Resistance and ‘wabi-sabi’ at the Popular Athenaeum of 9Barris
Big party at the Ateneu Popular de 9Barris to celebrate the 30th Winter Circus. If the commemoration of the 25 years was strange, with masks and the closed bar, this time a lot of fun is expected. Next June, a documentary will be released and, this December 13, candles will be blown, some historical numbers will be remembered, an exhibition will be opened and, obviously, a new creation will be released, this year directed by the renowned company scarlet —Jordi Aspa i Beth Miralta— and titled The big plant. The creation, which will be on display until January 18, claims the memory, resistance and beauty of everything that time transforms.
The show, explains Aspa, invites the public to enter a “sealed and abandoned” space, a territory full of remnants of human activity. This progressive discovery gives life to the original scenography ofOriol Pont. There is no traditional set piece: everything is built from what emerges, from what is found. “We are interested in the beauty of things made, of what life marks with a stroke”, says Aspa. This is where the Japanese philosophy of the wabi-sabiwhich celebrates the rustic, unstable and imperfect: wood that splits, metal that rusts or ceramics that age.
Plants play a central role. Escarlata was inspired by the manifestos of the landscape architect Gilles Clement and in the idea of ”pioneer plants”, species capable of being born in the middle of the cracks in the cement, on the sidewalks and in any corner abandoned by human activity. This silent force is, for Aspa, a metaphor for the circus: “The circus is also on the margins”.
A The big plantthe artists transform the occupied site and turn it into a constantly changing living installation. On stage we will see a quintet of artists that combines veteranity and youth: Tony Gutierrez (smooth rope), Núria Solina (clown), Giada Marilungo (balancer on taut cable and bottles), Jacob Thompson (hand balances and acrobatics on the ground) i Simona Huber (cyr wheel).
The show also discusses the history of the Ateneo, which next year will celebrate 50 years of occupation of the old asphalt plant. “It’s a tribute to this resistance and to all the seeds that have been planted. We must prevent these spaces from disappearing and turn them into communal spaces”, says Jordi Aspa, who had already participated in different productions of the Winter Circus: he directed FAIR (2014) and also performed with his dog Sapic a Eyes Clucs (2002).
The influences of creation are multiple. One of them is The island of abandonmentbook in which the Scottish journalist Cal Flynn explains how new ecosystems are born in places destroyed by man for chemical, climatic or economic reasons. There are also influences from the scenographic atmosphere and sound universe of the film StalkerofAndrei Tarkovsky. Thus, The big plant it becomes a celebration of everything that grows despite—or thanks to—abandonment. An invitation to look at the margins.
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