“Giving your word creates an irreversible bond,
which survives the passage of time and unfulfilled promises.
It creates common pasts and binding futures”.
El temps de la promesa, Marina Garcés, Nous Quaderns Anagrama, 65
Every season the Mercat de les Flors brings together a wide-ranging programme, a great diversity of aesthetics, creations and formats by artists we follow, artists who make proposals, projects we develop, creations that have an impact on us, practices that nourish us and burning issues.
2024/25 is woven by a shared interest transmitted through many projects: that of links, and despite the fact that everything could always be linked to everything, we believe that the link does not come as an excuse; the theme of links emerges as an urgency and a need that opens many questions.
Another distinctive feature of this season is that we present a wide range of local co-productions and/or collaborations.
Links
A season criss-crossed by artistic proposals that arise or are generated around links, artists and creations that have found the material for creation, play and research in their cultural legacy, such as Radouan Mriziga’s Libya or the whole cycle Radical d’arrel; in their personal history, in their family or friendship, such as Mónica by Pablo Lilienfeld and Federico Vladimir, or Coplas i haikus de mares i amors by Mònica Muntaner and Rosa Muñoz. Others have found it in the landscape, such as La Quijá by Paloma Muñoz, in their professional references, such as Best Regards by Marco D’Agostin, or in society and its polyphonies, as we will find in the constellation by Marcela Levi and Lucía Russo of Improvável Produções.
New generations propose and imagine new links regarding the ways of the society in which we live. Links as resistance, links as story and fiction, links as memory of the past and challenge for the future.
Like every season, we propose itineraries, series and constellations to generate contexts. Likewise, we continue to collaborate in shared curatorship with thematic festivals on a biennial basis, this year with IF, with an extensive programme, and Africa Moment with Nadia Beugré, who presents L’homme rare.
Radical d’arrel
In recent years many artists have immersed themselves in dance and roots music. Radical roots dance in the series Radical d’arrel to embrace and at the same time twist tradition, playing with it, as a point of departure and arrival, incorporating the present and putting legacy and the present into dialogue and friction.
We will see Cher, a new solo by Juan Carlos Lérida, an independent voice and figure of the most intimate flamenco; Laila Tafur with Maja y bastarda, Laia Santanach with crossed traditions in Jarana, La Chachi with Alegrias aleatorias, a new revolt on the contemporary flamenco scene; Víctor and Raúl Pérez Armero with Rel i Grapa and Muerta de amor, the new creation by the renowned Manuel Liñán, again at the Mercat. There will be a special programme on 6 April, in collaboration with the Traditional Dance Promotion Plan.
Cos de so
A short series in which music and sound are essential. For some time now, artistic and experimental research into sound space, the body of sound and the sound of the body has been yielding some very surprising works that we have to continue to present. Just a taste this year that will allow us to see pieces by Anna Fontanet, Óscar Bueno and Park Keito.
Constellations
The constellation with Lucía Russo and Marcela Levi, Improvável Produções, continues the approach we made to Brazilian dance in the 2022/23 season with the constellation featuring Lia Rodrigues and Brasil Next. The work of this duo of artists is experimental, always polyphonic, a work that does not shy away from contradictions and is born impregnated by the link with Brazilian society. They have presented their work at SÂLMON< 18 festival and were residents at Graner in 2022, researching and transmitting their methodological work. The creations of Improvável Produções are present in the most relevant European contemporary dance and creation festivals.
On wheels
We have found within recent choreography an interest in integrating the more sporting and playful practices of the different styles of roller skating and skateboarding, bringing them to the stage and articulating these languages in creations, showing everything they have to do with dance. We present the piece Skatepark by Mette Ingvartsen, which brings together a heterogeneous group of young skaters, skateboarders, acrobats, dancers and musicians. Constel·lació Roller by Marta Izquierdo will bring us different creations on wheels: Roller and Flip, her latest artistic research, also inviting our skater communities to participate in different experiences, especially within the framework of the workshop-creation Roller LAB, which we will hold in collaboration with the MNAC.
