La Baldufa, PREMIO NACIONAL 2020

Our latest production, "Amal," has been selected by FETEN, the European Fair of Performing Arts for children and young people. The show will be presented in Gijón, in its theatrical version, on Wednesday, February 28th at 11:45 am at the Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura venue.

"Amal," premiered in July 2023, has been showcased in venues such as FiraTàrrega, the Esbaiola’t Festival, or Lleida. The play tells the story of a young woman who, after experiencing the horrors of war, has had to leave her country in search of refuge in Europe. We are delighted that a significant fair like FETEN is featuring a production like "Amal," especially in such a complex and challenging time as the one we are currently facing in many aspects. We believe that performances also serve as a means to engage, involve, and commit ourselves to the society we live in; we strive to provoke and stimulate the audience's thoughts, and FETEN provides an enormous platform to achieve this.

At this same fair, La Baldufa already received last year the FETEN Award for the Best Large Format Show, for ImPERFECT. Also, the company won the Awards for Best Production and Best Scenic Space for The Fable Of The Squirrel. Previously, in 2019, the Award for Best Male Performance, Ex Aequo, for the show Mi Father Is An Ogre; in 2015, the Award for Best Show and Award for Best Direction for Pinocchio, the Award for Best Theatrical Adaptation in 2012 for The Happy Prince; the Award for Best Male Performance Ex Aequo 2010 for Cirque Déjà Vu; the Award for Best Stage Space for The Imaginary Book in 2008 and two other awards for Baron Munchausen in 2001: Best Show and Best Set Design.

We return from FiraTàrrega with very positive feelings after having had the opportunity to present "Amal," our latest show, with the duo Laiaiona

After its premiere at the Esbaiola't Festival in July, "Amal" could be seen this past weekend at the 43rd edition of FiraTàrrega. An edition that featured 350 artists, 46 shows, and 17 exhibition spaces. It has been a few days of great intensity and many emotions, but we have loved being able to present "Amal" in such an exceptional setting.

We would like to thank the entire fair's team, who year after year works tirelessly to make both the public and companies feel so warmly welcomed and ensure the event's success. "Amal" has been a part of the fair's Support for Creation Program, and they couldn't have treated us better. The reception, support, and guidance they provided throughout the creative process have been outstanding. Additionally, the show has had the support of IntercettAzioni - Centro di Residenza Artistica della Lombardia/Circuito CLAPS. We are also deeply grateful to them for believing in our project and helping us bring it to life.

And of course, thanks to all the public that has come to see the show and accompanied us on these days as "Amal" began to take its first steps. We hope it goes far!

For now, "Amal's" next stop will be in Lleida on Saturday, September 23.... and very soon, we will be unveiling new dates!

We finish another Esbaiola't Festival and we do it with infinite gratitude to everyone for having enjoyed 16 editions of this wonderful cultural adventure.

This has been the last edition in which La Baldufa has been in charge of the artistic direction and organization of the festival. The decision to pass the baton has not been taken lightly, as this festival is more than just an event for us. It is a fundamental part of our life and a source of inspiration for our artistic career.

The reasons that have led us to take a step aside are several:

-The main task of the company is the production of theater shows, while the artistic direction of Esbaiola't was like an extra job. During these 15 years we have enjoyed carrying out the festival, but the current structure of the company does not allow us to continue managing it as we had done so far, nor with the level of quality and professionalism that we had achieved and that we think the Esbaiola't deserves.

-In addition, the festival has achieved a stable level of programming and audience over the years. Now that the festival is already consolidated, we believe it is a good time to pass the torch and allow new energies and visions to take over its leadership.

-On the other hand, despite the efforts of the City Council of Esterri d'Àneu, ensuring the financial sustainability of a festival of these characteristics has not always been an easy task. We also hope that this step aside serves to make the institutions realize that more support is needed for cultural initiatives such as Esbaiola't, which represent an opportunity for cultural and social growth for the town, the region and for the whole country.

We are confident that everything we have sown these years will be useful for whoever takes over. Long live the Esbaiolat!

Last week we were once again at FETEN, the European Performing Arts Fair for Children. We return from this 32nd edition with the satisfaction of having been able to show the work we have done with ImPERFECT and with the enormous joy of having been recognized with the Award for Best Large Format Show.

