Joaquín Martínez Sánchez
Without a doubt, Holy Week 2001 was not just another Holy Week. It marked the beginning and the end of many things. That year represents a turning point in the conception of how to approach new projects for our beloved Easter. I think that there was a turnaround in the way of acting, and it taught everyone that in Holy Week in Cieza you knew how to do things well, that quality projects could be carried out and with meaning, that finally some brotherhoods stopped "save the hard" and they went for the best, whatever the cost, it was not necessary to do everything in a hurry. Two brotherhoods gave a lesson in knowing how to wait, to mature a project, to be convinced that things are not done for the sake of doing them, but that everything must have its purpose and a reason in the whole of our Holy Week.
This is how our unforgettable Ana Mª Ruiz Lucas recognizes it, in an article she writes about the 2011 Art Commission in the Anda: “the years 96-97 became a milestone for the Commission, the projects of two new processions are presented , with their respective thrones, images and costumes. Two ancient dedications return from the past, but with pure air."
As Ana comments, it all began in 1996 with the presentation, to the recently created Art Commission of the Brotherhood Board, of two new projects that were forged within two different groups of friends and spurred on by different motivations. One of them already consolidated, and with the need to do something big to fill the void that existed on Holy Monday; and the other made up of young people full of illusion, who even created a new brotherhood to carry out a majestic, innovative and different project, which marks a revolutionary milestone in the dedications hitherto known in Holy Week around the world.
I have to admit that I feel privileged to be an "active participant" in both projects. They were years of hard work, but full of illusion. Many were the inconveniences that arose; but always at the last minute, and not without effort, we found the solution to overcome the difficulties.
Regarding the Cristo de la Sangre project, on June 21, 1996, the Brotherhood of Santa María Magdalena presented the corresponding request to the Board of Brotherhoods, with the arguments of the new procession that would take place on Holy Monday: “…day of Passion Week, which is empty in the Board's calendar, and which would take on a special importance with this new procession since it would have a series of peculiarities that would make it different from the others. There is a solemn Via Crucis celebration in which all the people will participate together with the brotherhood. It will parade in a very different way from what we usually do, the anderos will all go with the verduguillo hat, a circumstance that together with another series of innovations that the brotherhood is studying, they will manage to make a procession with very personal characteristics that can be seen inside of any other parade of those already existing.”
As can be seen, since 1996 it was already clear how the procession was going to be. For this reason, as I mentioned before, the patience that was shown to find both the image maker and the tronista to carry out the project is very striking. It was in the year 1999 when the sketch of the image of the Christ of the Blood was presented, commissioned to the irreplaceable D. Luis Álvarez Duarte; and in the year 2000 the sketch of the throne that would be made in the workshops of the Sevillian D. Antonio Ibáñez Valles.
In consideration of the other new procession project, it was April 30, 1996 when three friends, analyzing the pros and cons of Holy Week of that year, decided to value and recover the extinct Brotherhood of Souls, conceiving a main step under the invocation of "Jesus opening the gates of hell".
Quickly, and in a matter of ten months, we already had the brotherhood founded, and the constituent statutes were approved, detailing what the procession would be like and all its meaning. In the same way, it was clear from the beginning the artistic project and who would carry it out, with five years ahead for its execution. That same year, even before being constituted as a brotherhood, we had already commissioned the image to D. José Hernández Navarro. For the realization of the throne it was more difficult for us to find the right person, due to the peculiarity of the reliefs that we wanted to be represented on it. But in the year 1999, and by "divine art", Mr. Antonio Soriano Talavera crossed our path, who quickly captured the idea and made the magnificent reliefs that accompany us every Good Friday morning on our peculiar descent into the hells.
Therefore, it was the execution of these two projects that gave a quality leap in the ways of doing things in our Holy Week, not being in a hurry to bring out more images and thrones regardless of the artistic category, as had happened in the previous decades. It is fair to point out, however, that another Brotherhood, that of the Stmo. Cristo del Perdón, had already shown that he had assumed the change that had to be made, recovering what had characterized our Holy Week in the postwar period, when Cieza was looking for top-level sculptors to commission new steps; This is how, by the hand of Hernández Navarro himself, in 1999 the performance of “The Meeting of Jesus and Mary on Calle de la Amargura” was premiered. But I really believe that these two new processions were the Way of the Cross of the Blood and the Procession of Christ's Descent into Hell, because of everything that one and the other implied, and because of how they enriched the experience of Holy Week in its together, those who ended up setting the course and teaching the way to do things with patience, responsibility and common sense, which included, of course, bringing the best artists in Spain to Cieza.
As Ana Ruiz also points out in the aforementioned article from 2011: “…these two sketches, made a reality in 2001, represented a before and after in our Holy Week, the brotherhoods began to elaborate from then on as many modifications in thrones, belongings, costumes and new images that would be impossible to list one by one.”
From that moment on, and during the following two decades, there were many commissions from the ciezan brotherhoods that resulted in works of the highest quality by the best image makers in Spain. This is proven by the steps of “La Lanzada”, “Nuestra Señora de la Amargura”, “La Coronación de espinas”, “Las Santas Mujeres camino del Sepulcro”, and “Santísimo Cristo de la Expiración”. Works that have only come to consolidate processional imagery at a superlative level in Holy Week in Cieza, being even above other Holy Weeks more renowned than ours.
I always say it: "TWO THOUSAND ONE" beginning and end of many things...
