The summer capital of Europe is going to offer you a good entertainment. The Grec Festival always manages to strike a balance between marquee name projects and local or avant-garde productions. The Festival Grec de Barcelona, also known as the Barcelona Festival or simply El Grec, is an annual summer festival held in Barcelona. What can you expect? The festival runs from the 17th of June until the 1st of August and features a program of theater, music, dance and circus. So far the festival organizers have announced the following productions/performances for the summer 2010 edition: Iago Pericot's La Venus de Willendorf, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre's Wild Cursive, and Dunas performed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and María Pagés.
The Grec Festival also remains steadfast in its support of cultural and artistic exchange, best expressed in 2010 by Dunas, a flamenco/contemporary dance project uniting Moroccan-Belgian dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and flamenco artist Maria Pagés. The two dancers' roots coincide and intertwine in an imaginary desert to original compositions by Szymon Brzóska and Rubén Lebaniegos, which evoke the spirits of flamenco and Arabic music. Another highly anticipated dance production is Iago Pericot's The Venus of Willendorf, a reflection on violence, beauty and love through movement. The Grec Festival has also announced performances by Carles Santos, Carme Portaceli, Marta Carrasco, Joan Ollé, Saburo Teshigawara and Dumb Type as part of the 34th edition's programme.
The festival dates back to 1976 when a group of actors and directors got together and decided to arrange a summer season at Teatre Grec de Montjuic, with the objective of bringing more independent and experimental theatre to the city. It began as a collaborative effort between a group of actors and directors, who wanted to bring an innovative form of theater to Barcelona. The festival grew with every subsequent edition and began to include international projects, expanded the number of performance spaces and eventually was opened up to private sponsorship.
Grec Festival is one of the most important events on Barcelona's cultural calendar. The summer just cannot be imagined without this fabulous festival. It simply has something for everyone, from children to seniors and traditionalists to innovators. In fact, in order to make the festival accessible to as many people as possible it will include free shows and discounts for seniors, students, and those receiving unemployment benefits. Mix all that with a dynamic Barcelona's atmosphere and non-stopping city life. Could you think of anything better?
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