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Culture

Art, feeling and tradition

Art, feeling and tradition

In the province of Seville, tradition is very much alive. Religion and festivity, rites and myths come together in a unique way in an explosion of popular culture.

Spring in the province of Seville has a special colour and smell, with the Seville April Fair and Holy Week in every town. Our towns and villages are filled with pilgrimages, processions, May crosses and country days, with a deep agricultural tradition. In the province of Seville alone, about 80 festivals are held between the months of April and June. And the festivities continue into the autumn, with bullfighting and flamenco festivals, theatre, film and dance seasons. Join us and enjoy the chapels and churches, the natural landscapes, the equestrian culture and the cuisine of each town.

Holy Week is one of the most internationally renowned festivals, a unique spectacle that reaches unprecedented levels of popular expression and fervour. Brotherhoods and fraternities parade through the streets with splendid images, adorned with candles, flowers, gold and silver work and rich fabrics. Bands of music and Nazarenes accompany these religious parades, of great artistic value. See it in person: you will find it a very moving experience.

In the middle of May, Seville and the Aljarafe region become a place of transit and departure for the pilgrims who travel the Camino del Rocío. In autumn, the grape harvest is associated with more festivals and celebrations. Music always plays a major role in our celebrations: processional marches, Sevillanas and flamenco. The popular flamenco costumes, with their frills, shawls, flowers and fans, or horseback riding and bullfighting costumes, are carefully prepared down to the finest detail.

Flamenco is one of our great popular displays of energy and passion. It is the most universal popular music and has been declared Intangible World Heritage by UNESCO. Visit the peñas (clubs), festivals and tablaos (flamenco clubs) and get to know the culture of flamenco town by town. Great figures of flamenco (Antonio Mairena, Cristina Hoyos and Javier Barón) and bullfighting (Belmonte, Joselito and Curro Romero) were born in Seville. Bullfighting is one of our most ancient rites. There are many bullfighting events in the province, among which the Maestranza of Seville stands out.

There is also a literary side to Seville, with universal poets and writers (Luis Cernuda, Antonio Machado and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer) and a Seville of painting and sculpture (Velázquez, Murillo, La Roldana and Valdés Leal). Walk through the streets and museums and relive the great moments of literature and art.
Today, Seville is also a film location. Numerous Andalusian and international productions have been made in the province, from which important contemporary figures have emerged.

Join in and let yourself be captivated by the Sevillians' passion for their traditions, town by town.

 

Flamenco, the most internationally renowned folklore music

Man, horse and bull have shaped the landscape of the Sevillian countryside

Religion, festivities, rites and myths come together in a unique way in an explosion of folk culture