Sergi Belbel and Catalan Theatre

Sergi Belbel and Catalan Theatre

Author: David John George

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1855662205

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A major contemporary playwright and director. By the late 1970s, internationally known performance groups such as Els Joglars, La Fura dels Baus or La Cubana had precipitated a decline in text-based Catalan theatre, reversed in the mid 1980s with the appearance of a younger generation of playwrights led by Sergi Belbel. Influenced by contemporary European rather than Spanish or Catalan drama, his work was very different from the realist idiom favoured by playwrights of the Franco generation. Butplaywriting is only one aspect of Belbel's work as a theatre practitioner. He also has a highly successful career as a director of Spanish, Catalan and foreign plays [a number of which he himself has translated], and, since 2006, he has held the position of Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Catalonia. This study examines these three key aspects of his career, as well as Ventura Pons's film adaptations of his plays. Finally, it considersthe reception of his plays in several countries, analysing his evolving relationship with critics at home and abroad. DAVID GEORGE is Professor of Hispanic Studies at Swansea University.


The Aesthetics of the Ephemeral

The Aesthetics of the Ephemeral

Author: Jennifer Duprey

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1438452330

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Analyzes theatrical texts and performances while providing political and historical mappings. In The Aesthetics of the Ephemeral, Jennifer Duprey examines five contemporary plays from Barcelona: Olors and Testament by Josep Maria Benet i Jornet, Antígona by Jordi Coca, Forasters by Sergi Belbel, and Temptació by Carles Batlle. She argues that in both the theatrical text and its performance an aesthetics of the ephemeral materializes that is related to specific manifestations of cultural and historical memory in Spain and Catalonia. These manifestations of memory include historical concerns such as the possibility of another form of justice in predicaments of violence after the Civil War, and they also include contemporary issues such as the production of ruins by the processes of gentrification in Barcelona, the complexity of immigration in Spain, and the destruction or preservation of Catalan cultural legacies. In her analysis of these topics, Duprey engages and expands on theories related to questions of subjectivity and identity in late modernity. This book will be of interest to those concerned with Iberian cultural studies and with how theater reflects on and contributes to contemporary political dialogue.


Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Culture

Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Culture

Author: Professor Eamonn Rodgers

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-03-11

Total Pages: 615

ISBN-13: 1134788592

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Some 750 alphabetically-arranged entries provide insights into recent cultural and political developments within Spain, including the cultures of Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque country. Coverage spans from the end of the Civil War in 1939 to the present day, with emphasis on the changes following the demise of the Franco dictatorship in 1975. Entries range from shorter, factual articles to longer overview essays offering in-depth treatment of major issues. Culture is defined in its broadest sense. Entries include: *Antonio Gaudí * science * Antonio Banderas * golf * dance * education * politics * racism * urbanization This Encyclopedia is essential reading for anyone interested in Spanish culture. It provides essential cultural context for students of Spanish, European History, Comparative European Studies and Cultural Studies.


Catalan Culture

Catalan Culture

Author:

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2018-03-28

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1786832038

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

1) The subject matter is topical: Catalonia’s relationship with Spain is arguably the most important political issue within the peninsula today. 2) The coverage is diverse, adopting a multi-generic approach focusing on new and innovative cultural outputs, some of which have received limited critical attention to date. 3) The volume brings together the scholarship of leading UK and US Catalan specialists which is nicely contextualized by the thoroughgoing introduction.


Barcelona

Barcelona

Author: Helena Buffery

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2014-04-15

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1783161434

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This fully illustrated, edited volume brings together fresh insights into the changing urban space of Barcelona from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. The volume will contribute to the excavation of the avantgarde in Barcelona, as well as its legacy in the post-war period, although its primary focus will be on the relationship between environment, identity and performance as explored by countercultural artists and communities from the 1960s to the present day.


Spanish Theatre 1920-1995

Spanish Theatre 1920-1995

Author: Maria M. Delgado

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9789057021169

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Beginning with a reassessment of the 1920s and 30s, this text looks beyond a consideration of just the most successful Spanish playwrights of the time, and discusses also the work of directors, theorists, actors and designers.


