What's happening in FiraTàrrega?

Tàrrega, 29 June 2021. In this context of a return to performing arts activity, 2021 will see the 40th anniversary of the fair, founded in 1981 as a big community celebration which reclaimed the street as a space for culture and civic coexistence. This spirit has endured and today is fully in force, even more so after this long pandemic which has kept us apart and isolated. The public space is the core of FiraTàrrega's identity, where performing arts cultivate our imagination and critical spirit and engage the citizenry.

The edition's leitmotif is summarised and updated in the phrase «inhabit space», which aims to draw attention to the public space as the common space, which fully takes shape when we inhabit it, when we abandon our bubbles of individual comfort and come face-to-face with each other, a meeting which allows us to both transform ourselves and transform the space in a creative and dynamic way.

The 2021 edition of FiraTàrrega aims to resemble the usual event as much as possible. Even so, the organisational premise which has had to be established to start working on the edition far enough in advance, consulted with the heads of the PROCICAT plan and validated by FiraTàrrega's Board of Directors, anticipates certain limitations:

• Definition of FiraTàrrega 2021 as a non-massive event, which visitors are recommended, more than ever, to attend having planned their trip in advance and having reserved admission to the shows they wish to see, including outdoor shows, to avoid seeing their expectations frustrated.

• Limits on audience capacity and access to venues and the healthcare conditions established by current law in the PROCICAT plan.

• Concentration of the outdoor programme into three large, delimited spaces with limited audience capacity and prior reservations, split into morning/afternoon/evening segments. There will be no open, freely accessible programming on the city's streets, except in two fixed venues of free attendance and one multimedia piece on the 40-year anniversary which will be projected onto the side of the parish church.

• The Camping Area will only be operational for RVs/motor homes, with prior reservation and entry control. Water pump, WC and showers.

• No musical programme at the end of the event in the Reguer Space will be offered.

• Free artistic activity (Off) in a single, delimited space with entry control.

To the extent it is technically and budgetarily possible, the organisation's desire is to continue adapting to any relaxation of measures which may occur between now and the month of September. Even so, the 2021 edition of FiraTàrrega will be considered, to all effects, an extraordinary edition, conditioned by many circumstances outside the organisation's control and by decisions based, in many aspects, on uncertainty, in the hope of definitively returning to normality next year in 2022.

In terms of the artistic programme, it has been structured into five large blocks:

1 - Celebration of the fair's 40th anniversary, with the presentation of a multimedia piece by Calidos, projected in the Plaça Major in Tàrrega. A timeless journey through FiraTàrrega's 40 years of history, which breaks the logic of chronology and pays homage to the citizenry, the event's true protagonist right from its inception.

2- Outdoor shows, performed in three large, delimited spaces with entry control. This section features names which include Àngel Duran with his dance piece Papillon; the Lleida Puppet Centre with its travelling whale Kujira; the Valencians of the company Maduixa with their dance on stilts and presenting the piece Migrare; the company Moveo with the piece Echoes, which blends theatre, dance and acrobatics; the Tàrrega company Emilia Gargot with the piece Container, about hatred on social networks, which has evolved in the Support for Creation programme with a series of open rehearsals with the participation 400 high school students; Hermanas Picohueso, from the Balearic Islands, with P-Acte Idiota; the clowns from La Industrial Teatrera with Herència ("Inheritance"), a piece about the world we leave to future generations; Los Galindos with Mort de riure ("Dying of laughter"), a piece with three clowns facing an unprecedented situation; or Sandal Produccions with Animalia Inc., a piece for all ages which reflects on the dominance of the human species over the rest of the planet's creatures.

3 - Experience-based shows which require an active audience, with unique spaces which speak. Here we will find Eléctrico 28 with [The Frame], an outdoor show based on the observation of everyday life; Kamchàtka, with Alter, a piece which delves into the issue of human migrations with a walk-turned-exodus that merges with the landscape; or the transmedia piece from Indi Gest which can be experienced in a groundbreaking format at FiraTàrrega, without a predetermined stage, via mobile interaction and the downloading of audio files to guide the viewer/user.

4- The Word Space, with a programming based on words, viewed broadly and from different disciplines: music, radio and poetry. There, we will find projects like the ones by Barba Corsini, Laura LaMontagne & PicoAmperio, Ikram Bouloum, Ana Polo & Oye Sherman or Cuartito de Poesía.

5- Indoor performances. This section covers acts from different disciplines which, due to their format, are located in Italian-style theatres or spaces. With pieces like Hermafrodites a cavall o La rebel·lió del desig ("Hermaphrodites on horseback or The Rebellion of Desire), by Que no salga de aquí Collective; the version of Othello from a female point of view, Desdemona, by Alba Sarraute & Les Ofèlies; the circus company «eia», with Nuye; the couplets of Glòria Ribera in Parné; the musical Jaleiu of Guillem Albà; the first theatrical piece by the artist Juana Dolores, *massa diva per a un moviment assembleari* ("too diva for an assembly movement"); or El diablo en la playa ("The devil on the beach") by the Galician group Matarile, among others.

6- Venues. This section will include up to four pieces which invite the viewer to interact with the elements exhibited. The labyrinthine journey through the passing of time in El laberinto del cuco ("The cuckoo's labyrinth"), by Itinerania; the questions about privilege asked in Espai reservat ("Space reserved") by Rawscenography; or the family game installation Secrets by Tombs Creatius.

It bears noting that, of the fifty or so companies included in the 2021 programme, 22 pieces have arisen from FiraTàrrega's creative incubator, the Support for Creation programme. 10 from the 2020 programme and 12 from the 2021 programme.

The total budget of the 2021 edition of FiraTàrrega is €1,160,850.

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