The Mercat de les Flors will maintain its activity in Montjuïc and will expand throughout Barcelona

BarcelonaWith twenty years of history, the Mercat de les Flors will begin the most different season in September. The building in Plaça Margarida Xirgu is undergoing renovation. From next June and for the next two years, the exhibition spaces will be closed. Until then, however, the four halls of the building will be operational and will be able to host performances. Faced with this situation, the Mercat has decided to maintain its programming and, at the same time, to present performances in different spaces in Barcelona, with the intention of them being future venues when the works force the closure of the Montjuïc building. Thus, next season will have one foot in the Mercat de les Flors and another in venues such as the Teatre Lliure, the Sant Andreu Teatre, and the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

The director of the Mercat de les Flors, María José Cifuentes, considers that the renovation works of the building "open a new stage" for the facility because they allow its presence to be expanded in other cultural institutions in the city and throughout Catalonia. "We transform an exceptional circumstance into opportunities. More than a pause, this displacement inaugurates a network of artistic collaboration that will accompany us in the coming years," emphasizes Cifuentes.

The new season will orbit around the idea of demolishing walls through dance. "We are talking about physical walls, because the Mercat is expanding throughout the territory, but also symbolic walls about the invisible structures that regulate our movements and condition our lives and ways of relating to each other," says Cifuentes. One of the initiatives of the new director –who was appointed a year ago, when she took over from Àngels Margarit– has been the creation of an associated artists program that will be part of it until 2029. This year, Inka Romaní, Lorena Nogal, Guillem Jiménez, and Candela Capitán will participate. The budget for this season is around 7 million euros.Local artists

The Mercat season will open with Living & Leaving, a piece by La Veronal that explores life as a territory in transformation, which will be performed in the Saló del Tinell and will also premiere at Temporada Alta. In November, Guillem Mont de Palol will bring his Danses romàntiques to Sala Mac. Within the IF festival, we will see artists such as Sònia Gómez, who through her performative dance will dialogue with clay, wool, and cork. Lorena Nogal, National Dance Award and one of La Veronal's flagship dancers, will continue to grow her solo path with La protagonista, an investigation in solo format about the body as the main tool of study. The latest project Cèl·lula will be by We Are Novias - Wan and will analyze the dance of gogó dancers.

Among the programmed shows, the collaboration between Paloma Muñoz and the German company Tanzmainz also stands out. Together they create Im Mohnfeld, a piece about the memory of bodies and the ways of connecting with each other. Another regular artist at the Mercat, Núria Guiu, will team up with dancer Aina Lanas for Smack! Waack, Punch!, a performative conference on urban and social dance that arises from a previous show by Guiu, Supermedium. The same choreographer's POV will be performed again, premiered last year. Silvia Batet's company will bring an investigation between the body and electronic music titled Dark horses, while Ester Guntín will create a piece based on the Ball de Cavallets which she has named Brida.

The family programming also includes various proposals from local artists, in both dance and circus. This is the case of Anna Rubirola, who has been inspired by the polar night to create Kaamos, a show about auroras borealis and worlds that do not exist. The company Animal Religion will present a show for the little ones (from two years old) titled ...and ideas fly! and starring objects, light, music, and circus. Two acrobatic clowns will try to build a shelter with 2,000 camping tent poles in La casa intempèrie, by Psirc, and Roger Bernat has prepared an adaptation of The Rite of Spring for audiences aged twelve and up. And AzkonaToloza will bring the third part of the project Falla, a piece that draws from the ancestral dance of Laniakea and is intended for children aged 5 and up.

International companies

Despite the logistical difficulties of this season, Mercat de les Flors has managed to sign great international companies that will pass through the Montjuïc building. One of the most outstanding names is the collaboration between (La)Horde –creators of award-winning productions such as Age of content and also part of Rosalía's show– and the Ballet National de Marseille. On this occasion they will recreate structures of power and domination in a production titled Après moi, le déluge. In addition, Mercat will present Carte blanche by the national contemporary dance company of Norway. It is a reflection on the difficulties of life that is part of the Autumn Flaix festival.

The season also includes collaborations such as Jesús Rubio and the Berlin Dance on Ensemble and the Cullberg company with Brazilian dancer Renan Martins. From Australia, the Sydney Dance Company will present Momenta, a celebration of human beauty and fragility, and Brazilian Alice Ripoll will perform the solo Puff, which is based on the idea of disguise in different cultures. Two other quite relevant events are Hatched Ensemble, one of the most celebrated works by South African Mamela Nyamza, and This resting, patience, by Polish Ewa Dziarnowska.

Programming outside the Market

Since initially Cifuentes was working with the idea that she would not be able to carry out all the programming in the Montjuïc building, she has sought alliances with other spaces in the city to program her shows. The director has opted to maintain the established links, so she will bring dance to unusual spaces, such as the Piscines de Montjuïc, where Pablo Lilienfeld and Federico Vladimir will premiere Dragón, descansa en el lecho marino. At Castell de Montjuïc, Aina Alegre will present a piece designed for a hundred amateur dancers and titled Parades & Désobéissances and at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, Sharon Eyal's Delay the Sadness can be seen. El Lliure will also be the venue for various dance performances. This is the case of two works by María Muñoz and Mal Pelo, by the Senegalese Dub by Amala Dianor and Israel & Mohamed by Mohamed El Khatib and Israel Galván, one of the great successes of the Avignon Festival last year.

Likewise, part of the family programming will be moved to the Sant Andreu Teatre: Laura Alcalà Freudenthal will premiere Ona there and Ma Compagnie and Marc Lacourt will perform Vals amb W. In addition, the Mercat has teamed up with the Gran Teatre del Liceu to program Assembly Hall, by choreographer Crystal Pite and the company Kidd Pivot.