The Arts Festival: Culture As a Place of Encounters and Reflection

140 The Arts Festival: Culture as a Place of Encounters and Reflection TEXT Borja Sitjà Contemporary creation will occupy a prominent place at the Forum as a result Director of the Forum of the work of the large number of artists who have been invited to make con- Barcelona 2004 tributions focusing on the main themes of the event. The festival will thus be shows in the city an attempt to analyse the world from a different standpoint from the usual one. f we understand culture as an everyday phenomenon that goes beyond the world of creation, if we understand it as standpoint I from which to comprehend the world, then the Forum Barcelona 2004 is the type of event that can provide solutions sought from that other place where different views of reality exist side by side, where people with very different jobs and origins can talk to each other about the same issue and try to find common answers to their problems, where we listen to “the other” and where this act of listening is transformed into the creation of new ways of and new reasons for constructing something different that ought, we hope, to be better and more human. We can call this place “Culture”. Artists must have a place in this encounter and this reflection on the world and so the Forum Barcelona 2004 is organising the Arts Festival. It is hoped that this series of presences of artists from the fields of music, theatre, dance, literature, poetry, etc., will bring to the reflection in Barcelona the perception creators have of the world we live in. Conceived as one of the pillars on which the Forum rests, the Festival has been constructed by explaining to a number of artists from both home and abroad who have been and still are of fundamental impor- tance in contemporary creation what we want to happen at this encounter so that, on this basis, they can contribute a creation which they consider will enrich the contents of the Forum. We have done this without going into the particular contents of such contributions and have given them an absolutely free hand, as you cannot impose a sub- ject on an artist when asking him or her for a work and we have taken Assumpta Burgués for granted that all those participating want a world which is sustain- able and culturally diverse and in which the conditions for living in peace are guaranteed. Creators such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Carlinhos Brown, Lluís Pasqual, Pina Baush, Robert Wilson, The Wooster Group, Caetano Veloso, Joan Manuel Serrat, Peter Brook, Mihail Baryshnikov, Alejandro Sanz, Rezo Gabriazze, Àlex Rigola, Youssou N’Dour, Bartabas, Philippe Decoufflé, Roger Bernat, Sergi The guitarist Paco de Lucía, one Belbel, Frank Castorf, Maria del Mar Bonet, Llorenç Barber, Àngels of the artists who will be performing at the Festival of the Arts. Margarit, Peter Sellars, Núria Espert, Robert Lepage, Sting, Cristiane THE B.MM MONOGRAPHS NUMBER 4 141 “All the city’s public and many of its private cultural institutions have pooled their creative and material efforts to make possible what will be one of the biggest artistic participations of the past few years.” Fundació Barcelona Olímpica / Fórum Barcelona 2004 The different ways of seeing the world will also be present in Barcelona through art. Left, Cesc Gelabert in his classic “Belmonte”. Above, right, Arab musicians. Ros Ribas Vericel, Cesc Gelabert and many others who will be joining them will activities of the Plaza, and the shows and performances in the city bring their vision of the world in which we live to the Forum, thereby (Arts Festival). All this constitutes the challenge of trying to analyse enriching with their creations the contents of the Barcelona encounter. the world from a different standpoint from the usual one. From the All the city’s public and many of its private cultural institutions have position of listening to and engaging in dialogue with “the other”, pooled their creative and material efforts to make possible what will out of curiosity for what we do not know and on the basis of actu- be one of the biggest artistic participations of the past few years. The ally taking part. In other words, from a cultural standpoint, from the TNC, the Auditori, the Teatre Lliure, the Festival d’Estiu de standpoint of Culture in the sense of a set of experiences and reflec- Barcelona-GREC, Sonar, the Liceu, the Mercat de les Flors, the Palau tions on everyday life and its problems that are formulated and de la Música, the Teatre Romea, the Palau Sant Jordi, the CCCB, expressed by different sectors and are the fruit of the creativity and Barcelona’s concert halls, the Teatre Tívoli and several others will host access to the knowledge of their members. the shows and events in the city. It is from this place that the Universal Forum of Cultures will approach The Forum must be understood as an indivisible whole comprising its reflections in Barcelona and, within this framework, the artists will the Dialogues, the Exhibitions, the recreational and educational also explain to us, through their work, how they view the world. FORUM BARCELONA 2004.

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