Neither the Vigo tree, nor the Badalona tree. Barcelona plays in another league: “We don’t make races, we don’t need to; we don’t compare ourselves with other cities, we don’t make the highest or the lowest tree,” says Jaume Collboni. Barcelona has its Nadal Festival with more than 300 proposals for two weeks (from December 16 to 29), a large-format show on Passeig de Gràcia as a preamble to the lighting of the lights and a monumental audiovisual installation in Plaza Universitat that It will project laser rays into the sky that will be visible from the entire city.
The Nadal Festival has an investment of 1.3 million euros, to which must be added the 2.9 million that have been allocated to lighting and subsidies to commercial hubs. “It is an invitation to come and discover the city. We recover the Barcelona way of celebrating Christmas, displaying all the potential that the city has, freedom, civility, respect,” said the mayor during the presentation of the programming, that will reach the ten districts and also the commercial hubs and markets.
All activities will be open and free. “It is a markedly cultural proposal, with absolute complicity with the commercial and economic axis,” added Oriol Martí, director of programming and new manager of the ICUB. The festival will focus mainly on Plaza Catalunya, where the large stage will be installed again and, on the outer perimeter, the Fair of Responsible Consumption and Social Economy and Solidarity.
The daily programming in Plaza Catalunya will have three slots: the more family-friendly morning with activities and workshops; the afternoon that will start with a daily session by Miqui Puig and a performance by The Gramophone All Stars Big Band and will continue with more dance, circus or tightrope walking performances and then music, giving wings to local artists such as Mazoni, Tarquim, Saphie Wells, Alba Armengou, La Maria and Núria Graham.
At 8 p.m. the Señor Serrano Group will be in charge of closing the daily programming of Plaza Catalunya with a large-format show that runs around a table, “where there is excitement and joy but also disagreement… and drawing on the spirit of the company, we wanted to explain this complexity…”, explained Paula Viteri. La Taula will present an apparently harmonious family with a lot of music and a large format.
The other big bet of the Nadal Festival is the digital arts stage in Plaza Universitat. The original proposal for Sónar, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, was developed by Glassworks with sound accompaniment by Tarta Relena. It is a large cylindrical piece three meters high and seven meters in perimeter, named Analema, which will project light, which at the same time will react to the light and which will launch light rays vertically at night.
The first installment of the Nadal Festival will be the large-format show that will premiere on the afternoon of Thursday, November 23 as a preamble to the lighting of the lights throughout the city. Astronòmica is inspired by the figure of the Barcelona scientist Assumpció Català with a visual story with circus, music, dance and light signed by Obskené.
