Semana Santa Seville | Apr 2018

Semana Santa Seville  |  Apr 2018

• Semana Santa Seville Annually is one Seville’s main annual festival celebrating culture, heritage, religion and song in a sensational ambience of passion and excitement.
• Throughout the city thousands and thousand of people, some dressed in amazing, Spanish dress, line the streets waiting to catch a glimpse of the amazing processions, each of which takes many hours between leaving its parish and returning there after following a set route around the city. Each of over 50 brotherhoods (cofradías) have two floats so you can imagine the enormity of the occasion.
• For the ‘costaleros’ who carry the float, it’s a once in a lifetime honour to do so as the numbers wishing to be carriers far outnumber the places available.
• The carrying of the floats tends to be a male-dominated activity as the floats often weigh over 2000kg and it takes many months of practice before the big day. On average there are 40 ‘costaleros’ per float with each one supporting a weight of around 50kg for around 8 hours. In some towns smaller and lighter floats are carried by females though few take part in the “classic” Semana Santa celebrations of the main Andaluz cities of Seville, Malaga, Granada, Cordoba and Huelva.
• Following the float, penitents are dressed in capes. This hides their identity, the meaning being that God is the only one who knows who they are. Semana Santa is a religious occasion and the mood of each day’s procession changes from the opening ones on Palm Sunday to the sombre ones of Good Friday which depict the crucifixion of Christ and finally the joyous ones of Easter Sunday which celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead.