyway,” he says. Moreno has been part the red bulletin
Pinya (the base)
Baixos (ones at the bottom) Pom de Dalt: Children aged 6-12 form the top three levels of the castell, known as the crown, on account of their low weight. As soon as the enxaneta – the smallest child at the very top – raises his hand, the tower is considered complete. Tronc: This central trunk section goes up from the centre of the pinya to the level under the dosos in the crown. A tower is classified by the number of people in its tronc. The illustration above shows a ‘3d8’ formation: an eight-level castell with three people in each level of the tronc. Pinya: The base, which contains about 200 people, supports the upper sections and prevents the tronc from buckling. If a castell caves in, the pinya also breaks the fall of tumbling castellers.
of the human pyramids for 23 years. Often people start out on the top of the tower as small children, he explains, and as years go by they work themselves down to the bottom. Moreno works as a salesman in a gardening store. “Not many people can become baixos,” he explains. “Sometimes I faint when the castellers are coming down off my shoulders, but building human towers makes me happy.”
Silvia,
the tower mother. It is evening in Cal Figarot, the association headquarters. The local TV channel, TV3, is showing highlights of the tower-building competitions. While the grownups discuss their rivals’ castells over a beer, a gaggle of children maraud noisily through the canteen. Generations come together in the towers. The youngest member of the Castellers de Vilafranca is just six, the oldest is 63. Silvia Sabaté is 44 and has been helping build castells since she was 18. She helps the baixos in the base with their hard graft. Her children Pere, 11, Foix, 10 and Aina, eight, meanwhile, climb as high as the eighth level. “I get nervous every time they’re up there,” she says. In 2006, in Mataró, 20km north-east of Barcelona, a 12-year-old girl died as a result of her injuries from a fall. The little ones have been obliged to wear helmets and use gumshields ever since. The team warms up together before every competition. They practise how to fall safely in training. Serious injuries, in and out of competition, are rare. Sabaté works as a paediatrician in a Vilafranca hospital. “If I thought the risk was too high, I wouldn’t let my children go up there,” she says, “and I believe in the educational value of tower-building.” What can children learn in the castell? Sabaté thinks about it for a moment. “That everyone is equal.”
www.cccc.cat www.castellersdevilafranca.cat
41