Spanish Catalan casteller, known as Avi Emili in Terrassa, the city where he became involved in the founding of the two local casteller groups, the Minyons de Terrassa (1979) and the Castellers de Terrassa (1980). He was passionate about castells and their aesthetic beauty.
A castell is a human tower built traditionally at festivals in Catalonia, the Balearic islands and the Valencian Community. At these festivals, several colles castelleres (teams that build towers) attempt to build and dismantle a tower’s structure. On 16 November 2010, castells were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Throughout his life Miró collected press clippings and photographs from around the world about castells, the first in 1918, eventually collecting 800. He also collected about 150 texts of the motivational harangues he made in the gangs before beginning a performance, known as predicots, and correspondence he maintained with different castell personalities.
Miró was active with the Xiquets de Valls when they performed in his hometown of Vendrell. He was part of the Nens del Vendrell, and shortly after the Mirons, a group that was led by his brother Joan, and which owes its name to the surname of his family. He participated as a second tiersman in castells of seven tiers.
Despite maintaining ties with Vendrell, at the age of 20 he moved to Barcelona, ??where he attended several popular athenaeums. In 1935 he moved to Terrassa, where he also carried on his passion despite it being an industrial city with little previous tradition of castells. He followed closely the activity of the main gangs and between 1940 and 1950 he acted as public relations officer for the Children of Vendrell.
In 1957 he wrote a book Història dels castellers. Els Nens del Vendrell 1926-1957 (History of the Castellers: the Children of Vendrell 1926-1957). The chronicler Jaume Casanova, from Vilafranca del Penedès, christened him in 1975 as El patriarca de les lletres castelleres (The Patriarch of Castell Letters). As a result of his publications about the world of castells and his good relationship with many groups, in 1977 Emili Miró spoke at the Congress of Catalan Culture as a representative of all the castellers, at a time when rivalry between groups was still very strong.
Years later, when the Castellera Minyons de Terrassa group was founded in 1979, he was nominated to be its first president, a position he accepted. The following year, when a group of dissidents from this group split and created the Castellers de Terrassa group, Emili Miró also became president, a position he held until his death in 1993.
https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emili_Mir%C3%B3_i_Fons
Link to Castell