Locked-down Spain celebrates Holy Week with music and humor
09 April, 2020
In the week resulting in Easter Sunday, a huge selection of colorful processions featuring penitents in cone-shaped hoods and centuries-old religious floats traditionally flood the streets of villages and cities across Spain.
But with a nationwide lockdown in location to curb the spread of COVID-19, Spaniards have found methods to mark Holy Week from their homes, by blasting religious music from their balconies or viewing videos of last year's parades.
In the western city of Salamanca, the association of religious brotherhoods that organizes processions is posting pictures on social media of religious icons that could normally be paraded through the streets at the hour that would have taken place.
"And on our YouTube channel we are posting a video of the procession from this past year," association president Jose Adrian Cornejo told AFP.
There is one portion of the processions that may still go ahead -- the singing of "saetas", short, flamenco prayers sung from balconies which are specially popular in the southwestern region of Andalusia.
Saetas are generally sung as effigies of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary are carried past, but this year they are being performed to empty streets.
Type in "saetas of confinement" on YouTube and many events appear, including one by Alex Ortiz in Seville -- which isn't staging Easter processions for the first time since 1933 -- who sings of a "sad spring" without "drums or bugles" in the streets.
Toilet paper roll icon
Pablo Murillo, a Catholic father of four, said he was celebrating Holy Week with "more seclusion".
He was supposed to take part in a Palm Sunday procession but instead listened to the traditional "marchas" -- special musical compositions featuring wind instruments and drums that accompany the floats -- aware of his sons.
"My oldest who's 12 puts the speakers in the bathroom, and takes a shower while listening to the Holy Week 'marchas'," Murillo said.
He lives near Seville's greatest hospital and every evening many neighbors blast "marchas" from their balconies after applauding healthcare personnel at 8:00 pm, as persons are doing across Europe.
Some persons have violated the lockdown rules to celebrate Easter, meanwhile.
In Puerta de Segura, a tiny town of whitewashed houses in Andalusia, several persons left their homes to imitate a procession, with one man carrying a drum and a woman wearing a blanket wrapped around her head like the veils depicted in the statue of the Virgin Mary, images on Spanish TV showed.
In the local town of Porcuna nine women dressed in black and carrying candles walked through the streets, while in the northern city of Palencia two men dressed up in a tunic and hood held a mock procession by carrying an "icon" manufactured from toilet paper rolls.
'Really struggling'
Police have joined in on the act. In Seville, two municipal police cars drove slowly in front of a church, stopping sometimes before moving on exactly like Holy Week floats do, to the tune of religious music.
With processions called off, many religious brotherhoods have focused on helping fight the coronavirus pandemic which has claimed a lot more than 14,500 lives in Spain, one of the highest tolls on earth.
In the northern city of Valladolid, 20 brotherhoods donated 1,000 euros ($1,085) each to get protective equipment and other urgently needed supplies for healthcare workers, said local association leader Isaias Martinez Iglesias.
Pablo Alen of Seville's Carreteria brotherhood said it could have a "relatively big" monetary hit this year, because it will not accumulate any donations from participants through the traditional Good Friday parade.
With less money to arrive the brotherhood's priority is to focus on its charity work for instance a soup kitchen, so it will postpone planned restorations of its religious artworks, he added.
"There are persons who are asking for help, who are actually struggling," Alen noted.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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