In 2019 we started the third performance project with Antic Teatre’s community arts project local residents with the following question: What scars do war and fascism leave on bodies and minds? In order to answer this question we began exploring a methodology we call “the archaeology of the mundane”. It’s a stage device (now audio visual) for live recall that is constructed on the stage (now on screen) using a selection of documents, photographs, and objects from the past that the working-class men and women who are part of the project have brought with them. The result is an invitation to consider collectively the way in which wars and fascism cut through people’s life stories leaving indelible marks. The act of recounting as a way to re-signify and heal.
Souvenirs. Vol. II. Els terrestits, els revoltats session will consist of a presentation, a projection and a round table.
Souvenirs is the natural continuation of the work carried out over the past 3 years with the cast from La Bellesa, as Antic Teatre’s community arts project with local senior citizens in collaboration with director and dramaturg Marta Galán is commonly known. La Bellesa, (Antic Teatre at Grec 2016), a project based in the local neighbourhood, was followed by city project Rebomboris (La Bonne – Antic Teatre at Grec 2018). This new challenge for the members of the group empowers them, encourages them and reconnects them to other realities, expanding their participation in the culture of this and other cities, and consolidating their weekly practice as something that makes them happy, keeps them busy, and makes their lives more connected to the present and the cultural life of the neighbourhood and the city.
“Antifascist struggle is still an issue in the 21st century and we need to remain alert and ready for combat given the resurgence of the far right in its new manifestations, whether at institutional level or on the streets. This year’s programme is in defence of a politicised international scene: artists and residents who do not forget their condition as a class and the social reality that surrounds us.
With the global pandemic and the resulting social and financial crisis, antifascist and antiracist movements must remain extremely active. This is why this year’s conferences are even more important, if possible, than they were last year, when we began to work on them for the Grec 2020 programme. They are a political declaration of support and joint strength against fascism.”
Semolina Tomic, Antic Teatre’s Artistic Director
“In Spain and in Brazil the transition to democracy retained certain conservative elements in a latent state that have now emerged and entered the institutions, supported by the advance of an international far-right front. In Brazil, the assumption of power by an alliance of contemporary neofascism motivated by unfettered liberalism is resulting in the systematic destruction of public institutions and policies that were many years in the making.” Isabel Ferreira and Eduardo Bonito, activists and independent curators.
With Antic Teatre at Grec 2020: Antifascist Conferences, we’re putting forward a programme adapted to an online format to stimulate encounters, reflection, and action. The Antifascist Conferences bring to the foreground how sociopolitical authoritarianism threatens people in Brazil today, living the extremely serious situation imposed b Bolsonaro’s neofascist government, and how it still affects those who lived through Franco’s dictatorship.
