festival

The Tàrrega Theatre Fair, in the county of Urgell, in Western Catalonia, lowered the curtain on this year’s festival this Sunday. Between the 8^th and the 11^thof September, the town welcomed a programme with 60 performances from 57 national and international companies and 263 sessions in 26 different exhibition spaces. More than 887 professionals, 547 of whom were Catalan, with 180 hailing from Spain and 190 from abroad, took part in this traditional event that every year fills with colour the streets of this city near Lleida. This 36^th edition closed with a positive balance: 14,450 tickets sold, in comparison to the 13,000 visitors of last year, and an occupancy rate above 87% at the theatre shows. A total of 3,315 people stayed at the camping area of the event. The artistic director of FiraTàrrega, Jordi Duran, is satisfied with the results: “It was a show rich in content and we enjoyed the good weather”, he stated. 

Isla Fantasia waterpark, located 30 kilometres north of Barcelona, hosted this Tuesday the 'Water Park Day', the main highlight of Circuit Festival 2016, the world’s largest LGBTI party. Around 8,000 people from all over the world, mainly gay males between 25 and 40 years old, enjoyed the sun, the water facilities and live sessions from nine different DJs, in what is considered to be the biggest open-air gay party in Europe. Circuit Festival kicked off in Barcelona on the 2^nd of August and will feature a wide range of parties, concerts, sports events and other leisure activities for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people until the 14^th of August. Last year around 72,000 people attended the Circuit, 80% of them foreigners. 

Sónar 2016 closed its doors on its 23^rd edition with 115,500 visitors from a hundred countries. This figure is slightly lower than 2015, but maintains the last five-year average. This year, the voices of artists that had highly critical content had special relevance, noted the organisers of the festival. The co-director of the festival, Ricard Robles, said that foreign nationals who attended were mostly British, then French, German, and Italian, with an increased presence of Americans. Co-director Ventura Barba spoke positively about the sister event to the music festival that ran parallel to it, Sónar+D, which saw the participation of more than 4,500 music professionals. The novelties for Sónar 2017 have been announced, and they include two new cities added to the international route: Istanbul and Hong Kong.

Sónar Festival began its 23^rd edition on Thursday with its first daytime sessions, welcoming the acts The Black Madonna, Kenny Dope (formerly Masters at Work), Mad Professor, sharing the stage with The Spanish Dub Invasion, British MC Lady Leshurr, and a classical piano recital by James Rhodes to the Barcelona sun. This total of 130 eclectic acts are being hosted at the Montjuic fairgrounds, where thousands of participants attended, and will presumably attend again on Friday and Saturday, where the night-time performances will be held at the Gran Via Exhibition Centre. Additionally, Sónar+D also kicked off on Thursday, serving as the intellectual and collaborative sister event to Sónar, holding conferences and activities revolving around the “future of culture, arts and technology”, according to curator, José Luis de Vicente.

The economic contribution to Catalonia’s GDP from the 2015 Sonar music festival was 72 million euros. Along with Sonar+D, a series of conferences about the relationship between creativity and technology, the event brought in 111,000 visitors from 104 different countries. This data was presented at the pre-festival press conference on Thursday. Indeed, the festival has been interested in tracking its economic impact since it created a study group to do so in 2004. To be held on the 16th, 17th, and 18th of June, Sonar 2016 will include 130 concerts by artists from 28 different countries, and will be based on a “more social” rhetoric. Meanwhile, Sonar+D will include activities in about 180 different formats, with 400 registered participants, and more than 4,000 professionals from 57 countries. Some new additions to the festival will be the new SonarCar stage, and a one-hour delay of the Sonar by Day portion of the festival. In 2016, Sonar is also offering a map of Barcelona showing the creative training offerings one can find in the Catalan capital. The metro strike should not affect the festival.

The 15^th edition of Barcelona’s music festival giant, Primavera Sound, has opened its doors, a long-awaited moment for indie and pop fans in the Catalan capital. Since its opening, Primavera Sound has established itself as a global point of reference in Southern Europe, with 200 artists to perform at this year’s festival on eight different stages. Some of the names performing at the festival this time out are Radiohead, PJ Harvey and the recently reformed American rock band LCD Soundsystem, along with Suede, Tame Impala, Sigur Rós and former Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson. The festival opens on Thursday but gave fans a preview on Wednesday, with its signature free night, which attendees enjoyed at Barcelona’s seaside venue Forum Park. The organisers of the festival predict some 190,000 attendees this year and half of them will come from outside Spain. 

Barcelona turns into a moving image hotspot again for over three weeks with the 14^th edition of LOOP, a festival dedicated to video art. Since 2003, it has provided a platform for both emerging and well-known international video artists to get together, with curated exhibitions taking place around the Catalan capital. Not only is it an event exhibiting high-quality video art, but also hosts workshops and other art events related to the moving image; as is the case again this year, with LOOP featuring over 400 artworks, 58 exhibition projects and 28 activities carried out through a budget of 77,000 euros. In this year's Festival, which is titled 'Faraway, so close', the main themes are 'Beyond the Black Box' and 'Back to the Black Box', exploring the connection between cinema and video art.

