Wirdheim in Vilanova: A "Dress Rehearsal" of Human Towers before Sant Jordi

Thursday, 15 April 2010

A "Dress Rehearsal" of Human Towers before Sant Jordi

On Sunday April 11, we were building human towers in Vilanova i la Geltru, in what you could call a costume rehearsal (previa de Sant Jordi) for the real castell premiere, which as of tradition is held around the dia de Sant Jordi (Saint George’s Day) on April 23.

Our guests for the day were the Castellers de Sabadell, who in the middle of the season easily build towers of eight levels. This day they opened with a pilar de 4, followed by a 3de7 (second attempt), a 3de7 amb l'agulla, a 4de7 and, to round off, a pilar de 5 (these expressions are explained at the end of the post).

We, the local team, Bordegassos de Vilanova, were unfortunate not to have with us the young people who usually constitute the third level from the top (dosos), and that forced us to lower our expectations. After having "saluted the square" with a pilar de 4, we built a torre de 6, a 3de7 (vibrating suspiciously, but those who make up the "stem" (tronc) managed to keep it together, a 4de6 amb l'agulla and a pilar de 5.

The next chance to see the Castellers de Sabadell is on April 18, in Sabadell. The next appearance by the Bordegassos de Vilanova is on Sunday, April 25, at 12:30 in the plaça de la Vila of Vilanova i la Geltru, together with the Joves Xiquets de Valls and Castellers de Barcelona.

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A brief introduction to the names of Catalonia’s human towers:

A pilar is a single column or pillar of people, standing on each other's shoulders. A pilar de 5 has five levels.
A torre consists of two people per level, except for the top two ones. A torre de 6 has six levels, the top two ones included.
Bigger castells have names such as 3de7 (3 by 7, in my translation), where 3 indicates that it consist of three people per level (the top three ones - pom de dalt - excluded) and 7 that it has seven levels (the top three ones included).
The dificulty of a human tower can be increased if it is dismantled via a pilar, then called agulla (hence: 3de7 amb l'agulla).
In rankings, it is to crown or assemble a human tower (carregar or, alternatively, coronar), which gives the main part of the score, but for full points it also has to be dismantled in a controlled way (descarregar).