2024-01-05 22:53:40
2024 begins marked by uncertainty in the face of new political and artistic directions that have not yet shown their cards. And also, inevitably, it continues to be plagued by fear, self-censorship and caution after the numerous cancellations that have occurred throughout the country since the political map changed in the regional elections last May. In theater, if you don’t tour, there is no way to survive.
Micomicón Teatro puts on stage a double victim, of ETA and Francoism, in ‘Our dead’
The year begins in Madrid after an earthquake of dismissals and appointments. The Popular Party has shown its new cultural project for theater and dance, both in the City Council with Marta Rivera de la Cruz and in the Community with Mariano de Paco, both responsible for the areas of culture. A model is established in which appointments are made by hand, public competitions are abjured, and an attempt is made to dilute the figure of the artistic director in pursuit of greater political control.
The artistic lines are clear: the predominance of family and repertory theater, and the absence of lines that support contemporary scenic creation. The most obvious example of this line is the new configuration of the Teatros del Canal, where the management is diluted into six creators who will also see their new creations produced by this same theater. An ideal way to have everything well tied up. The Madrid opposition, Mas Madrid in this case, through its head of culture, Jazmín Beirak, explained harshly these days spent in the Assembly.
Although the map is already clear and drawn, it still remains to be known who will direct two of the council spaces. Starting with the Fernán Gómez theater, which Laila Ripoll has built in the last four years with interdisciplinary programming and supporting long-standing companies that found it increasingly difficult to be able to show in the capital. The sector believes that the direction has already been decided and that the playwright Juan Carlos Pérez de la Fuente will be the new regent of the center.
An appointment that would represent a political claim from the right that always accused the municipal government of Manuela Carmena of nepotism, when de la Fuente was dismissed as director of the Spanish Theater a year and a half after being appointed in 2016. The other address that is in the aire is Ship 11 of Matadero Madrid that the council wants to dedicate to dance. They want it to be the star project of Marta Rivera de la Cruz. But little is known about who will direct it. We will have to wait.
María Folguera, after six years directing the Price Circus, and although the City Council offered her a one-year renewal, she has decided to take a new direction. Rivera de la Cruz will therefore have to look for a new director of this center dedicated to the circus arts and decide if he clearly supports the creation or continues to opt for a mixed model where the space is rented and exploited commercially.
Will it be the year of dance or will it not be?
The other capital arena that remains to be defined is the new Ministry of Culture directed by Ernest Urtasun. The minister has already announced that the institution will be vigilant against possible censorship to provide legal support or facilitate other exhibition possibilities, as the case may be. He has also stated that he wants to support artistic creation in clear opposition to the new direction in Madrid. The ideological war is served. But, among many lines of action that his portfolio has in front of him, there remain two issues on which he has not commented.
The first is the remodeling of the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music. The sector is clear that the first action is to replace its top manager, Joan Francesc Marco. There have already been conversations to see possibilities for renewal. The new director – everything indicates that she will be a woman – will have to undertake a profound renovation of an Institute that is a dinosaur, where its production centers, all located in Madrid, cannot rotate and have continuous labor conflicts. Something that PSOE and Sumar committed to in their legislative agreement.
The other big hot potato is dance. The arrival of Joan Francesc Marco to the management of INAEM meant the suppression of the commitments acquired by the previous management of Amaya de Miguel in 2018. The projected National Dance Diffusion Center and the National Dance Center, which were going to be built on ADIF land in the Delicias neighborhood, disappeared from the map. Five years of excuses and inaction have passed that the sector no longer admits.
The debt with dance, especially contemporary, is already long and historical. The intervention of Raquel Ramírez, vice president of the State Federation of Dance Companies and Production Companies (FECED), in the last plenary session of the State Council of Performing Arts and Music allows us to understand this. Before an undaunted Joan Francesc Marco, the person in charge ended up brandishing the national plan for dance that the PSOE itself set up in 2009 saying: “Today the same plan can be approved again without changing a single comma because nothing as planned has been done.” ”. Her speech perfectly summarizes the great deficit of the State with this discipline that Sumar included in his country project and seems to want to address. We will see.
But the theatrical reality goes far beyond the capital. As in Madrid, it remains to be seen what orientation its new director Eduardo Vasco will give to the Spanish Theater; In Barcelona everyone is waiting to see what the Teatre Lliure will undertake with its new leader, Julio Manrique. Furthermore, there is no shortage of political controversy in Barcelona. The current councilor for culture of Barcelona, the socialist Xavier Marcé, veteran politician, cultural manager and former vice president of the large Catalan production company FOCUS; It’s raising blisters. Two of the actions that the previous council leaders, governed by Barcelona En Comú, had undertaken are being questioned.
