Los Seises of Seville: Liturgical Dance for Traditionalists

In the 1912 volume of The Century magazine, I happened to come across an article on “Some Spanish Dances” by Arthur Stanley Riggs, F.R.G.S., and his lucky artist compadre who got to draw pictures of it all instead of photographing it. On page 393 of this article, we learn about the seises, a liturgical dance and song done by a special endowed corps of choirboys on Easter and Corpus Christi before the tabernacle of Seville’s Cathedral. It appears that this dance is part of Vespers, not Mass? Anyway, castanets are involved. Here’s an old postcard in color of them.

They have been dancing before the Ark of the Lord since the Reconquest. That traditional enough for ya?

Here are los Seises today, in procession outside. Here’s an article in Spanish about them. Originally they were sixteen (“seize”), then six, then ten, then…. Here they are lined up in front of the high altar, apparently for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Here they are dancing (in a solemn march-y sort of way). Here’s two of the six sitting and waiting. Here’s more in Spanish about them, as they march in procession in red outfits in the parade for the Feast of Corpus Christi. (I don’t see anything about them dancing at Easter these days.)

But nowadays we also have video with audio! Corpus Christi on Yahoo, YouTube 1, YouTube 2. Immaculate Conception 1. Immaculate Conception 2. And castanets are still involved! (Rhapsody claims to let you listen to one of their songs, but I didn’t download their software and so don’t know for sure.)

Don’t try this at your church unless it’s part of your cultural patrimony and you have anti-lameness powers…. But it does show that Europeans can do liturgical dance in a fitting, non-lame way.