Grec Festival

The most anticipated annual events for dance, music, circus and other forms of entertainment return to Barcelona.

The Grec Festival is Barcelona's main annual event for theatre, dance, music, circus and other stage arts. The date is bookmarked in all Catalan calendars; locals and foreigners wait the whole year for the summer to arrive and bring the Festival to the city. The long-standing event includes more than 35 activities, which take place in different venues around the city, some of them with an incredible architectural value.

One such location is the main venue that gives the festival its name: the Teatre Grec, or Greek Theatre, on Montjuïc. This open-air theatre, built by Ramon Raventós for the 1929 Universal Exhibition, is located close to the Fundació Joan Miró, the Theatre Mercat de les Flors and the Jardins del Laribal. Today, the festival is the city's leading showcase for performances of shows produced abroad, and important for the city of Barcelona to create a dialogue between local and global art and culture.

<b>Opening photo</b>: Josep Aznar, <i>Amb els peus a la lluna</i>. Photo Josep Aznar. <b>Above</b>: <i>MOV-I-MENT # 2/MINIATURES</i>. Courtesy of the Grec Festival. — **Opening photo**: Josep Aznar, *Amb els peus a la lluna*. Photo Josep Aznar. **Above**: *MOV-I-MENT # 2/MINIATURES*. Courtesy of the Grec Festival.

Since 2009, the Grec Festival has started a network, which connects with events at the Avignon Festival, the Athens-Epidaurus Festival and Istanbul International Theatre Festival—all fellow members of the Kadmos network. Kadmos was set up to enable these festivals to organize joint production and promotional projects for artists and shows, to exchange experiences and to share political and social reflections about the region that is home to all four, the Mediterranean. This year, the festival is focused on Catalan dance and the festival will open with a show by the Gelabert Azzopardi company entitled La muntanya al teu voltant (The Mountain Around You), with stage design by the Catalan fine artist Perejaume and live music by the Barcelona Municipal Band.

<i>MOV-I-MENT #2/MINIATURES</i>. Courtesy of the Grec Festival. — *MOV-I-MENT #2/MINIATURES*. Courtesy of the Grec Festival.

The 2011 program includes collaborative works between Catalan artists and special guests like the Swiss choreographer Thomas Hauert and we will be able to see La Caldera, presenting new artists and fostering reflection and dialogue between artists and audiences; among many others. The dance program is accompanied by small events around the city, called Dies de Dansa (Days of Dance). Using urban and public spaces as scenarios, the concept of dérive, defined by Guy Debord as "a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances" becomes the leitmotif to tour the city and be surprised with all the small pieces of Dies de Dansa.

This year, the festival is focused on Catalan dance and the festival will open with a show by the Gelabert Azzopardi company entitled La muntanya al teu voltant, with stage design by the Catalan fine artist Perejaume and live music by the Barcelona Municipal Band.

Audio-visual installation at the MACBA. Courtesy of the Grec Festival. Photo by Buzz Andersen.

When talking about theatre, some of the new shows are quite interesting, such as Ells No Poden Morir (They could not die), a piece about Salvador Dali, Walt Disney and Vladimir Ilich Lenin, and the idea that genius can not die. With Desaparecer (Disappear), based on Edgar Allan Poe's texts, Calixto Bieito has created a show, which is a unique piece with a strong personality; this is his second collaboration with the renowned actor Juan Echanove. All these new pieces are mixed-in with some classical ones, such as Mozart's Une Flûte Enchatée, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Music is the third main component of the Grec Festival. With a diverse set of guest musicians, visitors can find almost every kind of spectacle at the festival: from big concerts to small presentations, open air musicals and from pop to electronic music, some of the concerts include Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sole Giménez (formerly from Presuntos Implicados), tango nights and Goran Bregovic, among many others. This is complemented by audiovisual installations on iconic places, such as the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona MACBA or Caixa Forum. At the Greek Theatre, the group BCN 216 will be performing live a new and exclusive soundtrack created especially for Fritz Lang's Metropolis during a screening of the film.
Ethel Baraona Pohl

The Grec Festival is open from June 17th to July 31th and all the information can be found at their website or at their Facebook page.

<i>BadPlus</i>. Courtesy of the Grec Festival. — *BadPlus*. Courtesy of the Grec Festival.

<i>Spectra Test Pattern</i>. Photo by Robert Justamante. Courtesy of the Grec Festival. — *Spectra Test Pattern*. Photo by Robert Justamante. Courtesy of the Grec Festival.

Grec Festival

The most anticipated annual events for dance, music, circus and other forms of entertainment return to Barcelona.

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