Culture

The Great Escape Music Festival, in the UK, known for its commitment to up-and-coming groups, continues to support bands from Catalonia and other Catalan speaking areas. The latest edition of the festival brought together groups that have already performed over the past three festivals such as Mishima or Manel. This year the organisers also decided to include an exclusive space in the programme for bands from the Balearic Islands.

‘Pa Negre’ (‘Black Bread’) and its nomination to represent Spain at the 2012 Oscars reflects the desire of Catalan productions to shine with their own light, without losing their identity nor language along the way. Catalan cinema has reached a new stage in its history. Powered by a generation of young directors and a renewal of themes, Catalonia’s film industry wants to expand its borders and become part of the international cinema market.

An exhibition on Barcelona’s Sagrada Família Basilica and Antoni Gaudí’s architectural techniques are on show in the Vatican. It focuses on the art, science and spirituality displayed at the Catalan architect’s church. Pope Benedict XVI declared the Sagrada Família a basilica one year ago during a visit to Barcelona. At the time he commented on the beauty of the temple and spoke of his personal admiration for the work of Gaudí.

Married to viol player Jordi Savall, the Catalan Montserrat Figueras was one of the world’s most recognised experts and talented instrumentalists specialised in medieval music, as well as music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Together with Savall, they founded the groups Hespèrion XXI, the Capella Reial de Catalunya and the orchestra Le Concert des Nations. Figueras received many accolades, such as the ‘Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ in France and a Grammy Award.

China, Japan, Philippines and Malaysia are some of the countries that will host the exhibition ‘The Turn of the Century in Spanish Contemporary Art’, formed by works from the Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA) and the foundation of the Catalan savings bank ‘La Caixa’. The collection of both entities consists of 5.500 artworks and is considered one of the most important compilations in Southern Europe. The exhibition touring in Asia will include artworks from Spanish sculptors and painters like Antoni Tàpies, Eduardo Chillida or Miquel Barceló, from the last 50 years.

Theatre director Calixto Bieito, who has developed his career in Catalonia, presented a new play in Freiburg based on the masterpiece‘The great theatre of the world’, by Calderón de la Barca, one of Spain’s best theatrical writers from the 17th century. The show is the first spectacle from the Barcelona International Theatre project, promoted by the production company Focus. The show follows the original work from Bieito’s previous production.

The 18th edition of ‘L’Alternativa’ presents a strong programme despite economic difficulties. The event has consolidated itself as an example of cinema that “formulates questions and is not complacent”, according to its director, Margarita Maguregui

Ramon Navarro has published a new book that aims to “clearly” describe the results of three generations of research about the origins of Christopher Columbus

In-Edit 2011, Barcelona’s International Music Documentary Film Festival ended its ninth edition after eleven days of showings that gathered 54 national and international new releases and around 30.000 spectators. ‘Next Music Station: Morocco’, a documentary produced by Al-Jazeera and directed by Fermín Muguruza, has been this year’s National Prize winner. The International Prize was for ‘Last Days Here’, about the life of Pentagram’s singer, Bobby Liebing. Another great surprise was the presence of musician Michael Nyman, author of many Hollywood soundtracks.

Perajaume is one of the main Catalan artists of our time, part of a generation that is already gaining a lot of international recognition, with artist’s such as Jaume Plensa. Perajaume is known for his landscape visual poetry, expressing the excess of the current times and exhorting the return to natural roots. The exhibition is not a conventional retrospective, but instead a “programmatic proclamation”, an element of reflection on the function, the limits and the fate of art when opposed to excess.

Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to adapt a series produced and broadcast by Catalonia’s public TV station. The American name will be ‘The Red Band Society’ and Marta Kauffman, creator of ‘Friends’, might be in charge of the script. The main characters in the series are a group of teenagers with cancer, who develop a friendship and explore their imagination in hospital. ‘Polseres vermelles’ was a huge success on Catalan television and the second season is in production.

The Catalan capital will be enjoying the 43rd edition of its jazz festival until December 1st. In the current edition, many Catalan artists will participate in the festival, such as Andrea Motis, Lluís Coloma, La Vella Dixeland or Biel Ballester. International figures such as Michel Camilo, Omar Sosa or Paolo Conte will also be on Barcelona’s stages.

Georges Enescu’s opera Oedipe will start its run next Saturday at a Belgian Opera House. It is a new challenge for La Fura del Baus, who was handed the task by Brussel’s La Monnaie–De Munt’s director after the great success of Le grand Macabre in 2009. Alex Ollé, director of the Catalan theatre company, explained CAN the troupe’s interest in this type of spectacle that is “equally or even more interesting than theatre”.

Barcelona’s Opera Theatre offers only three portrayals of the Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel’s opera ‘Jo, Dalí’ (I, Dalí). It is a four act opera, which comes to the Barcelona theatre for the first time. Xavier Benguerel is one of the most recognised classical music contemporary composers in Catalonia.

‘Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape’ was on show at London’s Tate Modern until September, being one of the must-see exhibitions of the year. Now it arrives at the Fundació Miró in Barcelona. It is the most complete exhibition on one of the most universal Catalan artists of all time, with 170 works on display from public and private collections from all over the world. The exhibition has the double objective of rediscovering Miró’s work and showing his commitment in the era he lived in. Another exhibition on Miró’s posters will run in parallel, focussing on his involvement in Catalan cultural, political and civic initiatives.