Festival Grec brings international dance stars to Barcelona

Festival Grec, Catalonia’s biggest performing arts festival, kicks off this Wednesday. For the next four weeks, the festival will bring 86 shows and 50 activities to 55 different venues across Barcelona. 

The festival begins with the premiere of a show by one of the most prestigious dance companies in Europe, the Nederlands Dans Theater - NDT 1. 

The group will open the festival on Wednesday night with three different choreographies, with the first being directed by the Valencian-Dutch artist Marina Mascarell. 

The piece provokes questions relating to social issues and seeks, through the medium of movement, alternatives to the default patterns. 

William Forsythe, one of the titans of 20th century dance, is in charge of another production of the Dutch group performing in Barcelona, while Sharon Eyal led the third.

The inaugural show will showcase the dialogue between three generations of very different choreographers working in the last 20 years. For Mascarell, they share a “group” commitment and an “energy” that is generated by the work of the team. 

"William Forsythe's vocabulary is more classical, Sharon Eyal's work is more frontal and mine provides the most experimental voices," Mascarell explained to the Catalan News Agency. 

Festival Grec’s commitment to international artists 

The Barcelona summer festival is back to normal after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, maintaining its commitment to international creation. 

An unusual co-production will be scheduled with the Avignon Festival in France, the Wiener Festwochen in Vienna, and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels El Conde de Torrefiel or the 

This year’s programme includes productions from the likes of Iranian director Amir Reza Koohestani, German Thomas Ostermeier will direct the controversial play by Henrik Ibsen ‘An Enemy of the People’, Serbian director Sanja Mitrović, as well as other internationally acclaimed artists Mohamed El Khatib, Phia Ménard, Christos Papadopoulos and Alan Lucien Oyen, among others.

Festival Grec highlights and must-sees

Among the many highlights, the performances from the Nederlands Dans Theater - NDT 1 are sure to leave a lasting impression on anybody who has the pleasure of seeing them. They perform their trio of choreographies in the Teatre Grec on Wednesday, June 29 and Thursday, June 30. 

‘An Enemy of the People’ pokes questions at a society that, over the past few decades, have only become more and more important as we watch the world fall into climate catastrophe around us. Are transparency and truth more important than financial gain? When those who have the responsibility of answering this question are the same who profit off the damaging status quo, the path forward may not be so easy. The play will be performed at Teatre Lliure Montjuïc on Saturday, July 2 and Sunday, July 3.

The story of Don Juan, a Spanish libertine devoid of a moral compass or sexual restraint, is centuries old, and the chauvinistic figure speaks to many of the same truths today in the 21st century as it did in the 17th century. Yet, in the play ‘El burlador de Sevilla,’ ('The joker of Seville') modern questions are asked of this old-fashioned character. You can catch Xavier Albertí's production at Teatre Grec on Sunday, July 3 and Monday, July 4. 

‘Una imagen interior’ ('An interior image') by El Conde de Torrefiel blends reality and fiction in a unique way – see it between July 7-9 at Teatre Lliure Montjuïc. 

‘Quant temps em queda?’ ('How long have I got left?') uses comedy to explore death at Teatre Goya between July 13 and August 7.

‘Immersive Next to Normal’ takes what was a smash hit musical on Broadway and adds new cutting-edge digitally immersive elements to it at IDEAL Digital Arts Center between July 1 to 31. 

To be or not to be? Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ needs little introduction – but, a new version of the play by a Peruvian company reinterprets the societal questions in the context of people with Down syndrome, their hopes, and their frustrations. See it at Teatre Nacional de Catalunya between July 1-3.