For one night, Marcos Morau has set out to turn Tàrrega into Calanda. The director of La Veronal prepares an outdoor adaptation of Sonoma, one of his most dazzling productions. With the filmmaker Luis Buñuel and the drums of Setmana Santa among the references of the show, Morau wants to do Sonoma on Thursday night in Plaça Major, the first day of FiraTàrrega. With this aim, it asks for the popular collaboration of women who want to participate with a drum, a timpani, a tambourine or any other percussion instrument that is played with sticks.
It is not the inaugural show, because FiraTàrrega never schedules an inaugural show, but on Thursday 7 September at 9.30pm, what will happen in the Plaça Major will be an artistic event of the first magnitude. And he won’t be the only one. From September 7 to 10, the streets and halls of the capital of Urgell will host 25 premieres of a total of 46 shows by 45 companies, 50% of which are Catalan, 22% from the rest of Spain and 28% international.
Yesterday, at the headquarters of the Department of Culture, the master lines of this edition were presented, which has walking as its leitmotif. “The proposals have to do with strolling and its synonyms, walking, observing in unsuspected places, suspicious walks, the figure of the flâneur”, explains Anna Giribet, the artistic director. In this edition, he assures, “a transversal program in content, festive and which calls for a connection with the public; for all audiences, from the most hipster to the most expert, with artistic teams that are equal”.
There are three more large format shows. The English from Keleider will present Fish mobile, an installation of four large fish. The French company L’Homme Debout will also be there with the giant Mo et le ruban rouge puppet. And on Sunday night, as a closing without it being recorded as a closing, Alba G. Corral plus the Julià Carbonell Symphonic Orchestra of the Terres de Lleida will premiere the musical show Les nostres terre com planetes dansant, but the eve the public will also be able to attend the dress rehearsal.
A few more names, although it is impossible to give a summary: Bigbouncers, Svalholm, Zum-Zum Teatre, Joan Català, Maria Palma and Joan Font, founder of Comediants and promoter of FiraTàrrega, who in the piece El vendor de fum will a theatrical review of his artistic and personal life.
Edgar García, director of the ICEC, recalls that FiraTàrrega “is an international reference in southern Europe, among the strategic markets supporting the performing arts”. There are 1,400 accredited professionals in the professional space that operates all year round. According to the executive director, Natàlia Lloreta, “the fair is like a market with tastings, where anyone who comes can see the works and also observe the reaction of the public”. This year’s edition has a budget of 1.2 million euros, of which 71% are public subsidies, 9% are private and the remaining 20% ??are own resources.
