Mayor, Children’s Mayor. Most Illustrious Mr. Mayor. Presidents of the Central Board of Celebrations and of the Board of the Virgin. Members of the Municipal Corporation, Authorities. Villeneras and Villeneros, dear friends.
It is a great honour for me to announce that the Villena Festivities have begun, in honour of our Patron Saint, the Virgin of Virtues, La Morenica.
Furthermore, because fifty years ago, the First National Congress of Moors and Christians Festivals was held here in Villena, which was a great milestone in festive research, overcoming localisms, and meant the recognition of the economic and cultural importance of the Festival at a national level.
We have been worried for a week, constantly comparing weather apps and looking at the sky, looking for a forecast that will fill our Semana Grande with sunshine. But our Fiestas are famous throughout the world and it seems that not even the clouds wanted to miss them. So…
I’m here to announce that the perfect festive storm is coming.
The only one we want and the only one we’re going to have!
We already saw signs of this joyous storm in the sky when we were children.
My childhood is made up of memories of a balcony in Villena, as Machado would say; of a balcony in the Puerta Almansa. From there, one day I saw the arches in place and soon after, I heard the stands being set up and then: “brum, brum, brum”, it wasn’t thunder, it was the children running along its wooden planks. Later, I heard the “clack, clack” of the folding chairs as they opened and placed on the ground, like the first drops of a summer shower.
The excitement was running through our bodies and the nerves were wriggling in our stomachs.
Thus the celebration began to sparkle, in the form of drops of magic and excitement, with preparations in the house and, above all, in the streets.
The everyday streets, the ones used by the school, the ones used for errands to the Droguería Moderna, the El Paso Bakery or Casa Angelica, were dressed up to become the streets of the city dreamed of by any child. Cars no longer passed through Calle Ancha, but rather lavish carriages and spirited horses, and everything was filled with Moorish and Christian warriors. But these warriors did not fight. They hugged each other, laughed, greeted life and reunion, happy and imposing, exuding colour and camaraderie.
The whole of Villena became light and adventure in September, with the smell of gunpowder that celebrates and is grateful, not with the kind that kills, and with the smell of alabaster that refreshes and Villena was filled with music everywhere and at all hours.
And so, every September, life here surprised us and we grew older every year, and Villena, every year, became more beautiful.
As our festivals are something alive, that changes and evolves, like storms, I want to tell you that, more than thirty years ago, I was heartbroken when I was rudely thrown out of a party venue, for going dressed like a party-goer.
Today, however, the entrance will be opened by a female group from the Moros Viejos Parade, with Isabel Navarro as Corporal, after 200 years of Festive History, which is no small festivity! and 30 years of women’s participation, with full rights, in our Festivals.
That’s why this speech is so wonderful to me, it excites me even more, because I’m a woman, because I feel the party and because I’m from Villena.
This entry is going to make history! Like the Villena people who have fought so hard to get here.
When I was born, the law prohibited a woman from being a judge, and today, I am making the proclamation to you, because my city values my work as a judge.
Until 30 years ago, the Statutes of the Festival required being male to be a member, and today more than half of the fifteen thousand members of the festival are female. For this reason, our city and our festivals are and must continue to be an integrating model of modernity and tradition and a model of equality, and the women of Villena will always be a model of struggle and effort, because together, no one can stop us.
This strength of Villena is what runs through our veins and multiplies when we get together. That greatness of being part of a joyful and generous collective feeling is what makes our festivities unique, and what makes the outsiders who visit us leave better than they came, because one is from where one cries, but one will always want to go where one laughs.
We do not love Villena because it is great, but Villena is great because we love it. And this love is demonstrated by the festival-goers and musicians in the parades, those of us who break our hands applauding from the stands and balconies and the thousands of people who carry out a great silent work, so that today’s wonder is possible.
Because they say that gratitude is the memory of the heart, I want to thank all those who have worked to beautify our city and make our festivals great, worrying for many months so that today, we can enjoy them.
Today is the happiest day of the year for us. After this proclamation, the Pasodoble Festival will prepare us for the indescribable emotion that we will feel at four in the afternoon, when the two drum beats sound in Calle Nueva and the Municipal Band starts the first bars of “La Entrada”, accompanied by the clamor of the people who sing it like a hymn, and encourage them to start walking. At that moment, the whole of Villena becomes an infinite tornado of happiness and brotherhood.
All the festival-goers, ready, ready to parade, with a whirlwind of feelings and sensations: joy, warmth, music, nerves, friends by your side; while the worst and best moments of the year pass through your heads and you miss those who are not here, but are carried in your hearts.
Friends, friends, the perfect storm begins, ours, the festive one and only you are going to sweep street after street, until it begins to clear in the night of the day.
nine.
I, who, due to my profession, work daily with the failure of human beings, want you to be soaked to the bone with joy and to live these festivities as if they were the last, but with the respect and nobility of Villena.
I ask you to enjoy the great parades, giving it your all, to give your all in the Entrance and the Cavalcade, but also to enjoy the minor ones and the acts that are improvised and surprising in any street, at any time and that also
comfort the soul.
I beg you to accept, as the great gift that it is, the procession through the interior of our beautiful Church of Santiago and through the Raval and to experience it as a true interior parade.
And on the ninth, bid farewell to our Morenica as she deserves, with the explosion of arquebuses, and accompany her on a pilgrimage to her Sanctuary and make her look, when everything is over, one of pride and gratitude towards us, her children.
From September 4th to 9th we recover from the whole year, we feel that we are alive, that we are life and that we are lucky to experience one of the most exciting festivals in the world.
I am grateful to be able to live it and to be able to proclaim it.
Villena has given me wings to fly, roots to return to and reasons to stay.
Thank you Villena for giving me strong and brave wings to fly in search of life.
Thank you to my family for giving me pieces of their hearts to make this speech, because they are my roots to return to.
Thanks to my friends from Villena, for teaching me to be better, because they are my reasons for staying.
Villeneras and Villeneros, friends, thank you for your patience, be very happy and make others happy too.
Festeras, Festeros, see you at four o’clock on Calle Nueva!
Long live Villena! Long live the Virgin of Virtues!
Virtues Lopez Lorenzo.
Villena, September 5, 2024.