FETEN 2023 took place between February 26th and March 3rd, with the participation of 79 companies from almost all the autonomous communities and from countries such as Denmark, France, Italy, Portugal, Ethiopia and Mexico, taking up pre-pandemic figures.

We are very happy that among the award winners there is another company from Lleida, Zum-Zum Teatre, recognised with the best direction for "El Testament" for the work of Ramon Molins, Jokin Oregi, Izaskun Fernández and Julián Sáenz López. And we are very happy that there are still three other companies of the Asociación de Teatro para Todos los Públicos (TTP) awarded: Inspira Teatre (Best Show for Early Childhood for "Sotabisc"), Samfaina de Colors (Best Music for "Sense Lluna") and La Pera Limonera (Best Playwriting for "Un vestit nou per l'Emperador"). In total, 5 companies from the TTP returned with an award from Gijón.

At this same fair, La Baldufa already received last year the FETEN Awards for Best Production and Best Scenic Space. Previously, in 2019 the Award for Best Male Performance, Ex Aequo, for the show Mi Padre es un Ogro; in 2015 the Award for Best Show and Award for Best Direction for Pinocchio, the Award for Best Theatrical Adaptation in 2012 for El Príncipe Feliz; the Award for Best Male Performance Ex Aequo 2010 for Cirque Déjà Vu; the Award for Best Stage Space for El Libro Imaginario in 2008 and two other awards for Baron de Munchausen in 2001: Best Show and Best Set Design.

Many thanks to the organisers for having once again placed their trust in us and congratulations to the other award winners!

We are very excited to announce that our new creation, the circus show that will be directed by La Baldufa as a collective creation with the circus artists Ona Vives and Laia Gómez (Duo Laiaiona), has been selected by Firatàrrega for its program Suport a la Creació (Support for Creation).

In this way FiraTàrrega will co-produce the show and accompany the process of stage creation, with support in different aspects, including a two-week residency in the capital of Urgell. This work stay in Tàrrega will give shape to the show and includes a program of open rehearsals.

The result will be a theatrical and contemporary circus show, for all audiences, which will premiere at the Esbaiola't Festival, in Esterri d'Àneu, in July 2023.

Last May we already started the creative process of this new creation which, for the first time in the company's trajectory, will be a circus production. It will also be the first time that the company will not act, but we will look after the direction, the creation of the scenic space and the dramaturgy of the show, leaving the interpretative part to the duo Laiaiona, two multifaceted circus artists, specialized mainly in acrobatics.

The company's latest show, ImPERFECT, has been selected by the European Performing Arts Fair for Children, FETEN. Directed by Solo Picó, ImPERFECT will take place in Gijón on Thursday, March 2, at 11.45 am.

It is an honor that a reference fair for children's theater such as FETEN counts on us again. We also celebrate that the fair makes a commitment to unconventional shows such as ImPERFECT, an ode to challenges where we experiment with new languages outside the established canons.

In the last edition of the fair we returned with two awards: the FETEN Award for Best Production and Best Scenic Space for the show The Squirrel's Fable. And in previous editions we already received the Award for Best Male Interpretation, Ex aequo, for the show My Father is an Ogre in 2019, the Award for Best Show and Award for Best Direction for Pinocchio in 2015, the Award for Best Theatrical Adaptation in 2012 for The Happy Prince, the Award for Best Male Interpretation Ex aequo 2010 for Cirque Déjà vu, the Award for Best Scenic Space for The Imaginary Book in 2008 and two more awards for Baron de Munchausen in 2001: Best Show and Best Set Design.

We are also especially excited that in the advance programming of FETEN 2023 there are other companies of Lleida origin such as Festuc Teatre (Bunji, the little Koala), Zum-Zum Teatre (The Testament) and Romancera Teatre (M.A.R.E.), as well as the large number of Catalan companies, many of them members of the TTP.

Traveling continuously, as we theater people do, has wonderful things (we will leave for another day the things that are not so wonderful). One of the privileges of traveling so much is to be able to meet a diversity of projects, many people with love for the theater, with different ways of managing everything that goes into staging a show. It seemed to us that one of the last places where we have worked would be worthy of being on the list of those with good practices.

