Institut Ramon LLull

Focus on Catalan and Balearic Islands at French festival Reims Scènes d’Europe

Performing.  Reims , 24/01/2019

The 10th annual Reims Scènes d’Europe festival, held 24 January to 7 February in Reims (France), will feature participants from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. Many disciplines of the performing arts are included in this festival, such as music, dance and theatre, giving a full view of the contemporary European stage. With support from Institut Ramon Llull, La Veronal, El Conde de Torrefiel, Agnés Mateus, Quim Tarrida, Joana Gomila and Jansky will bring a taste of the latest creative pieces from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands to this French city.




Started in 2009 by La Comédie de Reims in collaboration with La Cartonnerie, Césaré, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Le Manège, Nova Villa and Òpera de Reimsel, the festival has handed the baton over to new generations of innovative, non-conformist artists, shaking up established codes and genres to find new paths in the performing arts that are rich and unique.

Anna Goulard, director of Festival Reims Scènes d’Europe, came to Barcelona for the 2018 Grec Festival and for Festival TNT in Terrassa. On both occasions, a team from the Institut Ramon Llull Creation Department held meetings with Goulard in order to promote Catalan artists on the festival programme. This year, this collaboration with IRL has been consolidated, as seen in the participation of the following artists from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands:

La Veronal performing Voronia, a dizzying descent into hell

Catalan dance prodigy Marcos Morau combines a hybrid text impregnated with theatricality, images and choreography. With Voronia, the name of the deepest natural cave discovered to date, the choreographer takes us on an allegorical immersion in the abysses of hell in a show combining explosive images and powerful, expressive dance. A philosophical cave, where good and evil face off, Voronia describes an uneasy and disturbing world that throws each individual into their own abyss.

Marcos Morau, trained at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona and Movement Research in New York, getting the highest possible marks on his final project for the degree. In 2005, he created La Veronal, a company of artists from the worlds of dance, film, literature and photography. The work of La Veronal starts with a country or city, drawing ties between dance and geography. In 2013, Marcos Morau won the National Dance Award from the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

The show will be performed at the festival on 25 January at 9 pm and on 26 January at 7 pm.

La posibilidad que desaparece frente al paisaje by El Conde Torrefiel (Pablo Gisbert, Tanya Beyeler), a scathing look at Europe

Conceived as an open book, this new creation describes and explains the imperceptible world of atmospheres, thought and memories. It presents the audience with an empty stage, first occupied only by a screen showing a broken, fragmented narrative route around ten European cities. Ten landscapes that take the audience through the darkest, most violent and troubling corners of people’s minds. It presents famous intellectuals, cultural icons like Michel Houellebecq, Paul B. Preciado, Spencer Tunick and Zygmunt Bauman, and anonymous individuals who all share the same reality. In addition to the reading, the empty space is occupied by a female voice over and four performers, who don’t seem to have any relationship to the narrated or projected texts.

Pablo Gisbert and Tanya Beyeler head up the artistic project of El Conde de Torrefiel, created in 2010. Their performance pieces have a visual and textual aesthetic that combine literature, fine art and choreography, striving to transcend the limits of verbal language. Their creations look at the stage with immediate temporariness, with hypotheses addressing the mysteries we are faced with in the 21st century and how they can be represented on stage.

The show will be performed at the festival on 26 January at 9 pm and on 27 January at 5 pm.

Agnés Mateus and Quim Tarrida with Rebota, rebota y en tu cara explota invite the audience to reflect on gender violence and society’s passiveness.

Like a ball full of paint or an egg that smashes in the audience’s face. This is how Agnés Mateus and Quim Tarrida envision the impact of their latest show: Rebota, rebota y en tu cara explota. Both the title and the promo photo (with Mateus’ face covered in egg) reflect the reaction the artists want to get from the audience: to make them face society’s passive attitude towards domestic violence.

Agnés Mateus (Barcelona, 1967) studied journalism and theatre before starting to play with Txiqui Berraondo and Manuel Lillo in Barcelona. In 1996, with the General Eléctrica collective, Agnés consolidated her career. Artist, actor and multidisciplinary performer, she regularly works with Juan Navarro, Roger Bernat, Rodrigo García and Simona Levi.

Quim Tarrida (Barcelona, 1967) is a visual and multidisciplinary artist. His pop aesthetic is impregnated with conceptual art. He had his début in the world of illustration and comics and his artistic production is closely tied to music, performing arts, photography and video.

At the Reims Scènes d’Europe festival, Rebota, rebota y en tu cara explota will be performed on 31 January and 1 February at 9 pm.

Joana Gomila presents her most personal project: Folk Souvenir

Joana Gomila has joined forces with Arnau Obiols, Santi Careta, Àlex Reviriego and Laia Vallès for a concert that invites the audience to travel through the echoes and resonance of popular music from Mallorca, interweaving wild yet delicate sounds with samples from farmers, children, protesters, landscapes... 

 

 

Joana Gomila (1982, Manacor) is a singer from Mallorca. In 2014, she graduated with a degree in jazz singing from the Conservatori Superior del Liceu and the Souza Lima in Brazil, where she studied under masters like David Mengual, Celeste Alías, André Marques, Albert Bover, Sergi Vergés, Ramon Prats, and more.

Performance on 31 January at 11 pm.

Jansky and their electroverse

Jansky has created their own label, electroverse: organic electronic beats that dance to the sound of Raume’s hyper-contemporary flute and the unique voice of Laia Malo. A combination of words and sounds, with loads of radically sensual jazz improv that has proven it can captivate all sorts of audiences. Because, critics say, “They sound nothing like anything you’ve ever heard before” (Radiomusik, IT). Their début album, Un big bang a la gibrella, took them to SONAR Barcelona, and soon after they were on the line-up at international festivals like Kregi Sztuki (Krakow), Sound City (Liverpool). With their second album, ÉÈ , they became regulars at clubs in Barcelona, Madrid and London.

Concert on 2 February at 11 pm.

The festival programme also features other artists and shows from Catalonia. These include Afghanistan, by Karla Kracht and Andrés Beladiez, a performance in which videos and cartoons take us on a delicate discovery of a country ravaged by war. And Vivir y otras ficciones (2016) by Jo Sol, a powerful, committed film that uses a documentary-like style to show how those with disabilities have to fight for a respectable sex life.

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