The Grec Festival emphasizes on creativity and international

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Thursday, 20 November 2008

By:Ana Rodríguez

The 2005 Grec Festival arrives to Barcelona again for its 29 edition with a wide offer of theatre, dance and music. This succession of shows, that will be celebrated from the 27th of Juny until the 8th of August, has turned into a cultural point of reference of the city, which seeks to promote the creation, the concreteness and its internationalization, according to sources of the organization.

In theatre, the event has made agreements of exchange and co-production of shows with some of the most important institutions and companies of the world. An example of this is the work of The Karamàzov Brothers directed by Krystian Magnifier, fruit of the joint work with the Vienna Festival. Likewise, the collaboration with the Volksühne of Berlin expresses itself in The Ten Commandments, directed by Christoph Marthaler. The Catalonian Xicu Masó directs the comedy of William Shakespeare “To your pleasure”.

In dance the emphasize is upon the contemporary Trisha Brown and the new proposal by Mal Pelo “Atlas”, where the last one is full of reflective and intimate poetry.

Music and cultures

In the world of music, continuing the keynote of the extensive range of offers that exist in Barcelona throughout the year, many of the artists will delight the public with a greatly varied performance. With this they intent to attract musicians that have not yet performed in Barcelona and experiment with “magical” matches where musicians of different styles coincided on the stage.

Here you’ll have a taste of what is waiting for you in this festival, the Italian singer and songwriter Paolo Conte will visit the count city for the first time, the fragile Marianne Faithfull will contribute strength and emotion, the young Jaime Cullum show us the world of jazz, the up-to-date Silvio Rodriguez will reflect on the war of Iraq, the sensual Craig David will introduce you to his second record Slicker than your average, the spiritual Cheikh Lô will present to us the Muslim and African culture, while the English Joss Stone stands out with one of the most appreciated voices of the soul. Orishas will give a Latin touch to the festival with an explosive mixture of hip hop with “son cubano”.

Of Spanish representatives, the incombustible Joan Manuel Serrat will give four recitals, Martirio and Miguel Poveda will honour to the couplet and Bebe and El Bicho from Madrid will offer the coolness of their music. The Majorcan pianist Agustí Fernández, the drums player from Alicante Ramón López and the English bass player Barry Guy will fuse the improvisation with the tradition of the modernity.

Social awakening

25 years ago, the members of the Catalonian theatre, gathered in the Assembly of Actors and Directors, decided to impel an aimed initiative to give a voice to their demands, so much in the professional as the social plan. Besides intending to obtain improvements in the sector, they sought to bring the theatre closer to the people, to make the culture a necessity, not a luxury.

The 1st of July 1976 the Grec is opened in the old theatre of Montjuïc with “The 7 hours of rock”. The Assembly decided to give priority to the music to emphasize the popular character of the event, in that period the effervescence of the phenomenon was given to the “singer-songwriters”, the symbol of the social and political demands of the post Franco’s regime.

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