T
he evening of June 23rd in Palma is one that never wants to come to an end. Light lingers on the stone walls as the city begins to prepare for a night unlike any other. Between one street and the next, the sea appears suddenly, close and within reach. By late June, much of city life already takes place by the water, where the heat becomes bearable and many plans end up in a swim in the sea. During Sant Joan, on June 23, that relationship with the water inevitably leads to the Parc de la Mar. While the sandstone Cathedral takes on the honey and ochre tones of dusk, the park begins to fill with families, groups of friends, volunteers and members of the colles. The usual calm of the place slowly fades and, little by little, an ever-growing part of the city starts to gather at the foot of the Cathedral.That transformation is only the visible part of a celebration that has been weeks in the making. Before the public arrives, residents, associations and colles de dimonis have devoted a great deal of time to making it possible for the Revetla to occupy this space once again. To understand how Sant Joan came to become a night that truly belongs to Palma, let’s return to where it all began.
Palma was growing fast in the 1970s. New residents were arriving from other parts of Mallorca and from mainland Spain, and in many areas the bonds between neighbours were only just beginning to form. In that context, Sant Joan offered an occasion to meet outside the home, share other spaces and start to recognise one another as part of the same community. Maribel Alcázar Franco, president of the Federation of Neighbourhood Associations of Palma, places the origin of the Revetla within that civic movement. The celebration began in the Puig de Sant Pere, a neighbourhood historically tied to fishermen, craftsmen and maritime workers. There, around a torrada — a sardine grill — a much smaller festivity than the one that now draws thousands, began to take shape. The initiative did not come from the institutions: residents applied for permits, sourced lighting, prepared the grills and organised the stage.
The Revetla steadily drew more people until the streets of the Puig de Sant Pere were no longer enough. In the late 1980s, the Federation moved it to the Parc de la Mar and opened it to the whole of Palma. The change was driven by a necessity of more space, but it carried a deeper significance. The Parc de la Mar was the site of a successful neighbourhood movement that fought against a plan to build a car park. Holding the celebration there meant reclaiming a space that residents felt was rightfully theirs.