In the Eye of the Storm

In the Eye of the Storm

Author: Sharon G. Feldman

Publisher: Bucknell University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 0838757227

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Barcelona, the cultural epicenter of Catalunya, is presently experiencing the most dynamic and polemical period in its modern theater history. It is the commanding hub of an energetic theater scene that in recent years has witnessed an exuberant outpouring of new dramatists, a steady crescendo in theater attendance, and a continual increase in the international presence of Catalan directors, playwrights, and companies. Barcelona's post-Olympian cultural landscape, moreover, comprises several architecturally striking theater projects. The diversity of opportunities to stage plays in Catalan at an assortment of city spaces is unprecedented, ranging in variety from commercial locales to publicly funded stages to experimental "alternative" venues. Since its origins in the nineteenth century, modem Catalan drama has frequently exhibited a cosmopolitan and even transnational impulse, engaging in an artistic dialogue with international theater traditions of both past and present and forging its identity vis-a-vis its intercultural associations. The path along which the contemporary Catalan theater scene has struggled to recover and reconstitute the professional legitimacy and visibility that it lost during the Franco dictatorship has been a complex process, never lacking in melodramatic excess, witnessed both on and off the stage. The Barcelona stage, throughout its contemporary evolution, has been immersed in a stormy climate, whose relentlessly frenetic atmospheric activity at times may impede one from acquiring the distance necessary to see beyond the hurricane." --Book Jacket.


Minority Theatre on the Global Stage

Minority Theatre on the Global Stage

Author: Madelena Gonzalez

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2012-03-15

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 1443838373

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

All over the world, in the most varied contexts, contemporary theatre is a rich source for increasing the visibility of communities generally perceived by others as minorities, or those who see themselves as such. Whether of a linguistic, ethnic, political, social, cultural or sexual nature, the claims of minorities enjoy a privileged medium in theatre. Perhaps it is because theatre itself is linked to the notions of centre and periphery, conformism and marginality, domination and subjugation – notions that minority theatre constantly examines by staging them – that it is so sensitive to the issues of troubled and conflicted identity and able to give them a universal resonance. Among the questions raised by this volume, is that of the relationship between the particular and the more general aims of this type of theatre. How is it possible to speak to everyone, or at least to the majority, when one is representing the voice of the few? Beyond such considerations, urgent critical examination of the function and aims of minority theatre is needed. To what kind of public is such drama addressed? Does it have an exemplary nature? How is it possible to avoid the pitfalls and the dead end of ghettoization? Certain types of audience-specific theatre are examined in this context, as, for example, theatre as therapy, theatre as an educational tool, and gay theatre. Particular attention is paid to the claims of minorities within culturally and economically dominant western countries. These are some of the avenues explored by this volume which aims to answer fundamental questions such as: What is minority theatre and why does theatre, a supposedly bourgeois, if not to say elitist, art form, have such affinity with the margins? What if, particularly in contemporary society, the theatre as a form, were merely playing out its fundamentally marginal status? The authors of these essays show how different forms of minority theatre can challenge cultural consensus and homogenization, while also aspiring to universality. They also address the central question of the place and status of apparently marginal forms of theatre in the context of globalization and in doing so re-examine theatre itself as a genre. Not only do they illustrate how minority theatre can challenge the dominant paradigms that govern society, but they also suggest their own more flexible and challenging frameworks for theatrical activity.


Contemporary European Playwrights

Contemporary European Playwrights

Author: Maria M. Delgado

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-07-22

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1351620533

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Contemporary European Playwrights presents and discusses a range of key writers that have radically reshaped European theatre by finding new ways to express the changing nature of the continent’s society and culture, and whose work is still in dialogue with Europe today. Traversing borders and languages, this volume offers a fresh approach to analyzing plays in production by some of the most widely-performed European playwrights, assessing how their work has revealed new meanings and theatrical possibilities as they move across the continent, building an unprecedented picture of the contemporary European repertoire. With chapters by leading scholars and contributions by the writers themselves, the chapters bring playwrights together to examine their work as part of a network and genealogy of writing, examining how these plays embody and interrogate the nature of contemporary Europe. Written for students and scholars of European theatre and playwriting, this book will leave the reader with an understanding of the shifting relationships between the subsidized and commercial, the alternative and the mainstream stage, and political stakes of playmaking in European theatre since 1989.