Culture

Sónar+D is an international professional conference for creativity and technological innovation, which coincides with Barcelona's Sónar Festival of electronic and advanced music. The 3^rd edition of the professional event will take place in Barcelona on the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th of June 2015, at the same time as the popular and prestigious music festival. Its main aim is to bring together international experts presenting initiatives and tools that will shape future creative experiences in the fields of music, visuals, and interactive content and transmedia platforms. This year, 4,000 professionals and 2,000 companies from all over the world will take part in the event, a remarkable leap forward on last year's figures. "It is not just a fair or a conference", Sonar co-Director Ricard Robles said on Thursday. "It is a 360-degree, all encompassing event, a point of interaction between the creative and technological communities".

The country house where one of the world's greatest artists of the 20^th century, Joan Miró, spent his summers in his teenage and adult years will be transformed into a museum. The Mas Miró, the artist's family farmhouse located in Mont-roig del Camp, in the Catalan Province of Tarragona, will be open for visitors by summer 2016. The project – developed by RCR and Varis Arquitectes studios – will consist of two phases. The first – costing a total of €2.5 million – entails the conversion of the farmhouse and the painter's studio into a museum, the renovation of the housekeeper's house and the construction of an entry pavilion. The second – which will cost €3 million – envisages the creation of new areas such as: a restaurant, a new car park, a multipurpose room and a workshop space. Work is due to start in the coming weeks.

Salvador Sunyer, Director of the theatre festival Temporada Alta, is a great example of what defines an entrepreneur. He created the company ‘Bitò Produccions’ in Girona in 1992 along with two professional local actors who wanted to stimulate theatrical activities in the city. They immediately planned the creation of a new festival called the ‘Temporada Alta’ 24 years ago as a short cycle based on premieres, but it has grown at such a great speed that they have achieved a 90% occupancy rate every year since 2000. Last year they sold 94% of all tickets. Without a doubt, the Festival has become a point of reference in the sector, considered by experts as the best festival in Spain in terms of quality and pioneering spirit. For this reason, in 2010, Sunyer received Catalonia's National Theatral Award. Sunyer works hard to bring to Girona the greatest artists from the international scene as well as being a platform for presenting new local talents

Barcelona's Picasso Museum unveiled on Friday the first exhibition in the world analysing how Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí artistically admired and influenced each other, despite their political differences. The Catalan museum has opened the most awaited temporary exhibition of the season, which will run until 28 June. 'Picasso/Dalí. Dalí/Picasso' showcases 78 works of these two giants of 20^th century art, including paintings, drawings, collages, sculptures and carvings. They tell the story of their artistic relationship and how their works evolved by setting many parallels between the two. The exhibition also includes 33 documents such as some letters that Gala and Salvador Dalí sent to Picasso, which had only been on show once, in Paris.

This week, the Museum of the History of Barcelona (MUHBA) launched a new exhibition 'Barcelona in late antiquity: Christianity, Visigoths and the city'. 120 new pieces dating back from between the 4^th and 7^th centuries are going to be on display in the museum's Monumental Site of Plaça del Rei, in the heart of the Gothic Quarter. The launch has also been an opportunity to present the re-designed archaeological tour of this specific underground site, with its area which is open to the public growing in size. "The new archaeological discoveries contribute to explain the main transformations that took place in Barcelona, from Roman Barcino to Christianity", the curator Julia Beltran de Heredia said to CNA.

The Tate Modern launched on Wednesday 'Albert Serra: Divine Visionaries and Holy Fools', an event series on the Catalan maverick filmmaker. The show will be on until 20 March and will include an exclusive preview of his latest project 'Singularity', which he has been shooting the last few months. This project has been commissioned for the Catalan pavilion at the 56^th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia. The Tate Modern-hosted event represents the first major showcase in the UK of Serra's work, a powerful and unique voice in contemporary cinema, as stated in the Tate Modern's presentation at the event. The show begins with the screening of his recent film 'Story of My Death' (2013) but the most awaited event will take place on Friday, when the Catalan director will premiere 'Singularity'.

This year is the 20^th anniversary of the death of Valencian singer Ovidi Montllor who, along with other artists, promoted Catalan music during the Franco dictatorship and the transition years to democracy. Though not well-known internationally, Montllor was an important figure in the Catalan music world and especially in the opposition to the dictatorship. Back then, he started to accompany his poems with music and those of renown Catalan poets like Joan Salvat-Papasseit. For this reason, throughout the year there will be a lot of events and tributes paid to him. One of these tributes is a book to be published in March written by Catalan writer Jordi Tormo made up of photographs, poems and a review of his career.

