Castellers de Vilafranca to perform human towers in Japan 

The Castellers de Vilafranca will travel to Japan from May 23 to 31 to participate in the Catalan Week at the Universal Exhibition in Osaka. The announcement was made by the group's board during their annual season-opening press conference.  

Vilafranca del Penedès is a town in Catalonia, Spain, located about 50 km (31 miles) west of Barcelona. The town is famous for its castellers team known as “els verds”, “the greens”, one of the most prestigious human tower-building teams in Catalonia. 

The verds had already planned to visit Japan as part of their international tour agenda, but a recent reception with Catalan president Salvador Illa brought these plans forward. During their trip, they also intend to visit various companies and institutions. 

This year's goals 

Regarding their 2025 projects, the group aims to continue their psychological training program after its successful launch in 2024, with a particular focus on young castellers. On a technical level, their goals include performing ''castells nets'', human towers without support, and successfully completing the a tower in the form of a  ‘4 de 10 amb folre i manilles' , or in English, a ‘4 of 10 with lining and shackles’, in multiple locations.  

The '4 de 10 amb folre i manilles' consists of four people per level of the tower reaching ten tiers high, making it one of the tallest human towers generally attempted. To support its weight and complexity, it includes a ‘folre’, lining of a second base above the main one, and 'manilles', a third level of reinforcement that stabilizes the middle part. 

One of their main challenges for the season will be executing a pilar de 9 with folre, manilles, and puntals. This type of human tower is even riskier, as it is a single vertical pillar with nine levels, requiring extreme balance and precision. Like the 4 de 10, it also has a lining and shackles, but with the additional support of props - extra 'castellers' who help stabilize the structure from below.  

These towers demand extraordinary strength, teamwork, and technique, making them a major challenge even for the most experienced human tower teams.

Filling the Sink

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.

Although the tradition suffered waves of decline up to the point of disappearance, it experienced a renaissance in the 1980s, and in 2010 UNESCO included castells on its list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity,  bringing the popularity of human towers’ popularity to unprecedented heights. 

Listen to our Filling the Sink podcast episode to learn more about Catalonia's human towers.

Not for the faint-hearted, castells are human towers that can reach up to 10 stories high – that's 10 groups of people stacked on top of each other! 

Filling the Sink visited one of the gravity-defying groups in Barcelona, the Castellers de Sants, and spoke with Ignasi Escamilla from the Catalan Human Tower Groups Association (Coordinadora de Colles Castelleres de Catalunya) about the philosophy behind this unique tradition, recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.