CÈL·LULA#5 La Quijá by Paloma Muñoz, artist in residence at the Mercat
The Mercat’s own production project this year is with Paloma Muñoz, artist in residence at the Mercat and guest choreographer at CÈL·LULA. The starting point for La Quijá is the desert landscape of Extremadura, Paloma’s homeland. The piece, with 10 dancers, is currently being created and will open the season. This project is one of the measures of the Dance Promotion Plan developed by the Mercat de les Flors.
Søren Evinson, associate artist at the Mercat
Evinson is the associate artist at the Market this season, whose new creation Vanity Poverty Revenge is presented in the context of a trilogy that includes the two solos that precede this third creation: A Nation is Born in Me and Just Desire, which you will be able to see in an immersive weekend programme.
Co-productions, proximity and discoveries
Next season the Mercat is collaborating in many local co-productions: we present small formats such as Danses Romàntiques by Guillem Mont de Palol and Jorge Dutor, El salto del ciervo by Inés Boza, Invacuo by Yurdance, and medium-format creations such as Momentum by Wonderground, D’ençà by Quim Bigas or Monument by Àngel Duran. Also large formats such as the new creation Natural Order of Things by Guy Nader and Maria Campos, and We. Nosaltres i el temps by Mal Pelo.
And if you don’t know them yet, in addition to the artists we have already mentioned, you can discover for the first time at the Mercat Georgia Vardarou, Javier Martín, Lautaro Reyes and Kolektiv Lapso Cirk, among many others.
International
On an international level, artists not previously seen at the Mercat include Marco D’Agostin, Radouan Mriziga and Trajal Harrell, the latter with the acclaimed Köln concert, and (LA) HORDE – Ballet de Marseille returns, but for the first time with a piece by (LA) HORDE, The Age of Content, in collaboration with Temporada Alta.
We will have the two latest works by Rosas: Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker brings us a large-scale piece, Exit Above, and the recently premiered Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione, with joint choreography by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga. There is also the latest creation by Ayelen Parolin, Zonder, one of the funniest pieces touring internationally at the moment, as well as Troglodyte, the latest solo by Thomas Hauert, Jan Martens with his new creation Voice Noise, and we repeat his solo Elisabeth Gets Her Way, whose performances at the Mercat were cut short by Covid-19.
Returning to the Mercat
We are once again programming some successful co-productions presented in previous seasons aimed at a wide audience, which at the same time are programmed as part of the Mercat’s educational project, such as Animal Religion with Còpia and …i les idees volen, or Tempo, by Toni Mira, this year with live music, and Supermedium by Núria Guiu and Ingri Fiksdal, among others.
There are the itineraries Talla Única and Zeroacinc, circus and more shows, with an extensive educational programme and, as always, an expanded programme parallel to the shows to find out more about the works, the artists and the creative processes. You will find this information in the guide and on the website.
First Dance
The Mercat de les Flors, as the home of dance, and a space for the arts and humanities, is committed to a culture of peace, dialogue, recognition of the other, of all others, committed to providing access to the knowledge that comes from artistic experience. The performing arts offer us spaces of encounter, of ritual, they favour the feeling of community, they encourage listening and debate, they want to welcome the best of human beings. We have many challenges as a society, to challenge a very dark present and re-imagine futures.
The body is all we really have. Dance, taking the body as a measure, highlights the power and fragility of who we are; in the face of the algorithm, we want to cultivate the high technology of our most bodily intelligence. Dancing brings us closer, dancing heals us, dancing together is a promise for the future.
“Whoever makes a promise knows that not everything is possible, but not everything is finished.
To make a promise is to interrupt destiny.
It is to assert with conviction a truth that defies the weight of reality”.
El temps de la promesa, Marina Garcés, Nous Quaderns Anagrama, 65
Àngels Margarit,
Directora del Mercat de les Flors
