Pujol, the play – Corruption of the Catalan Kind

The playwright Jordi Casanovas, author of the forthcoming play Pujol. Photo

A forthcoming Catalan-language play by Jordi Casanovas (pictured above) takes on the charismatic, disgraced Catalan ex-premier Jordi Pujol, the former president of the regional ‘Generalitat’ government (1989 to 2003), who, in 2014, admitted to holding undeclared millions in secret foreign bank accounts for a period of 34 years. While he claimed the cash to be an inheritance, the 85-year-old Pujol and… Read more »

Share

Hatched 2015 – A Journey to the Heart of South Africa

Videostill of 'Hatched' by Robyn Denny (producer) …alerie Momo.jpg

The award-winning South African performance artist and choreographer Mamela Nyamza is the solo dancer in Hatched 2015, a three-screen film installation that she co-directs with the video artist and painter Robyn Denny. The piece is on display at Madrid’s SlowTrack Gallery (9th June to 15th July) in an exhibition curated by Beathur Mgoza Baker, that… Read more »

Share

En Veu Baixa – The Act of Listening

En Veu Baixa (Quietly) by Owen McCafferty directed by Ferran Madico

Place yourself in Belfast in 2009. Two middle-aged Nordies meet in a pub in the jittery presence of a Polish barman. Their lives are linked by a bomb that one threw there, in 1974, at the height of The Troubles. It blew 6 men up, some literally to bits – one of them was the… Read more »

Share

Grec Festival 2016 – A Brief Introduction

De Stille Kracht, Toneelgroup Amsterdam. photo: Jan Versweyveld

If you’re passing the Palau de la Virreina on the Rambles or staring up at any of the lampposts around Barcelona, you’ll see some rather optically-challenging ads for a summer event called the Grec, an annual performing arts festival of some 141 acts, plus discussions and other activities that go on through July. Its name derives from the expansive amphitheatre a bit up… Read more »

Share

The Reign in Spain – An Unofficial History

A satirical theatre production at Madrid’s Teatro del Barrio (6th April – 22nd June 2016) interrogates the role and reputation of the King of Spain as the country’s head of state and its military. The monarch in play is the now 78-year-old Juan Carlos I, who first set foot in Spain at the age of 10,… Read more »

Share

Feeding the World – New Images of Africa

Tahir Karmali, Dennis Muraguri, Tonney Mugo: Jua Kali City.

Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, an exhibition currently at Barcelona’s CCCB, is the vibrant, visual manifestation of an extensive, on-going research project that brings together the work of 120 artists and designers from all over the continent. Curated by Amelie Klein of the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the show was put together under… Read more »

Share

B for Bárcenas – Spanish Scandal on Screen

B., la pelicula is directed by David Ilundain and based on the stage play Ruz/Barcenas by Jordi Casanovas. It stars Pedro Casablanc as Bárcenas and Manolo Solo as Ruz.

The extraordinary court encounter between the Spanish judge Pablo Ruz and the Partido Popular politician Luis Bárcenas Gutiérrez has been made into an award-winning, triple Goya-nominated film directed by David Ilundáin. In 2013, Bárcenas, of the right-wing ‘People’s Party’, was brought before judge Ruz for a second time and admitted to running a slush fund for nearly two decades while holding the… Read more »

Share

Igor and Moreno – The Dynamics of Domesticity

Igor and Moreno - A Room For All Our Tomorrows

A Room For All Our Tomorrows – a new dance piece by Igor Urzelai and Moreno Solinas – is a witty, hyper-caffeinated exploration of one-on-one relationships! Set to be performed at DanceEast in Ipswich this Friday April 15th, the piece is a welcome follow up to the Basque – Sardinian duo’s acclaimed debut, Idiot-Syncrasy (2013), that was… Read more »

Share

Invernadero – Pinter’s blend of slapstick and horror

Invernadero (The Hothouse) by Harold Pinter, directed by Mario Gas. Translated by Eduardo Mendoza. Photo: Ros Ribas.

Mario Gas, one of Spain’s best-known directors and Eduardo Mendoza, one of the country’s best-known authors, bring their brains together for this pop-up theatre production of Harold Pinter’s lesser-known black comedy The Hothouse (Invernadero), at Barcelona’s Teatre Lliure until February 21st, 2016.  This comic, tragic, macabre play is set in a government-approved institution where countless ‘residents’ are numbered rather… Read more »

Share

Una Giornata Particolare – Life, Death and the Rumba

Clara Segura and Pablo Derqui in Una Giornata Particolare directed by Oriol Broggi. Photo: David Ruano

The Italian director Ettore Scola died last month. Probably the most internationally famous of his films was Una Giornata Particolare (A Special Day), a domestic love story starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, set on the occasion of Adolf Hitler’s visit to Benito Mussolini’s Rome in 1938. The film was released in 1977, and won a Golden Globe and was nominated… Read more »

Share