Being the European capital of Circus Arts 5 days a year seems not to be enough for the Catalan city of Figueres (near the Costa Brava and the French border). On Monday, in a press conference that took place a week after the 4th edition of the city's International Circus Festival, Mayor Marta Felip and Festival Director Genís Matabosch announced a plan to become the Word Circus Capital by 2018. Figueres is already working on the project, which will coincide with the 250th anniversary of the arrival of the circus in Spain. A City of Circus is to be created, a very ambitious project that will host - among others draws - a museum, a high-performance centre for international artists and a permanent big top with a resident show every half-year.

The "La Caixa" Foundation has opened Moche Art from Ancient Peru. Gold, Myths and Rituals, an exhibition to be hosted at CaixaForum in Barcelona until the 7th of June. The exhibition includes 200 pieces of pre-Incan Peruvian art from the collection of the Lima-based Larco Museum. According to its curator Ulla Holmquist, the exhibition is conceived "as a route to understanding the Andean worldview through art". The launch of the event coincides with the recent opening of Barcelona's Museum of World Cultures, which hosts a permanent exhibition of more than 500 pieces from the artistic heritage and traditions of Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. The Museum of World Cultures occupies two Gothic palaces located in the Born neighbourhood, just next to the Picasso Museum.

The Costa Brava-based Cap Roig's music festival will hold its 15^th edition from 10 July to 16 August. Many international and local artists will take part in the event which will start with a performance by one of the greatest exponents of British pop-rock, Sting. The following day, American singer-songwriter Ben Harper will be on stage playing with his legendary band, The Innocent Criminals, in their first tour together for seven years. The festival will also host other big names of international renown such as Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett, Rosario, Antonio Orozco, Julieta Venegas, Miguel Bosé, Passenger and Macaco. Among the featured Catalan artists will be: Mishima with Joan Miquel Oliver, Blaumut, Els Amics de les Arts and Núria Graham. The festival will end with Alejandro Sanz's performance.

The 4^th edition of the Figueres International Circus Festival has met all expectations and broken its previous record with more than 30,000 tickets sold. The festival ended last Monday and took place in the Catalan city of Figueres (near the Costa Brava and the French border), which is Salvador Dalí's home town. The National Circus of Pyongyang won the Dalí Golden Elephant for its trapeze performance, pulling off a double quadruple somersault for the first time in Spain. The other Golden Elephant, according to the public, went to the Russian company Troupe Trushin for its acrobatic jumping show ‘Watch Dogs’. Figueres has now consolidated itself as the second European city of reference for the circus world, only after Montecarlo.

Isona Passola, the producer of the internationally-acclaimed Catalan film ‘Pa Negre’ (Black Bread), the Spanish contender for an Oscar in 2013, believes that “Catalan culture can be appreciated worldwide”. Passola has made many historical documentaries and is now convinced that “life acquires meaning when working for collective benefit”. Last year she presented ‘L’Endemà’, a documentary aimed at countering the arguments against Catalan independence and financed through crowd-funding. Passola, the current president of the Catalan Film Academy, is “a true defender of the right to form a family” and “has never lost the joie de vivre”.

In 2002, the ‘Black Music Festival’ was born when the ‘La Mirona’ concert room was created in Salt, a small city next to Girona. The festival wanted to become a shop window for both local and international artists of black music styles that have evolved from their original soul music source. This weekend it will kick off its 14^th edition, which brings together almost 50 artists from English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Jazz greats Maceo Parker and Richard Bona will be the stars of the 2015 edition but other great soul, blues, funk, hip hop and reggae musicians such as Myles Sanko – a soul revelation artist from the UK – and The Coup – a controversial hip hop and soul band from the USA – will complete the lineup of the festival, which ends on 21 March. 

The 2015 edition of the Figueres Circus Festival, in the north-eastern part of Catalonia near the French border, will break all records. The festival will be held from Thursday, 26 February to Monday, 2 March. This edition will feature 24 previously unseen performances in Europe by more than 80 artists from 17 different countries, thanks to the incorporation of new countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Uzbekistan. Another novelty is the inclusion of air performances, so the event will use a big top without columns for the first time, allowing the public to enjoy a 360º view. One of the main air shows will be offered by the North Korean Pyongyang National Circus. Some 30,000 tickets have gone on sale, but the event will offer some free cultural activities too.

After having filmed in Ireland, Albert Serra has chosen Lleida to finish ‘Singularity’, his latest project. The Catalan filmmaker won the Golden Leopard – the top prize at the Locarno International Film Festival – in 2013 for ‘Story of my death’. His new film will be presented in a multi-screen format at the 56^th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia. The Ramon Llull Institute, the public body promoting Catalan culture abroad, has chosen it as the project that will represent Catalan culture at this edition of the Biennale. Albert Serra, who won a Golden Leopard in 2013 for ‘Story of my death’, explained that ‘Singularity’ is “completely fanciful” and that more than being a film, it is a “baroque installation” with mining as a common link.