This idea that the show begins when the curtain rises, does not go much with the spirit of the Teatre L'Artesà (Prat de Llobregat), a space where they take great care of everything around the performance. That's why they put tons of energy and talent into aspects such as mediation, community work and parallel activities. Mediation work allows each show to reach the public in the best way possible, from a transversal perspective. They take great care of this at the Artesà, as they also take care of the community work (with aspects such as co-creation) or with parallel activities such as talks or workshops. A management model that comes from the dedication and commitment of Cristina and César: working with you has been a privilege, and we feel it is necessary to thank you for your good work, a task that has always helped us to improve our proposals.

A good example of this spirit is the "Caminos Vivos" project dedicated to creating spaces for exchange and collaboration between the artists working at Teatre L'Artesà and several schools in El Prat. They make the theater "a meeting place where artists, teachers and students can bring common interests and work into play and thus build together more and more complicit pedagogical practices. Through the arts we can encourage the development of participation and collaboration in educational contexts and, in this way, grow together in the school community, in the family environment and in the city-world". From humility, every day they fill with content words such as transversality or collaboration.

What we have discovered in all the rooms in this emblematic space in El Prat de Llobregat has thrilled us. Spaces like Teatre L'Artesà are taking very interesting steps to improve the model of exhibition and theater-companies relationship. Thank you for pouring in talent and energy.

Since last February, La Baldufa, together with the Fundació Champagnat, the UE Gardeny and the City Council of Lleida, we have launched La Descomunal.

La Descomunal is the first Urban Community of the city of Lleida. The Urban Communalities are an initiative of the social economy program of the Department of Enterprise and Labor of the Generalitat and aim to improve the commons and create new mutual aid projects that generate a social and unique impact in each territory, especially for those people who are in vulnerable situations. Currently, 22 communities have already been created throughout Catalonia.

In our case, the project is applied in Zone 09 of the city of Lleida, with the neighborhoods of La Mariola, Turó de Gardeny and Blocks Juan Carlos (a space characterized by a strong socio-territorial fragmentation and where eminently working class families with many economic and social difficulties reside); also in the neighborhoods of Instituts, Sant Ignasi, Escorxador, Pius XII, Universitat, Joc de la Bola and Horta de Lleida.

The objective is to protect and strengthen the economic and community network through the social and solidarity economy of the city. All this, giving value to new mutual aid projects that can be born from the efforts of the neighborhood and associative network, local commerce, mutual support networks and working people. Specifically, we work from three lines of action: the Enre9 network (culture), the Remou network (sports) and the Enter network (labor insertion).

The Enre9 network
The Enre9 network is the cultural network, headed by La Baldufa, which aims to develop activities that promote culture in the community.

We firmly believe in culture as an axis of social transformation and with the project of La Descomunal we want to generate actions, projects and events that are motivating for the area. We focus especially on the core of the area of La Descomunal, Zone 09, a space where, historically, there has been no cultural programming of popular access.

Today, from this network we have already launched some proposals:

  • The School of Arts. A space to work interculturally and host a range of cultural activities available to everyone. At this point, workshops are underway in theater, choral (in conjunction with the work of the community team of social services linked to the neighborhood and the city council), djmbe and cajón. New courses are expected to be added in January.
  • The Enre9 Festival. Enre9, a performing arts festival that combines professional shows with other artistic expressions born from community and social work, was born on May 2022. The festival aims to empower and energize the territory and its inhabitants, and by May 2023 the second edition is expected to be held.
  • La Descomunal is going to... Together with the City Council, social services and other entities of the neighborhood we are carrying out cultural and artistic accompaniments to neighboring families in the area to make a public work and bring equal access to quality culture, taking advantage to generate new spaces of union and social bonding. We have also launched specific cultural visits for the elderly people of the area, with the collaboration of the community team of social services in the area and the llar of retirees of the civic center of La Mariola.
  • Meetings of freelance artists. We have also launched an initiative to meet the artists of the cultural field who live or act within the margin of the area of the Community. The objective will be to be able to accompany them and provide a network through common objectives and initiatives.
  • La Descomunal hits the streets. One morning a month La Descomunal will be installed somewhere in the city to be more visible to the citizens and explain the projects that are underway and in which people can participate. These sessions will always be accompanied by some cultural activity such as storytelling, live music, theater...

