Brussels' castells group build first human tower in city's Grand Place

Catalonia's quintessential tradition of the Castells human tower just arrived at the heart of the European Union. Around 300 castellers took part in the debut of Brussels' group: 200 from Tarragona's Jove Xiquets, and the other 100 wearing yellow, the color of the Mannekes, the new 'colla.'

The diada took place in Brussels' famous Grand Place on Saturday after the international group was formed back in February with the help of the Casal Català in the European de facto capital. Most of them are Catalans living abroad, but there are also some Belgian, Italian, Hungarian, and Polish participants.

"This is a 'colla' that has grown very fast, and we trained a lot to be here during the first public diada," Joan Gonzàlez, head of the Mannekes, told the Catalan News Agency (ACN).

On their first day, they build six-tier human towers with three people and four people on each level. They have also worked on a five-tier with three people en agulla —with an independent human tower in the middle— and an attempted six-tier en agulla.

"We deserve to build the '3 de 6 en agulla' (as said in the jargoon) very soon, as we have been working very hard for it," Gonzàlez said.

Mannekes are now part of the overseas 'colles' castelleres in cities such as London, Paris, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Berlin, Toulouse, Madrid, Sydney, and Montreal, among many others.

Mannekes held their debut accompanied by Tarragona's (south of Barcelona) Colla Jove Xiquets, who traveled abroad for the first time since their last event in Milan in 2015.

The purple-shirt group had already been in Brussels in 1991.

Cross-border and gravity-defying spirit

For more than 200 years, Catalans have celebrated the sky-reaching tradition of castells, literally castles in Catalan, when groups of people gather to climb on top of each other to build the highest castle.

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