Fifteen years after UNESCO recognition: human towers reach new heights

Catalonia's quintessential tradition, castells, or human towers, celebrates this weekend 15 years since it was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by Unesco.

It was back on November 16, 2010, when a game-changer meeting of the UN agency for the country's most unique tradition took place in Nairobi, Kenya, with some Catalan institutional representatives witnessing and celebrating it afterwards.

Valls, the cradle of this activity, and where castells are already mentioned in 18th century documents, also exploded with joy, with the local church bells chiming, fireworks cracking and a thousand balloons being released.

After the recognition, the movement skyrocketed the following years, with 20 new 'colles', or local groups, founded, which contributed to reach 100 such local organizations, as Albert Torres, president of the human tower groups umbrella association (CCCC), told the Catalan News Agency (ACN) this week.

For him, the Unesco inscription was "a motor of expansion," and the tradition boasts now more safety, training and level.

Data from CCCC confirms his statements, because in the past 15 years, 'colles' have tried and/or achieved 146,895 human towers in all events, or 'diades', 44.6% more than in the previous decade and a half. And the two-year covid hiatus prevented the difference being even higher.

Before the decision taken in Nairobi, the tradition would average approximately 6,500 human towers per year – in 2011 figures increased and a few years later, numbers were already above 10,000 per year, a level that continues nowadays. The surge of the independence movement also coincided with the explosion of 'castells', but while the political crisis is now latent and not so much part of the public discussion, the tradition continues as strong as in the peak years of the secessionist project.

The difficulty has also seen unprecedented levels: between 1996 and 2010, only 545 'gamma extra' constructions (the highest level of complexity) had been attempted, and in the 15 years since the Unesco recognition, the number has raised to 1,298.

For instance, the iconic '3 de 10 amb folre i manilles', meaning ten tiers of three people on each with the first three tiers being more people to make it more robust, had only been completed twice before 2010. Since then, 'colles' have achieved it 37 times. Also, the same structure but with four people per tier ('4 de 10 amb folre i manilles') had never been completed before 2010, and it was not until November 2015 that the Terrassa local group became the first one to achieve it.

Outside the Catalan-speaking lands, castells had already showcased in hundreds of small events around the world, and since 2010, 2,584 structures have been attempted in the rest of Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, the US or China, among others.