This October we packed our bags and took our show Arrivederci, Confetti to the 16th "Festival de Tradiciones de Vida y Muerte" of Mexico.

Between October 30th and November 3rd we performed 9 shows of the show, within the framework of this multidisciplinary festival of performing arts that takes place at Xcaret Park in Mexico (Playa de Carmen), a park that gives place to nature, culture and tradition. It is an annual event that hosts shows from all over the world and also shows the most significant cultural and traditional representations of the Mayan world around the Hanal Pixan, which is the celebration of the day of the dead in the region of Quintana Roo.

Arrivederci, Confetti fit perfectly into this framework, as it is a show that speaks of mourning, where three clowns mourn the death of their leader, Confetti. To bring the show to Mexico we designed a specific set design that was built by the Park, and from here we brought the props and costumes.

The expedition, initially planned for 2020, had to be postponed due to the pandemic and has not been possible until now.

We are very happy to have been able to be part of a program with Mayan, Mexican and international artistic proposals, in a park that gives so much importance to ecology and culture.

The company will be in charge of the direction and dramaturgy, while on stage we will be able to see the duo Laiaiona, two circus artists who will assume the interpretative part.

In the 26 years of the company, La Baldufa has been, fundamentally, on stage. From the first production, "Para reír?... 3 Cerditos en la playa!", to the last one, "ImPERFECT", Enric Blasi, Emiliano Pardo and Carles Pijuan have been authors, co-directors and performers, a role that in this new creation they cede to the duo Laiaiona. For the first time, then, it will not be the 3 creators of La Baldufa who will perform, but they will focus on the role of directors, creating collectively with two circus artists with long experience despite their youth: Ona Vives and Laia Gómez.

Last May, the creative process began for the new show, which still has no name, and which, for the first time in the company's history, will be a circus show. "Circus has always been very present in our lives, and we have shared stages with outstanding circus projects and artists, a discipline that is gaining presence and that has more and more heterogeneous proposals, very interesting at a conceptual and dramaturgical level" explains Carles Pijuan, one of the directors. "The circus has its own codes and we will try to respect them as much as possible, while contributing all our dreamlike and narrative universe," he adds.

It will also be the first time that the company will not be on stage, but will be in charge of the direction, the creation of the scenic space and the dramaturgy of the show, leaving the interpretative part to the duo Laiaiona, two multifaceted circus artists, but specialized mainly in acrobatics. "We have always been very clear about the need to have, in each of our creative journeys, a person to do the stage direction, to order the creation made collectively. This figure of direction is in charge of ordering and polishing all the creative material generated collectively" says Emiliano Pardo, another member of La Baldufa. And the other director, Enric Blasi, adds: "We have worked with great professionals such as Jorge Picó, Jokin Oregi, Ramon Molins and Sol Picó, among others, and from all of them we have learned something that we will now try to apply to this new project".

The duo Laiaiona fits perfectly in this new project. Ona Vives (Cornellà de Llobregat, 1997) and Laia Gómez (Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1997) met at the Rogelio Rivel School and also studied together at the University of Circus Arts CODARTS in Rotterdam. They are specialized in acrobatic portés and Icarian games, an ancient discipline of the circus arts consisting of human juggling, which has practically disappeared. Laiaiona performed in the last edition of Esbaiola't in the show "Les Encantades", in the middle of nature.

La Baldufa discovered this duo in the show Nuye de Circ "Eia". "We were captivated by their solidity when performing acrobatics, their stage presence and their theatrical play", summarizes Blasi. From the circus game in which Laiaiona are specialized, the show will talk about contemporary social situations and conflicts. A creation process that, as in all of La Baldufa's shows, will be articulated through creative complicities. "Our work is always based on the sum of all the intelligences involved in the project and the contribution that each one makes. We always work on the basis of collectivity," says Emiliano Pardo.

The result of all this will be a theatrical and contemporary circus street show, for all audiences, which can be seen for the first time at the next Esbaiola't Festival, in Esterri d'Àneu, in July 2023.

We close the 15th edition of the Esbaiola't Festival still tired and with emotions running high, but with very good feelings.

It has been four intense days of emotions, atmosphere, laughter, landscape, fun, nature... and above all, of performing arts and culture in an exceptional setting. In this fifteenth edition of the festival we wanted, more than ever, to make a fierce defence of culture for all, for all ages and for all territories, recovering everything we had enjoyed before the pandemic.

