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“Brief History of Performative Theatre in Catalonia”

Updated: Nov 6


Professional Keynote Speaker: Santiago Fondevila Nadal (Spain) 28.10.2024


The speech made an approach to the theatrical reality of Catalonia today and a compilation about the history of theatrical performance through the International Festivals in Catalonia.

 

He talked about the theatre made in Cataluña during Franco’s dictatorship era and explained how Catalan theatre was transformed and developed. The dictatorship conditioned the kind of theatre that were made at that time in Catalunya and for that reason, the physical theater was developed, and the representations included the theatre of objects and for that reason, they constructed a dramaturgy that collided with the text structure, as the as Postdramatic Theatre (Lehmann). Further, when the theatre plays were forbidden to be done, they started doing the art performances.






Nadal mentioned some important Catalonian companies and creative artists as La Fura dels Bals, Señor Serrano, Carles Santos, Roger Bernat and Roberto Fratini and he explained how the catalonian dramaturgy they created perverted some notions and concepts of theatre and some uses of the expanded theatre, for example, when the audience is called to be used as the device, the performers/actors and the performance, itself. In this case, the spectators were confronted with themselves, and they could no longer escape by only consuming the work. So, the relationship between audience and theater could no longer be as a cannibalistic mode of consumption.

 

This dramatic dissolution that came, as Nadal highlighted, from the Catalonian performative works creations showed that there is no more theater; because there is theater everywhere.

 

To the questions about the sustainability of the theatre performances, the roles of the institutions in promoting it and how would these evolve in the future, Nadal answers by saying that although many artists as Marina Abramovic and La Fura dels Bals do it very well in their works, we must focus on the topic of the performances, on the argument and on the performances themselves and not on how they are made. So, in this way, the sustainability can have a great future.

 

 

 



 

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