HB Studio collaborates with Institut Ramon Llull to present a series of Catalan plays with artist talks
HB Studio is pleased to partner with Institut Ramon Llull to present Playing Together: Catalonia at HB Studio, a special showcase of select Catalan plays followed by discussions with the artists, hosted by HB Studio.
Institut Ramon Llull was founded with the purpose of promoting Catalan language studies at universities abroad, the translation of literature and thought written in Catalan, and Catalan cultural production in other areas like theatre, film, circus, dance, music, the visual arts, design and architecture.
Playing Together: Catalonia at HB Studio will feature screenings of select plays, including English subtitles, followed by in-depth discussions with the artists about their work and creative process.
Playing Together: Catalonia at HB Studio Presents an HB Public Conversation on SOLITUD and SOLITUD A STROMBOLI
Closing out our series will be the classic play, SOLITUD, based on/inspired by a novel with the same title written by a woman (Caterina Albert) under a man’s name (Victor Catala), and SOLITUD A STROMBOLI which compares SOLITUD to the film STROMBOLI by Rosselini.
Our talk will feature Alícia Gorina (director) and actors Maria Ribera and Pol López from SOLITUD and Fina Rius (actress), Núria Casado Gual (author and dramaturg), and Imma Colomer (director) from SOLITUD A STROMBOLI. Moderated by HB Teaching Artist Maria Fontanals.
Please join us for a lively discussion about the two Catalan plays from Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC)!
About SOLITUD
“After passing through Ridorta they had come across a wagon going their way…” The start of Víctor Català’s best known work is an invitation to immerse oneself in the fascinating literary richness of SOLITUD, and foreshadows some of its major themes: landscape as a vocabulary to express existence, animality in the face of cultural and technical evolution, or time as human geography.
With her great mountain novel, Caterina Albert gave a voice to one of the most exciting female characters in Catalan literature. A journey of enormous vibrant intensity, marked by the magnetic discovery of desire, the raw lesson of solitude and the lucid understanding of the pains that weigh upon the world.
Length: 2 hours. The play is performed in Catalan and presented with English subtitles. Learn more.
About SOLITUD A STROMBOLI
Dra. Nela Simari, a distinguished expert in the field of comparative literature, gives a peculiar “inaugural lecture” on the influence of Víctor Català on the acclaimed Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Her masterful lesson not only takes us into the parallel universes of Solitude and Stromboli, but also invites us to reflect on the concept of authorship, the creative fact itself, and above all, on who comes to light, and who remains in the shadows in the complex narrative of History. Learn more.
Playing Together: Catalonia at HB Studio Presents an HB Public Conversation on MIVION (RADIO SARAJEVO)
MIVION (RADIO SARAJEVO) is a piece of documentary theatre about the siege of Sarajevo and a journalist that resisted it through the radio, written and created together by Slobodan Minic, Arza Suljic, Marc Soler, Carles Fernández Giua and Eugenio Szwarcer. The talk hosted by HB Studio will feature Carles Fernández Giua (director), Eugenio Szwarcer (set and video designer), and Arza Suljic (performer, co-creator of the show), pictured above. Moderated by HB Teaching Artist Maria Fontanals.
Our talk, which features Azra Suljic whose family is from Srebrenica and arrived in Catalonia as a child fleeing from the war, will be presented just one day before the anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre on July 11, 1995.
About MIVION (RADIO SARAJEVO)
“Like water, life always finds a way.” – Slobodan Minic
MIVION is an acronym in the Serbo-Croatian language, formed by the abbreviation of the words “We”, “You” and “They”. MIVION was the title of a cultural program (referring to artists, audience and critics), conducted by Slobodan Minic, a renowned journalist who also was director of the Culture programming at Radio Sarajevo. In that radio show, Minic interviewed artists such as Bosnian poet Sidran, filmmaker Emir Kusturica and musician Goran Bregovic.
During the siege of his city (1992-1996), Minic resisted by doing what he knew best: radio and journalism. Finally, like thousands of other people, he fled through the tunnel excavated under Sarajevo and arrived into Spain, where he established himself together with his family in a little village on the coast of Catalonia, in Spain. There, he worked as a waiter and raised his two sons.
Minic’s story is a testimony to the progressive advance of intolerance, nationalism and authoritarianism, but also to the strength of culture. His story is about the power of the human voice to offer comfort as well as how words and speech can be used to promote hatred and construct an “us vs. them” mindset that can eventually lead to a civil war.
MIVION (Radio Sarajevo) also explores the crossing of cultures and generations. It is a set of mirrors between the voice and the experience of Minic and the lives of two young people, Bosnian Azra Suljic, who also arrived in Catalonia as a child fleeing from the war, and Catalan dancer and performer Marc Soler who was born in 1998 and hardly knew anything about the Bosnian war before joining the project.
MIVION (Radio Sarajevo), magically merges radio and theatrical languages. Journalist Slobodan “Boban” Minic is on the air broadcasting live from his house, just as he was at the station from which he resisted the siege of his city. On stage, two young people who, due to the pandemic had experienced a lockdown that somewhat connects their experiences to Minic’s, Azra Suljic, a translator and interpreter who has never performed on a stage before, and performer Marc Soler. There are also the images filmed in Bosnia and Serbia during the documentary travel, which was an essential part of the creative process of La Conquesta del Pol Sud.
The referential framework for the play is the eclecticism, variety and dynamism of the radio, the ‘natural environment’ of the protagonist. A language in which interviews, moments of reflection and intimacy, musical interludes, even connections with correspondents operating in other spaces are alternated. The language of the radio offers many possibilities for the imagination.
Length: 80 minutes. The show is performed in Catalan, Spanish and Bosnian, and presented with English subtitles. Learn more.
Playing Together: Catalonia at HB Studio Presents an HB Public Conversation on A.K.A. (ALSO KNOWN AS)
Institut Ramon Llull and HB Studio bring together artists from the award-winning play A.K.A. for a discussion about their intentions and creative process. Join us!
The talk will feature: Daniel J. Meyer (playwright), Montse Rodríguez Clusella (director) and Lluís Febrer (lead actor). Moderated by HB Teaching Artist Maria Fontanals.
About A.K.A. (ALSO KNOWN AS)
A.K.A. tells the story of Carlos’ adolescence and invites you to play the role of judge as well as audience member. We are transported to a moment in which, through no fault of his own, his foundations, his roots, his identity begin to break down. Carlos was adopted through a, let’s say, less than legal process. Being adopted is not a problem for him because he feels local, he is local. But the critical eyes of others make him question his true identity. Maybe he is not totally who he has decided to be. Are we what we feel we are or what other people think we are? This is the question we explore in A.K.A. by revealing how these seeds take root in the life of Carlos. Learn more.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
- 2 MAX Awards (emerging theatrical text, lead actor)
- 2 MAX nominations (direction, short play)
- 4 Butaca Awards (theatrical text, short play, direction, lead actor)
- 3 Barcelona Teatre Awards (theatrical text, short play, direction)
- 1 Critics Award (best actor)
- Audience Award: MIT RIBADAVIA, Galicia
- Audience Award: Teatre del Mar, Mallorca
- SGAE Foundation Express Theater Award