We would like to thank all the companies that have participated, all the volunteers, the workers, the artistic, programming and production team, the sponsors and collaborators, the companies of the Valls d'Aneu that have given us financial support, the institutions that still believe in the festival year after year, and to everyone who has been involved in one way or another. And above all, thanks to all the public that has accompanied us and has made this edition unique.

Now, let's think about the 16th edition. Long live Esbaiola't!

Next week we will participate in the GREC Festival with our show ImPERFECT! The performances will be on 6 and 7 July 2022, at 18.30h, at the Sant Andreu Teatre - SAT.

We are very happy to be able to present ImPERFECT at the Grec Festival -which is also co-producer of the show-, and that they are betting on "unconventional", investigative and contemporary family theatre.

ImPERFECT is about imperfections, second chances and the right to reinvent oneself. After 25 years on stage doing family shows, in this new adventure we have put ourselves under the orders of Sol Picó to get out of our comfort zone and create a dance show, a completely new language for us.

And why? Well, because at La Baldufa we are motivated by the mixture, by stage crossbreeding, by unconventional creation. We have always felt a great attraction for experimenting with new languages, outside the established canons and, obviously, for challenges. And on this occasion, it has been a challenge in capital letters.

And we have done it in the best company, with Sol Picó, one of the most renowned and heterodox artists in contemporary dance. Her creations are pure mixture. Multidisciplinary, transgressive, determined to cross and overcome the barriers of stage languages. We could not have embarked on this adventure with anyone better. We have had an absolute artistic and personal connection with her, we have enjoyed the process very much and we believe that this shows in the final result.

Imperfect was co-produced by Mostra Igualada, Festival GREC, Festi'Mômes, Questembert Communauté and LaSala - Centre de Creació d'Arts per a les famílies. It has also had the collaboration of Teatro Cánovas in Málaga, Festival Sismògraf in Olot, Teatre Municipal de l'Escorxador in Lleida and Sant Andreu Teatre - SAT, in Barcelona.

We think that the result is an aesthetically powerful and suggestive show. An interesting journey with points of emotion and with a great aesthetic and dramatic force. We also want to invite you to move your body and use dance as a tool of expression, as we believe it is very powerful. What do you think? Are you up for it?

From May 26th to 29th the first edition of the Enre9 Festival was held in Lleida's Zone 09 (La Mariola, Bloques Joan Carles y Turó de Gardeny) and it was a great success! Four days of programming in the streets, where it has been possible to see more than fifty proposals.

Zone 09 includes some of the most stigmatized places in the city. With the festival we wanted to contribute to revitalize the area, to see quality artistic performances, to value the diversity and interculturalism of its people, and to make Zone 09 known to the rest of the city.

The Enre9 has been promoted by the Culture Committee of the area, in which we are linked both La Baldufa, as neighborhood and majority groups that live and work in the neighborhood, together with the City Council of Lleida. It has also had the support of the Institu d'Estudis Ilerdencs of the Diputació de Lleida, Òmnium Cultural Lleida-Ponent and the Pla Educatiu d'Entorn de Lleida. On the other hand, the project is also part of the Comunalitat Zona 09, a union of entities to contribute to the development of social and solidarity economy in the area. It should also be noted the large component of social participation of the festival: more than twenty entities and institutions from the rest of the city have collaborated, as well as nearly sixty volunteers.

The festival kicked off on Thursday 26th with school performances in the two schools in the area (Santa Maria de Gardeny and Magí Morera i Galicia). During the 4 days of Enre9, there were shows by professional Catalan companies such as Farrés Brothers y Cia, Soon Circus, La Dinamo, Zum-Zum Teatre, Xip Xap, Circ Pistolet, Centre de Titelles de Lleida, La Baldufa, Sound de Secà, InHabitants and Aquafonia; or the Aragonese companies Titiriteros de Binéfar and Civi-Civiac Producciones. On the other hand, one of the main characteristics of the festival is that a large part of the program has been made up of non-professional shows, arising from social and community work in the area, as well as musical and popular culture performances. There have also been two shows created by foundations that work with functional diversity and two performances of artistic schools of the city.

