By Jessica M. Castillo
UM News

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (August 18, 2016)—For a visual artist who has photographed religious rituals and processions across the globe from Mexico to Jerusalem, capturing Semana Santa, or Holy Week, in Sevilla, Spain, has been J. Tomas (Tom) Lopez’s holy grail. Pun intended.

Lopez, professor of art and art history in the University of Miami’s College of Arts and Sciences, fulfilled a 20-year-old dream of photographing what is world renowned as one of the most baroque, elaborate, and solemn Holy Week festivals. He spent 10 days in late March capturing the unique celebration in Sevilla.

Lopez’s grandparents left Spain in the 1930s to settle in Cuba, only to have his parents emigrate once again to New Orleans in 1954 and eventually to Long Island, New York, in 1960. Lopez, who still has family in Oviedo, Spain, was educated in parochial schools through college and has always had an interest in the participation and communality that are created by religious orthodoxy.

That sense of communal belonging is potently clear during Sevilla’s Semana Santa. Hundreds of thousands flock to the city for this ritual of six to seven processions a day, and the entire city is closed off to traffic during Holy Week. Pilgrims, party-goers, and everyone in between fill the crowded streets of the capital of the autonomous region of Andalusia. The main churches in Sevilla send out large hermanadas, or brotherhoods, in processions with routes throughout the city, ranging from three hours to nine or 10 hours long. The processions can last all night, from late afternoon to very early morning.

The order of those in the procession may differ slightly, but the same groups are always represented: Nazarenos, priests, Costaleros, or the carriers of the altars, and Penitentes, who are almost always carrying heavy crosses and the Virgin Mary. In the past few years, breaking with a long tradition, women and girls have been allowed full participation in the Semana Santa processions as either Nazarenas or Penitentes.

The culmination and greatest celebration is at midnight on Good Friday at the Basilica of La Macarena, patron saint of matadors and gypsies. The 1990’s song by the same name, by an Andalusian pop band, draws reference to Mary Magdalene’s reportedly sensuous past.

There were 5,000 Nazarenos and 5,000 Penitentes during the procession of La Macarena’s 12-hour route. Nazarenos don colorful robes and pointy, hooded caps and Penitentes are also hooded, but, says Lopez, these groups shouldn’t be confused with the Klu Klux Klan, which they pre-date by centuries and have no ties to.

The processions have different altars or depictions of Jesus, from his time of entering Jerusalem on a mule to his crucifixion and death. The bigger altars require more than 20 Costaleros to carry the float and these carriers often have to alternate because the altar is so heavy, some weighing thousands of pounds.

Topping off the celebratory procession is usually a large marching band with anywhere from 20 to 100 musicians. Somewhere along the procession there is an emotional song to the Virgin Mary known as a saeta. A saeta is an acapella homage, usually sung by a gitana, or gypsy, and is very powerful and soulful. The singing is in reverence for the Virgin Mary and her biblical plight.

The processions were halting and impressive, recounts Lopez, especially before the depiction of Jesus.

“Even though there may be hundreds of thousands of people, for some it’s a pilgrimage, for others it’s just a big party,” he says. “When the altar of Jesus comes by, everyone goes silent and some even fall to their knees. It was very moving.”

Over the 10 days in Sevilla, Lopez shot more than 5,000 photos of the famous annual rituals and processions. The work was done under the prestigious Cooper Fellowship.