The Mercat de les Flors has equipped itself this Christmas with a program for family audiences that brings together the best of that contemporary creation that connects with the concerns of childhood. Added to the creativity of Aracalandanza and Anna Rubirola (from Big Bouncers) is that of the company El Conde de Torrefiel, which makes its debut before this type of public with Los protagonistas – from 27 to 30, for ages 7 to 11 years old–, a journey through evocative scenic spaces in which the spectators are immersed.
Tanya Beyeler, who together with Pablo Gisbert forms El Conde de Torrefiel, confesses that having children has made them sensitive to children's theater. Hence, with this 2020 piece, she proposes a provocative, curious and seductive look at the world. “Unlike literature – she assures –, children's theater has remained in the middle of the 20th century, the morals, the archetypes... there was an ideological problem, our work is focused on stretching the conventions, questioning the theater. And for children it is essential that the experience passes through the body, especially when they have that frontal relationship with two-dimensional reality. We wanted to generate a whole territory, a landscape”.
It was about being able to enter the theater but having a real experience of the theater space and what it is like to occupy the stage. “And since our pieces are not interdisciplinary or participatory in nature, we have taken a tour through five evocative set spaces, in which spectators enter with headphones and enter a highly elaborate soundscape of words, sounds and music”.
A trip to a strange world – moving pictures, a narrow and dark passage, a volcano, an earthquake, getting lost in the woods... – that intensifies perception and seeks to stimulate the imagination, for which reason they use poor materials: wood, fabric, paint... And the children come out galvanized.
For her part, Anna Rubirola, from the Big Bouncers company, appeals to an audience from 4 to 7 years old (although it could be expanded to 10) with research on plankton. “At that age they discover the world around them. And if there are star animals, such as the lion or the whale, planktonic beings are unknown. And even though they are the beginning of the atrophic chain, phytoplankton emits 50% of the oxygen we breathe, which raises questions about the planet and what we need to live”, says Rubirola. “In addition, they can come to have a large number of shapes and some emit light. Seeing how they move allows you to break schemes, because if I try to imitate their movement, other ways of moving appear. They are the only beings who cannot decide where they are going, they allow themselves to be carried away by the sea currents, and that applied to dance implies listening, trust and discovering movements that you could not find alone”.
Lastly, in this program Talla Única del Mercat (which does not bore adults), the multi-award-winning Aracalandanza from Madrid propose Loop (from 6 to 12 years old, from January 7 to 15), a love letter to the scenic machinery where spotlights, the wings, the linoleum or the electrical cables are in sight and the function begins when the curtain falls.
