Cabuts, capgrossos, cabeçuts, caparrots or cabets, their names are as varied as the personalities they embody and the places where they take to the streets. The bigheads are anthropomorphic figures typical of Catalan popular festivals that caricature people with a large disproportionate head. To do this, the wearer puts on his shoulders a prosthesis in the shape of a large head through which it is usually seen through the mouth.
It is common to see these human representations in different festive functions, either opening the way for processions, representing specific characters or, more recently, as an element of local homage to the municipality and its inhabitants.
The latter is the case of Terrassa, in Vallès Occidental, the city with the highest density per square meter of these cabezudos. Every year, as part of its fiesta mayor, the Capgròs of the Year is organized, the iconic celebration that celebrates one of its inhabitants with the creation of one of these popular creatures, in charge of the artist Jordi Grau since 1982.
In 2008, the bookseller and nature lover, Narcís Serrat, was chosen from among 13 candidates, who shares with Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia images, current and from 15 years ago, kissing the caricature of his own head , as well as portraits of the other bigheads from other editions.
Serrat, proposed by the entity that promotes the candidates, El Casinet de l’Espardenya, was defined as “a multifaceted man, sports center, polybookseller, polyclimber…”. He himself confesses that he did not expect this “prestige” and “recognition”, he says.
In fact, they had to convince him with an excuse to appear in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. There, as every year, the opening proclamation of the festivities takes place and the bighead of the year is known: “It is very emotional because everyone is anxious to find out who it will be.”
A month before revealing who is hiding behind the cover, the candidates (capdidats) present and defend their candidacy, and a ballot box is placed at street level for citizens to vote and choose the one worthy of having their own cardboard alter ego. .
Since then, the hiker who has conquered the Himalayas seven times, every year takes his figure out to dance during the holidays. He was the first to dare to do it and two more bigheads have already joined, who put on his own caricatures.
The bookseller and hiker says in this regard that “you have to be in shape, because it’s very hot inside and you have to be on the move.”
The big-headed collection, which this year has added 43 works with the recent addition of Núria Salán Ballesteros (chemist and president of the Catalan Society of Technology), is on display from the beginning of June until the end of the festival at the Casa Museu Alegre de Sagrera, as long as they are not scheduled for celebratory events that require their attendance.
The bigheads, both the newly created ones and the older, comical and grotesque specimens, can be visited in the dining room on the ground floor of this modernist manor house, where this exhibition organized by the Coordinadora de Grups de Cultura Popular i Tradicional is located. Catalan.
Once the festivities come to an end, the Bighead of the Year is displayed all year round in the hall of the Town Hall. Later, it is stored together with the rest of its companions following the protocols for its correct conservation, waiting for the next time that its flesh and blood versions take them out to dance.
