Marina Garcés writes in her latest book The time of promise (Anagram) that, “in the midst of situations that close, the promise opens an interval.” He adds that this interval “can be filled or not: the promise can remain empty, only announced or foreseeably failed.” And what Garcés points out defines in some way this theatrical 2024 that now begins, a time loaded with the promise of some certainties, fundamentally in the public arena, which throughout this year will be revealed as such or will be emptied and fail. Let’s note, for now, the possibilities.
Throughout 2024 we will know if the Ministry of Culture headed by Ernest Urtasun will be able to promote the complete development of the Artist Statute and will achieve greater involvement than its predecessor from the Ministry of Finance directed by María Jesús Montero. We will also know if he will have the courage and sufficient negotiating strength with the unions and the Ministries of Public Function and Finance to address the reform of the National Institute of the Performing Arts (Inaem), an administrative dinosaur that barely serves, with agility and effectiveness, the artistic projects that their units produce and exhibit.
The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, walks through the gardens of La Moncloa. FERNANDO CALVO / MONCLOA
These units are, among others, the National Dramatic Center, the National Classical Theater Company, the National Ballet of Spain and the National Dance Company. And Inaem will also have to decide this year whether to call new public competitions or extend the tenure of its respective artistic directors –Alfredo Sanzol, Lluís Homar, Rubén Olmo and Joaquín de Luz–, whose five-year term ends in September, with the exception of Sanzol, which ends in January 2025.
The question of parity
Politically speaking, the decision is not trivial. They were all elected in 2019, with Amaya de Miguel at the head of Inaem, in a process in which not a single woman was selected to lead any of the units. Nor for the Teatro de la Zarzuela or the technical and artistic directions of the National Orchestra and Choir of Spain.
And if the question of parity is important, what Urtasun decides or not regarding Inaem and its units will also be important. in matters of politics and cultural war because it will establish a dialogue with the practices of the administrations governed by the PP, fundamentally in Madrid. While the Ministry of Culture continues without providing its two dance companies with their own space and projects such as the National Dance Center languish in the drawer, the Minister of Culture Mariano de Paco has decided to create the Spanish Ballet of the Community of Madrid, directed by Antonio Carmona, and the Culture delegate of the City Council, Marta Rivera de la Cruz, plans to use Nave 11 of Matadero for dance.
Not a single one of these decisions has been adopted by virtue of the Code of Good Practices or by public tender, nor has the appointment of Pilar de Yzaguirre as the new director of the Autumn Festival or the appointment of the new directors. of the Teatros del Canal, the Teatro Español or the Teatro Fernan Gómez. On the contrary, Barcelona City Council will elect through public competition the replacement of Cesc Casadesús, whose mandate at the head of the Grec Festival ends in 2024.
Beyond the fact that the public competition formula is not perfect, direct appointments will continue to contribute – we will also see this in 2024 – to feed the fragility of managers and their dependence on political power, which will translate into a foreseeable increase in self-censorship and fear when programming.
The main dishes
The year begins with the return to the stages of that scenic animal that is Carmen Machiunder the orders of Lautaro Perotti, in a work called Our hidden acts, which premieres in January, at the Naves del Español. In the same space we will see in May Poet in New Yorka staging of Lorca’s text directed by Carlos Marquerie, with dramaturgy by Pedro G. Romero, in which the poet’s verses will coexist with the music of Niño de Elche, the puppet theater and the dance of Elena Córdoba and Jesús Fallow Blonde.
He won’t be the only Lorca we’ll see: Alfredo Sanzol dares to Bernarda Alba’s house, which will premiere in February at the María Guerrero Theater, a text, he says, that “continues to be the most brutal x-ray that exists on sexist violence in dramatic literature.” The long-awaited new piece from La tristura will also arrive at Valle-Inclán, That’s how we talkeda montage from The search for an interlocutorby Carmen Martín Gaite.
Two years after the premiere of The fakers, Pablo Remón returns to the stage with Vania x Vania, a double rereading of Chekhov’s text: one, minimalist and essential, and another that places the action in two times, Russia at the end of the 19th century and Castile today. After its premiere at the Estación Alta Festival, Angélica Liddell will arrive in Conde Duque in February with Voodoo (3318) Blixen, a monumental work in which he stages his own funeral. Also in Conde Duque we will see the new work of AzkonaToloza, Celestial bodiesand another highly anticipated montage: Out of dateby L’Alakran, that «duo of clowns metaphysicians” formed by Juan Loriente and Oscar Gómez Mata who already fascinated us years ago with Makers.
L’Alakran, the “metaphysical clowns” Juan Loriente and Oscar Gómez Mata, premiere their new show in March: ‘Inactuales’. CONDE DUQUE CENTER
The Catalan stages will inaugurate 2024 with the premiere at the Sala Beckett of the new piece by Las Huecas, of friendship and, already in April, at the Teatre Lliure, another highlight: the stage adaptation of Watusi dayby Francisco Casavella, who directs Iván Morales.
2024-01-05 13:02:23
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