The first of them was El Molino, an emblematic space acquired by the City Council for 6.2 million euros, which was intended to be part of the network of Houses of Culture and promote collaborative and neighborhood performing arts. A flagship venue of the city’s cultural rights plan based on good practices, the return of the community and emerging creation. What’s more, the tender document was already endorsed and prepared for publication. Marcé has stopped it and has declared that he will hold a contest, but announcing that El Molino will be the new home of flamenco, rumba, signature songs and jazz.
Marcé’s second venture is L’Antic Teatre. The councilor has already let those responsible for this space dedicated to live arts, dance and contemporary theater know that the agreements he reached with the City Council to expropriate the space and declare it a cultural asset of the city are on hold. An agreement that had been reached to preserve this space that depended on a rental in the Gothic Quarter and was at the mercy of speculation movements. It seems that the announcement that Ada Colau herself made with great fanfare is at risk. L’Antic management is preparing a press conference this month to explain the new situation.
and the artists
Beyond so much tectonic movement, the shows that the public is already demonstrating, due to how ticket sales are going, what they want to see are imposed. January starts strong. Lovers of the classical scene will be able to attend the Victoria Theater to see the new Focus production with Carlos Hipólito under the baton of Yayo Cáceres and the pen of Álvaro Tato, Burro. The other big bet is Lindabridis Castletext by Calderón directed by one of the greats of medieval and golden theater, Ana Zamora.
But the month of January is also performative and modern. The cycle will take place at the Teatre Lliure from the 11th to the 20th. Catharsiswhere among others you can see one of the performers most interesting on the international scene: the South African, queer and Jewish Steven Cohen. There will show piece Boudoir, a work that will also be exhibited at the Teatros del Canal in Madrid in April. In the Sala Beckett, you can also see the new and long-awaited proposal by the Las Huecas collective, Of friendship.
The other great montage of January is King Oedipus , directed by Declan Donellan and produced and premiered by the Martin Sorescu National Theater of Romania. The performance is performed in Romanian, but if you can, don’t miss the opportunity to see one of the great masters of European stage direction shape the work of Sophocles. Also pay attention (it will only be on February 2 and 3), for the arrival of one of the greats of dance to this theater, La Ribot, who will show DIEstinguished. A work that for the first time can be seen with a camera device that will include the public’s own phones.
February 2nd will arrive The Zaranda to the Seville Central with his new work Manual to create a dream, a production that can be seen at the Spanish Theater in Madrid at the end of the same month. Month in which the Conde Duque Center in Madrid will have two of its big bets, the new work of the dance company The Veronal, Firmament, one of his most powerful pieces in recent years; and the “obrón” for which there are no more entries, Voodoo (3318) Blixen by Angélica Liddell.
Another of the most anticipated shows will arrive in February, the new production by Alfredo Sanzol, director of the National Dramatic Center, who on this occasion will direct the work of Federico García Lorca, Bernarda Alba’s house. Sanzol, in a certain sense, takes a gamble after the questioned previous montage of her, Fundamentally fantasies for resistance. The other two recommended shows that will be scheduled in the first quarter at the CDN are Misericordia, by Uruguayan Denise Despeyroux, in January; and the new job of The Tristura, This is how we talka work based on the text of Carmen Martín Gaite The search for an interlocutor.
Later in the year, titles will arrive that also generate great expectations, such as the new production directed and written by Mayorga, The collectionwhich will star José Sacristán and Ana Marzoa. As well as María Velasco’s new proposal in April at the CDN, First blood. A production that will later travel to the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, co-responsible for the production of the work.
The other most relevant return to the stage will be in the Naves de Matadero, Vania x Vania. A title about the Russian author Chekhov, which has a huge cast with names like Javier Cámara, Juan Codina, Israel Elejalde and Marta Nieto. Nor should we pass up the theatrical adaptation of that essential novel by Francisco Casavella, Watusi daywhich brings Iván Morales to the stage in April at Lliure de Gracia.
To finish, two essential recommendations. Carlos Marquerie, the great painter of our scene, will arrive on May 23 with a montage about the darkest and freest book by Federico García Lorca, Poet in New York. And, already in June, finishing the season, Juan Diego Botto will return together with Peris Mencheta with a new project, 14.4a work about those two worlds separated by the Strait of Gibraltar and which will feature the actor Ahmed Younoussi (Prince). A project that comes after the great success of his previous work, A moonless night. If you want to see it, hurry up and get the tickets. The work will have its absolute premiere in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on June 14 and 15 at the Cuyás Theaterand then fall back on the Slaughterhouse Ships at the end of the month.
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