Features

Tàrrega takes to the streets

The Lleida town's annual street theatre festival takes place in the second weekend of September with an accent on raising the international profile of local acts and artists

Cat­alo­nia's pop­u­lar street the­atre fes­ti­val is back, sched­uled as usual for the sec­ond week­end of Sep­tem­ber. Vi­sual per­for­mances will be the main at­trac­tion at this year's Fira de Tàrrega, which also promises a range of local and in­ter­na­tional acts, with per­for­mances to de­light stage arts fans and pro­fes­sion­als alike.

The fes­ti­val, which this year cel­e­brates its 35th edi­tion, will take place Sep­tem­ber 10-13, and will open with Com­pra'm, from the In­sec­trotròpics com­pany. Com­pra'm, which mixes the­atre, music, video in­stal­la­tions and paint­ing, is a live per­for­mance about the lim­its of hap­pi­ness in the con­sumer so­ci­ety, start­ing with the Greek myth of Pan­dora's box and ac­com­pa­nied by the fas­ci­nat­ing music of Tul­lie Ren­nie.

The aim of this year's fes­ti­val is to boost the per­form­ing arts mar­ket by pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for Cata­lan com­pa­nies to de­velop an in­ter­na­tional pro­file, with the ac­cent on pro­mot­ing new, emerg­ing and non-con­ven­tional artists. As al­ways, the fair's pro­gramme in­cludes the­atre, cir­cus and street per­for­mances, and even pup­pet shows.

Must-see shows this year in­clude La par­tida by chore­o­g­ra­pher Vero Cen­doya, which brings to­gether dancers, foot­ball play­ers, a music band and a choir. Also, Lleida artists Íntim Pro­duc­cions will offer Wasted by Kate Tem­pest, the story of three young peo­ple who re­unite to re­mem­ber their best friend, who died 10 years be­fore. The play was in­spired by the film, L'ar­bi­tro by Paolo Zucca. Mean­while, Abast Elàstic aims to read the auras of the au­di­ence with the pro­ject A. U. R. A. (Ahora usted recibirà algo), and the clown Le­an­dre re­turns with Ice­berg, an “ode to beauty”.

For­mer guests

Among the par­tic­i­pat­ing com­pa­nies are old guests of Fira de Tàrrega: Carla Rovira from the com­pany LAmin­i­mAL, who will analyse how chil­dren and teenagers deal with the­atre in Most of all, you've got to hide it from the chicks, while Mex­i­can Vaca 35 and Teatro DERCA will deal with his­toric mem­ory through an on­stage gas­tron­omy ex­pe­ri­ence in the show, Ahora me doy cuenta. In­ter­na­tional acts in­clude Cie Les En­jo­liveurs from France and Dor­rance Dance from the US.

FiraTàrrega 2015 will come to a close on Sun­day 13 with the ter­ror show Crudo In­gente, di­rected by Múrcia-based Sara Ser­rano and Pedro Guirao .

In all, this year Tàrrega has a 1.1 mil­lion-euro bud­get and will wel­come a total of 56 com­pa­nies, half of which are Cata­lan. The essence of the fair is to be found in the open air, with 83% of the per­for­mances tak­ing place in the street.

For more in­for­ma­tion: www.​firatarrega.​cat.

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