When the prestigious choreographer Marta Carrasco convinced Albert Hurtado, the charismatic zumba teacher at her local gym to cross-dress before a live audience at the TNC, how could he refuse? The result, the breezy performance piece Jo, dona. A Lili Elbe., a heartfelt tribute to Lili Elbe: a Danish landscape painter and transgender woman, and… Read more »
The Teatre Nacional de Catalunya launched its new season in dramatic weather last Saturday which seemed generated for the occasion. The theatre’s pledge to open ‘a gateway to the world’ – written in bold deep-blue letters across the entrance – gave way into something more ambitious and self-aware: that vast spacey lobby that you feel… Read more »
In March 2016 propagandists, located (according to Google Analytics) in Saint Petersburg, infiltrated my blog lookingfordrama.com. ‘Vote Trump!’ They urged on a number of posts about Catalan theatre productions. Of course it’s nice to receive any comments, but it was disconcerting that having perused my online persona (courtesy of Facebook) my unwanted guests would have… Read more »
In this age of heavy words lightly thrown, the excellent contemporary dance troupe Mal Pelo offer a beautifully-wrought farce, a caustic yet sincere solo, performed by Pep Ramis, that counts on the input of playwright and theatre director Jordi Casanovas and French/Catalan physical theatre troupe Baró d’evel. Through 60 minutes we follow Ramis on his… Read more »
Amidst the chaos: injustices, strikes, rabid press reports, soaring temperatures and prices, it’s hard to know what to do with the kids. Do we take them to the aquarium (of dubious ethics), the zoo (worse), a football match (potentially inciting a negative spirit of rivalry), or leave them locked in their rooms to play violent… Read more »
This Catalan adaptation of British playwright Hattie Naylor’s multilayered play Going Dark is an understated yet cosmically ambitious production that transforms the Espai Lliure into a planetarium; a claustrophobic yet mentally expansive dark space, where the wonders of the universe are projected onto a stage dressed up as moon’s surface. With significantly fewer resources than… Read more »
In this confident yet complex dance piece by Christian Rizzo, the simplicity and joy inherent in the creation of a community, the subject of his acclaimed 2013 work D’après une histoire vraie (based on a true story), is lifted into abstraction. In Une maison (a house), 14 dancers form fleeting connections that fail to leave… Read more »
The circus and performing arts troupe Baró d’evel, formed by the award-winning French/Catalan duo Camille Decourtye and Blaï Mateu Trias, expands its repertoire with a smart and sophisticated production for eight human performers, one white horse and a flock of pigeons. Falaise, that premiered at Barcelona’s Grec festival in July, is the second half of… Read more »
Minefield / Campo Minado is a bilingual theatre piece that reunites Argentine and British veterans from the Falklands/Malvinas war nearly four decades on. The production premiered in London in 2016 in the run up to the Brexit referendum. Looking for Drama spoke to its creator, Lola Arias, about the project, its impact and its relevance… Read more »
Grec Festival offers a great opportunity to experience a work by the Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin. For nearly 20 years, this Adelaide-born choreographer has been a reference point in contemporary dance, working out of Melbourne’s sophisticated and individualistic independent dance scene. Split, the word implying a forced, irreversible division, works on levels that are personal,… Read more »
