These are the magnificent seven of Barcelona's Autumn Flaix cycle

BarcelonaThe international show cocktail Flaix de Tardor will once again be served from October 16 to 29 in five Barcelona venues. It will be the second edition of a minifestival of seven shows set at the start of the season, recalling the old Festival de Tardor or the Xavier Regàs Memorial. The cycle serves to provide a concentrated taste of what is happening theatrically abroad, at a time when the Temporada Alta festival also takes place in Girona-Salt, where there is indeed a larger group of international companies more stably than in Barcelona. The same Girona-based producer, Bitó, is the one programming this "explosion of international theatre" in Barcelona, says the festival director, Narcís Puig, who has public support from the Barcelona City Council (180,000 euros) and the Generalitat (180,000 euros) and the collaboration of the six theaters where the programming is expanding. For the Councilor for Culture, Xavier Marcé, Flaix de Tardor "normalizes a program of international reference shows" and "singularizes the city's cultural offering". Last year, Flaix achieved an occupancy rate of 89%, with 5,300 spectators.

One of Flaix's major premieres will be Spiegelneuronen, a show by old acquaintances of the city, Stefan Kaegi and Rimini Protokoll, who work in documentary theatre and participatory installations, in alliance with the dancers from the prestigious dance house Sasha Waltz & Guests. The theme of the performance is mirror neurons, those that explain empathy. The stage is literally a mirror that ends up involving the audience in participating in the functioning of the work (October 23-24 at Teatre Lliure). The dance piece of the year is How romantic, a choreography by Katerina Andreou with Carte Blanche Norwegian National Dance Company —a pick from the Avignon Festival— with fourteen dancers expressing the forms of love (October 16-18 at Mercat de les Flors). And the Italian production of Flaix is a portrait of motherhood, Mamma, by Annibale Ruccello, directed and performed by Enrico Ianniello with Fabrizia Sacchi (October 16-18 at Teatre Akadèmia). Still within this European focus, we have the first show by the Lithuanian company of Oskaras Korsunovas to land in Barcelona: Sventoji (The Saint), a contemporary reinterpretation based on the figure of Mary of Egypt, a courtesan who after a dissolute life wants to convert to Christianity, and which is performed by actress Eglé Jackaité (October 28-29 at La Biblioteca).

Directly from the great Latin American festival Santiago a Mil, the Brazilians Polifónica arrive, making their debut in Catalonia as part of a tour of the State. Deserto brings to life the writer Roberto Bolaño based on literary or autobiographical texts by the author (21-23 at La Biblioteca). The Argentine company Piel de Lava brings to Barcelona a show about masculinity that we already saw in Salt during Temporada Alta. Petróleo is a comedy with four women playing four men on an oil rig (October 27-28 at La Villarroel). And the Chilean Guillermo Calderón reunites the team with whom he made one of his most famous shows, Neva, and continues that work in Navegar por el Neva but with the changes that time has imprinted on the characters and performers of the play, one of whom (Jorge Becker) suffered an illness that has affected his mobility, speech, and sight (October 27-29 at Teatre Lliure).