The casteller father and the enxaneta daughter: Let's make a group as a family!

Wonderful and dazzling minority with a sash and seven-ribbon espadrilles. And, very often, with a barretina and everything. In the country, there are 3,000 to 4,000 groups of popular and traditional Catalan culture, which bring together more than 100,000 souls. When parents and children participate together in one—bigger or smaller, more or less well-known—the magic happens: bonds are strengthened, the children work on values and socialize at a rapid pace, and the new generations take root in the country with much more intensity. Most of the time, the older generation drags the younger one along, which inherits, almost genetically, the passion for castells, giants, or stick dancing, but it must be said that, in some cases, it can go the other way: there are families whose little ones have joined the group first and, little by little, have encouraged the adults to get involved. We approach this reality and observe it through the eyes of a child based on the testimony of three families linked to Sabadell entities during the city's main festival held last weekend.

The bond of the Segura Artigas family with the Castellers de Sabadell (alias Saballuts) is total and absolute: the father was part of it since he was little; the mother, since she was a teenager, and the couple themselves is, even, a fruit of it: Jordi and Helena met there. However, they took off their green shirts with the birth of Eloi (10 years old) and Aina (7). Jordi Segura explains: "Last year we went back to doing castells because they already wanted to do them too." Like the adults: "Even if we didn't go," notes Segura, "we remained linked to it in a certain way. When we had the children, we knew that, when they are very small, it is very difficult to make it compatible. We have always been clear that either we all did castells or no one did." And said and done: "The moment they said they wanted to try it, we all got hooked again." The collateral advantages are obvious: "It brings them the opportunity to meet many people of different ages, to open up, to get out of their comfort zone, which is school. Also a part of self-esteem, of confidence."

Jordi's wife and mother of Eloi and Aina, the Sabadell native Helena Artigas, admits the B-side of the quadruple commitment: discipline, risk, order, strength... "There are moments in the season when you have to push yourself harder with the castells and maybe you get more tired, the kids go to sleep later...; you have to try to combine it and compensate for it with other things. It's not that we go to sleep at the small hours of the morning, but, on the other hand, if you have a performance, you don't have to get up super early either, but rather you can take advantage of the morning more or less and then you go to do castells". She defends that it's not such a big deal, then, and that raising human towers as a family pays off if you find moments of peace to recover: "We also look for spaces to rest and gather strength". However: in the unlikely event that any of the four lost interest in the casteller world, all four would leave it: "In the case that they get tired of it, want to try new things, we will have to take a step back and follow the group from another perspective".

Eloi joined the group as an enxaneta last year, when he crowned an iconic five-of-eight, and this year he has started to act as a 'dos', one of the two children who form the top of the trunk, closed by the aixecador or acotxador, upon which the enxaneta climbs. These last two roles are now assumed by his sister, Aina, who usually acts as acotxadora and, "rarely", as enxaneta. Having been the icing on the cake makes him proud: "I feel proud to perform this castell because we have worked on it a lot and we succeeded". Entering the casteller world was a bit difficult for him at first: "At first I didn't want to do castells because there were a lot of people and it overwhelmed me, but, in the end, we kept going for days and I started making friends and I learned how to climb well and I liked it and I stayed in the group, and now I really like the castells". And they fulfill him completely: "I also like it because we do many activities all together, the children. I have many friends, too, of many ages". His classmates usually ask him "How can you climb so high?".

The Olivé Codina stick-dancing family is what they call the exception that proves the rule: the three children, pioneers, dragged their parents, Marcel and Laia, into it. She recalls it in a somewhat chaotic conversation, in which Magí (10) and Vinyet (8) take turns speaking, sometimes literally in stereo: either at the same time or, even, one saying the subject and the other the predicate of the same sentence. The eldest, Roc (13), already dances in the intermediate group and is the benchmark for the two little ones in terms of technical sophistication. The happy family contagion occurred at the workshop that the Sabadell Stick-Dancing Group (Colla Bastonera de Sabadell) offered within the framework of the Salut gathering (the city's minor festival) in 2019. "There were already people in the group we knew and, when we saw them perform, we liked it. And one year when they were little, we went, they tried it, they said they liked it, and we said: 'We were already attracted to it. So let's do it.' And since then we have been there." First Roc and Magí joined, and immediately after, Vinyet.

It's all benefits: "It brings them the cultural part; the part of sharing, of knowledge, of making new friends, of having another circle, and all these values of working as a team, of being a group, of the challenges that are posed, of new dances, dances that they create themselves, dances that they see the older ones doing and that later, over time, they reach themselves..." And, over time, Laia and Marcel have also reached it: "There were parents who were already part of the group and who sometimes asked us if we wanted to go and do a dance. And we would say: 'If the kids are rehearsing and we are watching, why don't we dance? And we have a great time.'" Nevertheless, commitment is always difficult, as Vinyet hints at addressing her mother: "You are forcing us; now, yes, and we say: 'No, we don't want to do it right now,' and you tell us: 'Well, you have to do it,' but when we were little you didn't say that." Laia contextualizes it: "Now, sometimes, they have this moment of crisis, and we say: 'No, no... We have to keep doing popular culture and we have committed to it, and now we continue.'"

