A “standard victory”. This is how the creative director of the Antic Teatre, Semolina Tomic, celebrates that Barcelona City Council has accepted the acquisition of the constructing to proceed the creative venture. He acknowledges that the information has been a “shock” for the complete workforce and he doesn’t miss that it coincides with the 12 months of municipal elections: “There are many guarantees. Now they have to be made. The metropolis council has already introduced the acquisition of different theaters that ended up in nothing. We need to save a venture that works”, she explains, combative.
Mayor Ada Colau introduced the acquisition final week and the council has taken a step additional this week by approving a modification of the General Metropolitan Plan (MPGM) in order that the municipal authorities can purchase a part of the constructing and protect the continuity of the proposal. The excellent news coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the venture.
Located on Verdaguer avenue within the Ciutat Vella district, the Antic Teatre is an area for up to date and experimental performing arts, one of many halls of counterculture. And on the identical time it’s a group middle that hosts cultural and social actions within the neighborhood. An instance of this are the so-called ‘iaies de l’Antic’, a venture that takes older ladies from the neighborhood out of their loneliness to create a cultural venture, which generally is a e book, a documentary or a present that they signify in social facilities.
Show ‘Indomitable’ by Jorge AlbuerneAntic Teatre
And these neighbors are those who’ve fought to save lots of the Antic: “In 2019 the property needed to boost our hire from 2,500 to eight,000 euros monthly. We could not assume it and we began a marketing campaign. That’s once we realized the favored help we had” , explains the founder. “We by no means thought we had this help and because of that we began working with the town council to reserve it,” she continues.
An area devoted to the performing arts
This clamor for the Antic has been brewing through the years. The constructing is outdated, courting from 1650 and is included within the Catalog of Architectural and Historical-Artistic Heritage of Barcelona. At the start of the twentieth century it was “a cultural house that hosted performances, in line with the chroniclers,” says Semolina.
In 1951 the Círculo Barcelonés de Obreros San José moved there and was used as a social middle and house for his or her performances. It additionally housed entities similar to an artwork college, a movie membership or the assemblies of the homosexual liberation teams within the Nineteen Eighties.
In 2003 they rented the Semolina theater group: “We had been artists who lived from our reveals and we arrange our rehearsal group right here. Little by little pals got here to ask us if they might program their reveals right here as a result of they could not discover areas to do it,” he recollects. In 2004 the group acquired an award for the restoration of the theater house, the FAD Sebastia Gasch Award. That identical 12 months in addition they acquired the Huesca International Theater and Dance Fair Award for probably the most modern programming in Spain.
Current terrace of the Antic TeatrePhotographer: Alessia Bombaci
“It was a shock. We had been fully self-managed and we did not take into consideration programming, we hosted reveals based mostly on the requests we acquired,” he recollects. In 2005, an inspection by the Barcelona City Council requested the closure of the house as a result of it didn’t have the permits so as.
Beginning of the “political wrestle”
“That’s the place we began our political battle. The neighborhood had gotten concerned and so they could not shut the house. We met with the town council and the Generalitat, it took us 10 years to assemble the funding for the excellent reform of the house and procure the license for public competitors actions,” Add. “It’s a disgrace different areas just like the Lliure de Gràcia received funds and had been capable of reform in two years,” he says.
Litigation adopted with the property that denounced them for not having accomplished the reform in 2015 and for the rise within the rental worth in 2019. Neighbors and defenders of the so-called Base Culture, impartial creative initiatives, fought for its continuity till lastly Colau City Council, with the help of ERC and PSC, have accepted the acquisition of the constructing for its continuity.
springboard for brand new expertise
“It is a springboard for rising creation. Many younger artists have began right here who had nowhere to start out. It is a disgrace in all of Spain, artists go away faculties and can’t make an honest manufacturing,” says Semolica.
El Conde de Torrefiel, Charo Tolosa, Sociedad del Doctor Alonso, Cristina Blanco and a protracted record of artists and producers who work on the European scene have handed by way of its room. “In Spain they aren’t recognized as a result of right here they aren’t dedicated to. It is avant-garde theater, probably the most radical that exists,” he provides.
Semolina is assured that the town council settlement is not going to stay a useless letter: “You should work with the territory and the roots. We are a group venture that should be concerned within the territory the place you reside. We have created a group with the neighbors, for them it’s their home and so they defend it to the demise”, he explains, in a metropolis the place, in his opinion, there aren’t any such facilities left. “We are the one house that isn’t aimed on the elites.”