The most cutting-edge international shows land in Barcelona

BarcelonaFrom this Friday until October 29, Barcelona becomes a magnet for major international spectacles through the Flaix de Tardor. The second edition of the festival kicks off on Friday with two simultaneous proposals. At the Teatre Akadèmia, Enrico Ianniello will premiere Mamma by Annibale Ruccello, an exploration of traditional motherhood through the portrait of four women played by Fabrizia Sacchi. In parallel, the Mercat de les Flors will host the festival's big dance highlight of the year: How romantic, choreographed by Katerina Andreou and performed by Carte Blanche, the national company of Norway.

"It is a very energetic show, with fourteen dancers and a large format. There is a choreographed part and an improvisation part. The audience will leave as tired as if they had been dancing with them," affirms the director of Flaix de Tardor, Narcís Puig, who is also the director of the Temporada Alta Festival in Girona. Through dance, How romantic explores "the paradox we live in today, where we are demanded to give our maximum at work, we go through a lot of suffering, and at the same time we are asked to always be happy," says Andreou. To devise the choreography, she was mainly inspired by the American dance marathons of the 30s, during the Great Depression, in which people danced until exhaustion in exchange for a roof and food.

Freedom is one of the main elements of the piece, and on stage, it takes shape through the dancers' improvisation. "They have the possibility to be free within a structure. They don't invent from nothing, but rather respond to stimuli such as the look of another dancer, a gesture, an attitude. Their energy becomes something dynamic that encourages them. Beyond work, they find joy," points out the choreographer, who argues that "freedom is a type of practice, and as such, it must be trained."

The last days of Roberto Bolaño

The Autumn Flash will also pass through the Library Theater, where two proposals will be performed. Next Wednesday, Deserto will arrive, an approach to Roberto Bolaño led by Luiz Felipe Reis. The production arrives in Barcelona thanks to an alliance between the Autumn Flash, the Autumn Festival, and the Condeduque cultural space in Madrid, where it will also pass through. "Deserto was one of the successes of the Teatro a Mil Festival in Santiago, Chile. On stage, Bolaño is embodied and, through texts from his works, a vital journey is constructed, especially of the writer's final days," explains Puig.

"I wanted to dive into Bolaño's unconscious while he was writing 2666. I immersed myself in the novel and used it to understand his obsessions and anxieties, the most recurring themes that ran through his literary work," says Luiz Felipe Reis, who adds that on stage they represent "the writer's confrontation with death" and how "he had a strong connection with life, which led him to dedicate all his energy to writing." The Biblioteca will also be the setting for Sventoji (The Saint) a piece by the Lithuanian Oskaras Korsunovas in which he delves into the story of Mary of Egypt and her pilgrimage through the desert.

At the Lliure, the Swiss Stefan Kaegi and his company Rimini Protokoll will install a giant mirror in the Sala Fabià Puigserver that will be a metaphor for the human brain. Through this artifact, Spiegelneuronen wants to invite the audience to live an immersive experience about empathy and community, which will be performed on October 23 and 24. A few days later, the Espai Lliure will host the return of the Chilean Guillermo Calderón with Navegar por el Neva. The play brings together the original cast of one of the playwright's greatest hits, Neva, to make it grow with new reflections on illness and friendship.

Navegar por el Neva will be performed from October 27 to 29 and, together with The Saint, it will put an end to the Autumn Flash. Before that, on October 26 and 27, the Argentine group Piel de Lava will stop at La Villarroel with Petróleo, a comedy that questions gender stereotypes through four men settled in a Patagonian oil field. The show, which could already be seen in 2022 at Temporada Alta, is completely sold out.