We could not be happier with the result. We believe that the festival has been very well received by the population of Zone 09 and all the citizens who have come to enjoy the festival. We also think that this first edition has been a small sample of what can become the Enre9 in the future, since with the strength of the festival and the involvement of more entities, many more projects can be born that will serve to improve the Zone 09 and the lives of people. Long live the Enre9!

It is a great pleasure to have returned to the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya to represent our Bye bye, Confetti. Moreover, we have done it in a different space that we have loved: the Gardens of the TNC!

We have been there for the last two weeks, doing daily school performances during the week and family performances on Saturdays and Sundays. It has been such a privilege to be part of this new stage of one of the great theaters of our country.

In our shows we seek to move things, to make emotions dance and, why not, to make all those muscles work that are involved when we laugh. And so, we return happy because the show has worked, and because it shows that at the TNC there is also room for family theater, and that the family theater audience is eager to see different proposals.

And we are sure that all this audience wants more. We think, therefore, that it would be very interesting if when a company leaves, it leaves the hot seat for another one to come in. It is necessary to evaluate if 3 annual family shows are enough, we think that it is possible to go much further, and that we have proposals in abundance to fill the poster of quality.

With these desires we say goodbye excited for having been able to perform again in the theater of reference in Catalonia. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts and see you soon!

 

Last Friday we presented our latest show -ImPERFECT- at Mostra Igualada and it was perfect. No, better yet: Imperfect!

It has been the culmination of a very cool journey, but it has also taken us to the limit, putting us in a zone of total and absolute risk.

We can only thank everyone who has accompanied us, especially Sol Picó. With her we have had an absolute artistic and personal connection and thanks to her guidance we have been able to express with dance (a new language for us) much more than we would have ever thought.

We cannot forget either the rest of the great team that has been with us throughout this process: Encarni Sánchez and Marta Casals who have contributed to make it possible for the baldufos to dance; Victor Ayuso and Estudi Zamenhof who have blown us away with their music; and of course, the whole team of La Baldufa and their usual collaborators. Thanks also to Mostra Igualada for their trust, as well as to the rest of the co-producers (GREC Festival, Festi'Mômes and LaSala. Centro de Creación de Artes para las familias) and collaborators (Teatro Cánovas, Festival Sismògraf, Teatre Municipal de l'Escorxador de Lleida and Sant Andreu Teatre - SAT).

Now we are looking forward to performing at the Sismògraf festival and at the Grec Festival, and we are also looking forward that the show starts touring and can be seen everywhere.

Under the direction of Sol Picó we are facing for the first time the challenge of dancing on stage. And what a challenge! With this new creation we have completely left our comfort zone and we have lived a very different creative process to what we are used to so far.

After the creative residencies at the Centre Culturel l’Asphodèle (Questembert), the SAT! Sant Andreu Teatre (Barcelona) and the Estruch (Sabadell), this week we face the final stretch of the process with a creative residency at LaSala. Centre de Creació d'Arts per a les famílies, to continue later with the preview of the show on March 19 and 20, at the Teatro Cánovas in Málaga.

All this will lead to the premiere of the show on April 1 at Mostra Igualada, and subsequent performances at the Sismógraf Festival in Olot and at the Grec Festival in Barcelona.

The countdown begins!

We are very excited to have been able to be back at FETEN and also to return with two awards under our arms! In this last edition, our show La Fábula de la Ardilla has been awarded twice with the FETEN Award for Best Production and Best Set Design

In this same fair, we already received in 2019 the Award for Best Male Interpretation, Ex Aequo, for the show My Father is an Ogre, in 2015 Award for Best Show and Award for Best Direction for Pinocchio, the award for Best Theatrical Adaptation in 2012 for The Happy Prince, the award for Best Male Interpretation Ex Aequo 2010 for Cirque Déjà vu, the award for Best Scenic Space For The Imaginary Book in 2008 and two more awards for Baron of Munchausen in 2001: Best Show and Best Set Design.

FETEN was held from February 13 to 18 in Gijón, and has had nearly 200 performances by 76 companies, including the Lleida-based companies Sidral, Festuc, Centre de Titells, Mag Lari and La Baldufa. Companies from 14 autonomous communities and from France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Argentina have been represented in FETEN.

Many thanks to the organization for having trusted us once again and congratulations to the rest of the award winners!

