"Since the PSC has taken power, grassroots culture has been dismantled."

Barcelona"This is a political rally," said Semolina Tomic, director of the Antic Teatre, at the start of the venue's annual press conference. Since June of last yearThe space is currently being expropriated to become a municipally owned venue, but Tomic has denounced a lack of "certainty" from the city council that would guarantee the project's continuity. "So far, communication with the manager of the ICUB (Barcelona Institute of Culture), Oriol Martí, has been smooth. But where is the Councilor for Culture, Xavier Marcé? We publicly regret his absence from this press conference. He should be here," the director of the Antic Teatre emphasized. Her main demand is the creation of an agreement between the company that has managed the theater since 2003—led by Tomic—and the Barcelona City Council to provide stability to the artistic project. "We need agreements to be able to continue managing the space, so that the Antic Teatre can continue, in essence, but with financial security," the director asserted, accompanied by artists and companies that will be part of this year's program.

The Antic Teatre team's complaint is linked to the disappearance of some of the city's cultural spaces in recent years. "Since the PSC took power alone in 2023, grassroots and community culture has been dismantled. We can't let neoliberalism, which transfers public money to private entities, win," said Tomic, who emphasized the "inequality" in the distribution of resources for cultural policies. "With a Teatre Lliure production, you can buy an apartment in Barcelona. We produce for free, losing money. This is self-exploitation," she stressed. Tomic also lamented the absence of some institutional figures at the press conference. "We invited the directors of the TNC, the Teatre Lliure, the Liceu, the Palau de la Música... Who decides who governs there? Private foundations, with boards of trustees and private companies sustained with public budgets. They don't care about those of us at the bottom," the director said.

To reinforce the argument, Tomic has quoted the closure of the Periferia Cimarronas room (privately owned) and the change of model of the Arnau Theatre (publicly owned) as examples of the "commodification of culture." Javier Rodrigo, from the Coordinating Committee of Entities for the Arnau Theatre, spoke at the press conference, stating that the City Council wants to "impose a family theatre model by awarding the contract to a private company and dismantling the community project." Rodrigo added that "the cultural rights of citizens are being violated with the lies that there is no technical or architectural viability."

Dogs and transvestism

The Antic Teatre's program kicks off this Thursday with Small thingsby the company Psirc. As usual, the venue will host performances that explore risk and experimentation in the contemporary scene, with works by artists such as Clara Cortés and Moritz Grenz, My!Laika, and Emma Bassas, who is preparing a piece based on her study of her dogs. The company Macarena Recuerda Shepherd will premiere If it were a movie, made from a sound investigation, and Kika Super Puta will bring the transvestite show A gross monstrosityIn dance, the projects of artists such as Gaia Pelegrini, Cía La Déborde, and Núria Dalmau and Valeria Pisati stand out. The season will end with Twisted from Las Nenas, a show about out-of-place divas.