After 18 years of focusing exclusively on the Roman world, the ‘Tarraco Viva’ historical festival has included, for the first time, ancient Egyptian culture in its homage to the past. ‘Tarraco Viva’ is held every year in the Catalan city of Tarragona, and it’s estimated that this 2016 edition has already attracted more visitors than previous years. Happy that this “experiment” ultimately worked, director of the festival Seritjol Magi stated on Sunday that it was the combination of the two worlds that drew in aficionados from both fields. Now that the festival is over, organisers are already planning the coming years’ editions, and plan to include various different cultures in the event. ‘Tarraco Viva’ 2017 is to open its doors to ancient Greek culture and thereby focus largely on the beloved activity of the civilisation’s people: sports; also coinciding with the 2017 Mediterranean Games to be held in the same city. 

The DocsBarcelona 2016 film festival opened this year’s edition with the documentary ‘Sonita’ by Iranian director Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami on Wednesday. The film is about an eighteen-year-old Afghan girl after which the film is named, who emigrates illegally to Iran to pursue her dream of being a hip hop artist, despite her mother’s opposition. The DocsBarcelona film festival is running until the 29^th of May, during which one can see 46 films from 28 countries at the multidisciplinary institution and museum Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) and the Aribau Club cinema. While keeping in mind the important theme of refugees, the documentary also raises the important issue of what role a film should play in the subject it is filming. “Documentary films reflect the society we live in, and in ten years they will reflect what is happening in society”, reflected the director of DocsBarcelona, Juan Gonzàlez.

‘Patum’ is a popular festival celebrated every year during Corpus Christi in the Catalan city of Berga. In this town, the earliest reference to this festival dates from 1454 although the celebration has its origins in pre-Christian festivities. During five days, the streets of Berga are transformed into a massive stage. The ‘Patum’ festival,  which was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005, comprises several parts and is a mixture of sound, fire and parades of allegorical and traditional figures such as ‘Guites’ (mule dragons), the Eagle and giant-headed dwarves. All the figures join to perform the final dance, the Tirabol. This years’ ‘Patum’ will take place from the 25th to the 28th of May.

Thousands of people are expected to visit the 61^st edition of Girona’s ‘Temps de Flors’, which sees the exhibition of a wide range of flower artwork featuring different spots of this medieval city located 80 kilometres from Barcelona. As happens every year, the stairway of Santa Maria’s Cathedral is one of the highlights, but in this edition it has raised even more attention due to the filming of HBO’s series ‘Game of Thrones’. Hundreds of flowers fill other historic sights, patios and ancient neighbourhoods, as well as the fountains in the historical centre, which have also been included in the exhibition in a harmonious mixing of water and flowers. Many cultural activities are also expected over the weekend, from the 14^th and 15^th of May, such as ‘Castellers’, traditional Catalan human towers. 

The eighth edition of the Sismògraf Olot Dance Festival, held in the Girona region, ended this this Sunday with a record-breaking 150,000 attendees, marking a 25% increase from 2015. The festival was made up of approximately thirty performances, most of them free and performed outdoors; of the eleven shows that were not free of charge, however, all were sold out. Entertaining the audience were 200 professionals, the number of which has also grown by 33% since last year. A quarter of these performers came from outside Catalonia, predominantly from England and Holland. Not only was there a first-time high in terms of attendance and performers, but the festival has also implemented an award, and is for the first time seeing a carry-over of shows related to the festival for the rest of the year.  

Festival Cruïlla Barcelona has unveiled more artists that will perform at the seventh edition of the celebration, which is to be held on the 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th of July. The newly confirmed artists in the festival´s line-up are Robert Plant, along with The Sensational Space Shifters, Crystal Fighters, Cat Power, Skunk Anansie and Esperanza Spalding, amongst many others. However, one of the most outstanding artists confirmed is Robert Plant, the iconic voice of Led Zeppelin. He will perform the album ‘Lullaby…and the Ceaseless Roar’ for the first time in Spain with the accompaniment of The Sensational Space Shifters. The festival has also announced its daily concert schedule, and that it is keeping its pass price at 90 euros. 

A record-breaking 30,504 spectators attended the 5^th edition of the Figueres International Circus Festival, which was sold out for almost all performances. The three acts which won the Golden Elephant, the Figueres International Circus Festival first prize, were from China and Mongolia. From China, the WuQiao Arts School of China performed ‘Qin Warriors’, while the Sheyang Acrobatic Troupe of China showcased ‘Fan Dance.’ From Mongolia, ‘Troupe Nomuna’ performed an acrobatic tumbling act. Figueres, a city near the Costa Brava and bordering with France, already hosts the second biggest international circus festival after the one at Monte-Carlo.

The British singer Seal will perform on the 23^rd of July at Auditori del Parc del Castell and Canadian artist Diana Krall will also do so a few days later, on the 30^th of July. Whereas this will be the first time Seal will perform at the Castell de Peralada Festival, Krall returns on this the 30^th anniversary of the festival, after her concert in 2008. Seal will be touring his new album ‘7’ and Krall will make her only stop in Catalonia at Peralada, as part of her ‘Wallflower’ world tour. Another highlight on the festival’s line up will be Puccini’s Turandot, directed by Catalan actor and director, Mario Gas.