Ticket in hand, you walk through the door, sit down, the lights go out. In the stalls, a string of wide-open eyes, old and young, point to the stage, curious, passionate and excited. There is a silence that precedes the storm of emotions? The show begins!

That's the way it starts. Because the show, or at least its cooking, had started a long time ago, several months before. With those crazy ideas that were thrown into the void, without a safety net. Some of them died stamped, while others survived, intertwining to form the marvelous and unique thing that happens on stage when the lights go on.

What the public will see there is usually the result of a long cooking, where certainly many things will have happened. We confess that in La Peonza we are into slow fire, and in this slow cooking, in this care for detail, there are some days that for us are always essential. Some days in which we renounce the family, where we move away from our usual environments (this would be the price to pay) to immerse ourselves completely, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week in the rehearsal process. And we do it in an environment with professionals, technicians, producers, who provide high quality to this final part of the creation of a show. A space and a time of total immersion, in which the creations take the final form. These spaces are the residencies, and, after many years enjoying them, we think it is necessary to recognize the virtues of the model that our neighboring country has.

The French residences for creation model, provides resources and professionals to carry out the work well. The administration understands that generating these spaces for creation is important for artists and provides their work with quality. What is achieved goes beyond an optimal level of rehearsal. A cultural project is woven (theater, town or city) with a transversal view, where while the show is being cooked there is a mediation work with the environment, where there is room for counterparts such as parallel training activities in schools. And where the creation of previous audiences is also encouraged, a long-haul work that residencies in France also facilitate.
Surely we are not discovering anything new here when we insist that culture needs time, space and conditions. And in this sense, we should thank countries like France for leading the way, and work to ensure that this model of transversal residency becomes more and more common in our region.

 

When we choose shows, are we conditioned by the cataloguing of "children's theater" or "youth theatre?". We have always thought that these classifications are not helpful, but rather restrictive, and that perhaps it would be more appropriate to do as they do in the cinema and speak of "recommended ages".

There are a thousand examples: Xirriquiteula's Laika, Zum-Zum's shows like Polzet or Marie de Jongh's creations like Amour... these are works that can be enjoyed by children, teenagers, young people and adults. So, why pigeonhole them as "children theatre"?

Many of our shows also aspire to break down this invisible wall to allow more adult people to enjoy them. For example Pinocchio, Bye bye, Confetti, My father is an Ogre.... We see, in each representation, that emotions run the same way, regardless of age.

A shake-up to reinvent the cataloguing of shows would allow many "for adults" to add children and young people, and would make it easier for "children theatre" performances to incorporate adults and teenagers who very often do not find their place in these age boxes that are imposed on them.

How do you see it, should we shake up the catalogues and adopt those of the cinema for the theater?

 

Following the order of the Commission of Culture of the Consell zona 09 "Mariola, Turó de Gardeny and entorns",  we are launching a performing arts festival in the neighborhood that we hope will come soon!

The company feels theater as a commitment to society. We firmly believe that culture is fundamental for the people growth; it fosters values, feeds the critical spirit, brings people together, makes them grow, excites....

Thus, for years, we try to do our bit in the neighborhood and regularly organize activities around culture and theater, such as workshops at the Magí Morera School, the theater festival around St. George or the Passallibres.

Last Thursday we took a step further on this path and held a first meeting with the cultural sector of the city, neighborhood education and social sector, to begin to create complicities to launch this new festival of performing arts in the area.

The idea is to create a cultural and social project for the neighborhood with two clear aspects:

  • Professional performing arts programming in different spaces in the neighborhood, with circus shows, theater, puppet shows, Installations....
  • Social theater. Confluence between the neighborhood community and the artists performing in the festival to create shows or artistic interventions, also part of the festival.

Although we are still in the beginning, we start this new project with great enthusiasm and we hope we can also count on many complicities along the way!

The Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC) has kicked off the new 2021-2022 season, the first with Carmen Portacelli as Artistic Director. The program includes 38 productions and we are very excited that one of them is our show Bye bye, Confetti!

The performances will take place on Saturdays April 30 and May 7, at 5 p.m., and on Sundays May 1 and 8 at 12 noon. There will also be school performances on April 27, 28 and 29, and May 4, 5 and 6, at 10:00 am.

Information and tickets here!

_
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram