Verges

"The Dance of Death
During the Holy Week procession in Verges, a true unique gem of popular culture stands out: the Dance of Death. In this dance, five skeletons leap to the sound of a drum, arranged in the shape of a cross and accompanied by a retinue of four additional characters, who, with torches, illuminate the scene and contribute to the eerie atmosphere that gives it meaning.

The main body of the Dance of Death is made up of two adults (the Scythe and the Banner) and three children (two Cymbals, who carry a plate with ashes, and the Clock, which points to a clock without hands).
Death warns us that it spares no one (with the banner), it reaps our lives (with the scythe), and reminds us that at any moment (clock without hands) we will end up turning to ashes (cymbals).


the survival
Verges is the only town that keeps alive a type of Dance of Death, a reminiscence of ancestral rites in honor of the deceased. This type of macabre dance is closely associated with the epidemics of the Black Death that ravaged Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. The Dance of Death signals the passage of time, the inexorable passage of time that leads all men (rich or poor, noble or peasant) to death, a death to which the plague, wars, and infant mortality helped to lend an actual personality among the European inhabitants of that period, who almost felt it breathing beside them. For them, Christianity was the triumph over death." official website: http://www.laprocesso.cat/

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