2023-07-25 13:48:00
Balconadas del 2028 CESAR DELGADO
In the shadow of the San Roque balloon crisis, some voices are calling for the popular pictorial contest, which has not been held for three years. The Council assures that it does not play “because it is only in even years”
25 jul 2023 . Updated at 1:48 p.m.
At the end of the 80s, the balcony contest was established in Betanzos, pictorial or collage creations to hang from the balconies of the old town and turn this area into a contemporary open-air museum. Contrast of times through culture. The Brigantine city has not celebrated them for three years. The last ones were perhaps the most special. With the neighbors locked in their homes because of the pandemic, in 2020 The Council invited them to rebel against this harsh situation and proposed to take advantage of Holy Week, in which it was forbidden to leave the house, to carry out this craft that would be shared collectively on their own balconies, not only in the old town. That April 13, just one month after the decree of the state of alarm, the betanceiros began to hang their own creations on their facades. It was an unofficial exercise and without a cash prize, as the mayoress, María Barral, had already advanced. “The award is to transform our city together in a collective artistic exhibition so that when we can finally leave home we run into some streets of art,” said Barral.
That was the last balcony. It’s been three years now. Neighbors and some political parties demand a new, official call to beautify the historic center. The petition goes almost unnoticed, subordinated to the controversial absence of the San Roque balloon, where public representatives accuse each other of negligence, forgetfulness and bad faith.. But the explanation about the balconies is clear: “They are celebrated in even years, so it doesn’t play until 2024, this year it doesn’t play”, they respond from the Concello de Betanzos. It is true that there was one in an odd year, in 2019, but then the reason was the coincidence with the celebration of the 800 years of the foundation of Betanzos in the current place after transfer from Tiobre. Then Aida Rodríguez Donoso from Vigo took the 5,000 prizes with the work titled Time flies.
The question is why there was no balcony in 2022, an even year. The BNG then complained about this circumstance. The embers of the pandemic continued, but it was understood that it was an outdoor exercise perfectly compatible with the last throes of the covid. But things were not so clear when it was time to make the call at the beginning of the year. The flights were dropper, and the Brigantine contest had always boasted the presence of international artists. «We contacted artists and there was no participation, the organization was complicatedSo we decided that it was better to wait, we made invitations to collectives such as artist associations and we saw that they were beginning to resume cultural activity very slowly, we were going to have very little participation. It was a technical decision, “say municipal sources.
Nor International Film Week
As if an anti-tradition virus was spreading through the town, this year the Betanzos International Film Week has not been held either. Here the City Council blames the director of the event, Chema Paz Gago. “He announced Luis Tosar and a few days after the celebration, which coincided with the weekend of the general elections, he said that the Galician actor was falling out of the call”indicate the same sources.
Filed in: Betanzos
#balconies #Betanzos