When it comes down to it, however, the passion for stick dancing is total and absolute: "For me, it's really cool to be in the group," says Magí, "because I have new friends that maybe, if I weren't here, I wouldn't have." Laia reminds them: "And it's also organized so that the older ones take great care of you, the little ones, which is really neat." Vinyet agrees: "Yes, because now the middle ones act as mentors for the little ones, sometimes." And Magí notes: "Sometimes, maybe, also, if we are tired, we play a game, or, some days when we don't want to go, when we feel very lazy, we play a game first and then start the rehearsal." And he highlights two more advantages: "We also practice memory, because there are dances that might be easier, but it is also difficult to memorize them, and effort, because it is hard to do them." The healthy competitiveness between parents and children, with the triumph of the young ones, spurs them on even more, and the mother knows it: "You know more than we do. It's you who, sometimes, teach us!" In the case of Joan del Riu, the victory is by a landslide.

The Gegants (and Gralles) of La Concòrdia are a sui generis, atypical giant troupe; in fact, just another manifestation of the leisure organization in the northwest neighborhood of Sabadell, the youth and leisure center (CAE) La Llar del Vent, the oldest in the Vallesan co-capital, which has just celebrated its 60th anniversary. Isma has spent half his life there, if not almost all of it: he went to the youth center as a child and, from the age of 14 or 15, he got involved with the giants: "Our group and the one that joined later have never left the troupe: we have always stayed." And he has been dragging his wife, Judith, along, and, right away, the Villalón Salanguera offspring: first, Quim (10); then, Bruna (5): "We have been in the troupe for more than 30 years. When we started having partners, we brought them in; when we had children, we brought them along. Everyone has joined naturally; that is, they come with us from the time they are babies until they start integrating and doing things in the troupe." Which is, therefore, almost literally, a big yellow family.

"It gives them the chance to share many things, collaborate, organize themselves, and also take responsibility," asserts Isma. The children manage to handle their own elements, like the Bosquet dragon, and the dances it performs at each outing. "They have to work as a team because, otherwise, they wouldn't go out, and we let them organize themselves quite a bit. And, then, they also socialize, both with troupes from other towns and villages and from the city." Quim's eyes light up, but he has a somewhat gray first memory: "It was when I was at the youth center and we were playing and it was our turn to do a parade and it was raining, and everything was a bit of a mess. But there I saw that it was very cool to be a giant handler and that the culture was very neat." All the giants are homemade, and this strengthens the sense of belonging: "I started at the youth center at five years old and, from there, I started to like it because we were making a giant because the other one had broken. And we spent a year of activities working on the giant and, in the end, we made it and it was very cool and I liked how we all collaborated together."

Giants aside, Quim highlights two ingredients he has found in the organization: "A lot of sincerity and a lot of play, but not just the typical games of soccer, basketball...; also flags, things like that." And he accepts the discipline: "It depends on the day, I like it and I don't like it. I really like being there, but when I have made plans with friends and I have to go to the leisure club, I have to go, but I would rather play. Even though I have a good time afterwards, it is a bit difficult to leave it." What he also finds a bit difficult is sharing space and time there with his little sister, another situation with pros and cons: "I like it and I don't like it. Having a sister is cool because you can talk to her, but sometimes she is annoying because you are having a good time and Bruna, my sister, doesn't stop saying: 'Quim, Quim, come here for a moment.' When we are playing flag and she says: 'I want to go somewhere,' I say: 'What do I do?'" The long-suffering older brother encourages all children and young people to participate in popular and traditional culture: "It is an experience that is really cool.

Parents who drag their children along, children who drag their parents along... Communities in which one learns to coexist, to collaborate, and to build the country among sashes and espadrilles, and which offer everyone a celebration that is close, generous, rooted, and beating. That educate, socialize, and bond. The groups of Catalan popular and traditional culture welcome children with open arms and open wide for them the doors of a castle of light, fire, and construction – and of movement, colors, and smiles – raised upon a solid base: the authenticity, simplicity, and honesty of the people's celebration for the people. The Segura Artigas, the Olivé Codina, and the Villalón Salanguera families have chosen, respectively, the Castellers de Sabadell, the Colla Bastonera de Sabadell, and the Gegants de la Concòrdia, but they are only a small sample of the thousands of homes in which the passion to make the streets and squares vibrate has captivated, at the very least, two generations. What if you stop looking at it from afar and get involved?