EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALMarch 18, 1999
Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville
La Macarena
No one in Seville knows about La Macarena. At least the song.
And the dance. The pop song was written about our neighborhood long after the songwriters
had left the city. Today we investigate the inner workings of Seville’s traditional
district.
La Macarena is a mixture medieval grids, decaying Baroque and Mudejar
churches, breadbox tapas bars and terrace laundry lines. Its namesake is Hercules’
daughter, the Roman Goddess Macaria. La Macarena is best known in Seville for its Basilica
de la Macarena, which houses Seville’s much-venerated Virgen de la Esperanza
Macarena. Her shrine is worshipped with cult-fervor. The Virgen stands above
the Basilica’s principle altar amid waterfalls of gold and silver. Her design and
carving are attributed to Luisa Roldan (1656-1703), the most talented woman artist of the
Seville School. Devotions to the Virgen de la Macarena reach their peak in the
early hours of Good Friday, during Seville’s Semana Santa. The statue is
carried through the streets on a canopied float decorated with white flowers and candles.
The Basilica even houses a museum devoted entirely to her cult, which displays magnificent
processional garments and trajes de luces (suits of light) donated by famous and
grateful bullfighters.
Beside the Basilica are the remnants of Seville’s defensive walls,
which enclosed the city during Moorish times. Dating from the 12th century, the
rampart was constructed as a curtain wall with patrol path in the middle. The original
walls had more than a hundred towers.
The ancient gate of the Monasterio de San Clemente is a
threshold to an oasis of orange and lemon trees. The day is hot, blistering. There is a
gallery here, with features ranging from the 13th to the 18th
centuries. There are azulejos dating from 1588. Today there is a contemporary
photographic exhibit; a group show with a menagerie of Andalusian snapshots. A
bullfighter’s perfect peach bottom, in pink silk and scales of gold trim. Long
shadows and derelict paint, in layers, like beyond the monastery’s gate. One artist
has made a series of postcards, replacing Seville’s typical monuments with regular
kids on motos and the omni-present stoop-washer.
%20of%20Seville.JPG)
