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President of the Marrecs de Salt Castellers

Josep Masdevall

Josep joined the Mar­recs de Salt in 1998, just two years after the casteller group was founded. As the pres­i­dent of the Mar­recs, he is in charge of rep­re­sent­ing the group and en­sur­ing its good func­tion­ing. The Mar­recs now have some 350 mem­bers, which has been steadily grow­ing in the past few years. This No­vem­ber the Mar­recs will be per­form­ing for Girona's an­nual Sant Narcís fes­ti­val.

1. Sash. All castellers wear one of these. It is black and pro­tects the lower back. Orig­i­nally, it was used for work­ing in the fields.

2. Shirt. It is the piece of cloth­ing that unites all of us Mar­recs. Each group has its own coloured shirt; ours is blue. The shirt is a sym­bol of the castellers and is worn dur­ing all of our per­for­mances.

3. Gralla. Along with the drum, this flute-like in­stru­ment ac­com­pa­nies each stage of the cas­tle's de­vel­op­ment. It is also used to cre­ate a fes­ti­val at­mos­phere.

4. Safety net. This al­lows us to prac­tise weaker struc­tures on days when there are fewer of us. It's a vital piece of equip­ment for the group's tech­ni­cal de­vel­op­ment.

5. Out­line of the pinya. All of the castellers ap­pear on this out­line, which tells every­one where they should be for each type of cas­tle. Mak­ing the pinya, the base of the cas­tel, is a metic­u­lous process and every­one needs to know where they have to be.

6. Re­hearsal white­board. This is where we find the plans for the re­hearsal and the tri­als set up for that day. The re­hearsal de­pends on which fu­ture per­for­mance is com­ing up and the group's long-term aims. A well-planned re­hearsal al­lows us to make bet­ter use of the time avail­able and achieve more.

7. Torre de 8 amb folre. The Mar­recs were the first to do this struc­ture for the Fires de Girona in 2012. It was the first castell amb folre the group had ever done, mak­ing it a key mo­ment for our his­tory.

8. Neck­er­chief. It is an­other el­e­ment that all castellers share. While largely dec­o­ra­tive, many are su­per­sti­tious about it and will only wear the same neck­er­chief when they per­form.

9. Segons. These are the first castellers of the tronc who stick out from the pinya. Each segon has its own team of castellers: baix, con­trafort, ag­ulla, crosses, vents, lat­er­als and primeres mans, who help to pro­vide sup­port for the lay­ers that will come on top.

10. Cap de pinyes. He or she checks that all of the castellers in the pinya are cor­rectly dis­trib­uted. He or she also draws up the out­line show­ing the po­si­tions of all the castellers.

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