This year we will be holding the fourth season of Dance December, which builds on the long history of training and creative projects in the municipality of Celrà since the 1990s. The Arts Department of Celrà Town Hall, in collaboration with the Escuela Municipal de Danza de Celrà (Celrà Municipal Dance School) and L’animal a l’esquena, are organising for the fourth time this season of dance, held in various locations around the town.
The programme of shows is complemented by workshops led by some of the guest dancers and artists for young people of 15 upwards and also for adults.

For more information see:
https://ateneucelra.koobin.com/

We have planned our first international outreach project as part of our collaboration with La Caldera Les Corts, enabling figures from the world of contemporary dance to visit Catalonia and putting on a programme of events so as to bring these international names together with Catalan creators whether in the context of training, exhibitions, master classes, communication or laboratories. It is within this framework that from 28th October to 15th November this coming autumn, L’animal and La Caldera are inviting the distinguished US movement researcher and creator Lisa Nelson to be their guest.

Since both organisations were interested in the legendary US choreographer Lisa Nelson, they held discussions with a view to inviting her to spend a week at L’animal a l’esquena with creators connected to this arts centre in Celrà and regular members of the company Mal Pelo. Later some of these artists and other international guests invited by Lisa held a week-long creation laboratory at La Caldera, the results of which will be presented as part of the Corpografías programme. To complete this immersion in her world, Lisa will share her working methodology Tuning Scores as part of the Sporá Prógram season.

In this first phase of the creation of El aspecto sensorial de las cosas (provisional title), Federica Porello will look into the multi-faceted potential of the various elements of the stage: the performer, objects, light and sound. She is interested in studying the different degrees of presence in a performer, from being observed to addressing the audience directly, and the different states of the silent audience: contemplative, decoding enigmas, receptive…
The ingredients for the research will be the different kinds of relationship between movement and music (visual representation of the sound, coexistence, dialogue…) and between actions and objects (manipulation, animation, interdependence…).
Her original reference points will be the musical pieces Il trillo del diavolo by Giuseppe Tartini, Sonata for Cello Solo by György Ligeti and Moto perpetuo, Op. 11 by Niccolò Paganini.
The objects she will begin working with will be pieces of wood, either singly or linked to create jointed objects.

During this residency Idoia Zabaleta will revise the lateral material from her recent creation processes. By lateral materials I mean those that are not central to the creation process but nevertheless keep me company as “good friends” and help me much more than they think. They are modest materials, simple passers by, loyal, that are there through thick and thin, that remind you where you come from, that help you distract yourself or confront contradictions when necessary, that come to visit you, that you can call anytime, that know they won’t come out in the film but don’t mind, even prefer it that way because they are embarrassed, but that always somehow end up as extras or making the sandwiches for the trip. It’s a question of friendship and therefore of time. These are latent images (doors, windows, walls, holes, meadows, caves…), ways of doing things (horizontal, from cold to hot with nothing in between, getting dirty…), gestures (opening and closing your hands, opening and closing your mouth, irradiating the sternum…), prayers (I have time, come on, it wasn’t me, get out if you can, for dear life…), songs (hil zara by Ibon r / g, gure oroitzapenak by Mursego, como lobos by Ainara LeGardon, a shepherds’ song by Chumo de Alvaro Barriuso…) and tangential thoughts (throwing things in the air to see what happens, crosswords, journeys…).

TERCERA EDICIÓN DEL DESEMBRENDANSA
EXHIBICIÓN-FORMACIÓN-CREACIÓN alrededor de la DANZA

La tercera edición del ciclo llamado "Diciembre en Danza" se llevará a cabo en Celrà del 29 de noviembre al 2 de diciembre. Aprovechando la larga trayectoria en formación y proyectos de creación que se han desarrollado en el municipio de Celrà desde los años 90, el Área de Cultura del Ayuntamiento de Celrà con la colaboración de la Escuela Municipal de Danza de Celrà y el animal en la espalda, organizan un tercer ciclo de danza, centrándose en la exhibición (en el Teatro del Ateneo de Celrà), la formación (a través de talleres en la Escuela de danza) y la creación ( abriendo al público procesos de creación de compañías residentes en el Animal a la Espalda).
La muestra tendrá lugar en diversas localizaciones del pueblo, concretamente en L'animal a la espalda (Mas Espolla), la plaza de la Iglesia, el Teatro El Ateneo de Celrà, el Pabellón de las Piscinas y en la Escuela Municipal de danza.
Esta propuesta de espectáculos se complementará con diferentes talleres, dirigidos a jóvenes a partir de 15 años y adultos, que realizarán algunos de los bailarines y creadores invitados. Estas sesiones se llevarán a cabo en la Escuela Municipal de Danza de Celrà y se trabajará el lenguaje artístico y el movimiento específico de cada creador / a.
La inauguración del ciclo "Diciembre en Danza" tendrá lugar el jueves 29 de diciembre a las 19 h, con la presentación del trabajo de residencia de creación de María García Vera (Cataluña) y Juan Pablo Miranda (Argentina), bajo el título 'Werner o el azul de los orígenes ', en el centro de creación el Animal en la Espalda (Mas Espolla de Celrà).
A partir del viernes y hasta el domingo por la tarde, se combinarán espectáculos y talleres.
En esta tercera edición participarán, entre otros, la bailarina, coreógrafa y performance inglesa Yael Karavan, la compañía francesa Les Chasseurs Cueilleurs, la compañía balear Cia. Baal Danza, y los catalanes Magí Serra, la Cía. Los Moñekos, la bailarina Ariadna Montfort y la Cía. La Mujer del Carnicero.

L’animal a l'esquena, EMDC and the Ateneu de Celrà are coming together for this dance season, to be held in December: four days of performances and workshops in various spaces in the village dedicated to dance.

The season known as Desembre en Dansa (Dance December) will take place in Celrà from 8th to 11th December. Taking advantage of the high profile of dance in this village, shows will be presented in various locations, specifically L’animal a l’esquena, La Plaça de l’Esglèsia and el Teatre Ateneu.  
Some of the dancers and choreographers involved will also give workshops to dancers at the Celrà Municipal Dance School (EMDC), where they will work with the students on specific characteristics of their artistic work.

L’animal a l’esquena has been invited to the next MES DE DANZA/DANCE MONTH Festival, an international showcase for contemporary dance in Seville, which will be held from 30th October to 8th November, as the first organisation to which the festival is offering CARTE BLANCHE to put forward artists who have residencies at the creation centre or are associated with it.

CARTE BLANCHE TO… consists in giving free rein to a collective whose main focus in its aims and actions is to encourage, promote, highlight and suppport contemporary choreographic creation. The initiative aims to encourage dialogue between different communities in Spain, creating synergies in the development and promotion of contemporary dance and supporting and raising the profile of the work of the guest organisation.

An international cooperation project supported by: www.eurocult.org





COS I REVOLUCIÓ PROGRAMM OF ACTIVITIES

TUESDAY 29th May

L'animal a l'esquena – Mas Espolla

17,00h to 22,00h
Audiovisual installations on show

1-Moataz Nasreldin
Selection of audio-visual pieces.

2-OVNI Archives
Selection of various audio-visual pieces by Toni Serra

3-MUZAQ Selma Oussi and Sofiane Ouissi
Screening of Laaroussa, a video of their experience working in a community of craftswomen in southern Tunisia.

4-Leo Castro
Screening of the video Unexpected Cairo, produced as part of the Miniatures project (a project of cultural cooperation and artistic production headed by L'Officina, Marseilles) and recorded in Cairo in December 2010, a few weeks before the revolution.

5-Revolutionary Bodies
Space dedicated to records of the previous stages of the project in Sardinia, Paris and Amsterdam, with writings, books and videos edited at different moments.
During Cos i Revolució at L'animal a l'esquena, other visual or written material arising from the encounter will be added, the fruit of discussions, talks and other artistic ventures.

Photographic Exhibition
Abandoned Rooms by Randa Mirza, Lebanon.

22,00h
Programme of videos in the L'animal a l'esquena studio.

Presentation by Tahar Chikhoui critic and teacher of film analysis, Tunis.



WEDNESDAY 30th May

L'animal a l'esquena – Mas Espolla

10,30h to 14,00h and from 17,00h to 22,00h
Audiovisuals installations on show

Photographic Exhibition
Abandoned Rooms by Randa Mirza, Lebanon.

22,00h
Programme of videos, at L'animal a l'esquena.

Presentation by Toni Serra, video and new media artist and co-director of Arxius de l'observatori, an OVNI (UFO) project (Observatory of Unidentified Video).


THURSDAY 31st May

L'animal a l'esquena – Mas Espolla

10,30h to 14,00h

Audio visuals installations on show

Photographic Exhibition
Abandoned Rooms by Randa Mirza, Lebanon.


Centre Cultural de la Mercè

18,30h-21,00h
Talks by various participants

Conference Room of the Centre Cultural de La Mercè, Girona:
- Tahar Chikhoui
- Toni Serra
- Moataz Nasreldin


FRIDAY 1st June

L'animal a l'esquena – Mas Espolla

10h30 to 14h00
Audiovisual installations on show

Photographic Exhibition
Abandoned Rooms by Randa Mirza, Lebanon.


Teatre L'Ateneu de Celrà

19,00h
Screening of the film Microphone by Ahmad Abdala, with introductory talk by Tahar Chikhoui

21,00h
Performances
- Muhanad Rasheed
- Allia Sellami
- Pep Ramis i María Muñoz

As an initiative of "L'Officina" (Marseille), Miniatures Officinae was launched in 2008, as a new networking project in the Mediterranean region in order to commission several artists to create new short pieces that borderline the visual and the performative. The notions of "choreography" and of "body-art" are put under study here with the support of dramaturges, researchers, artists, and cultural managers.

Currently, the project operates from five different Mediterranean cities or regions: Celrà, Girona/Barcelona, Cairo, Marseille, Terni and Tunis. The project is directed in the period 2010-2011 through a board of five networking partners:

- Officina – Marseille http://www.officina.fr/

- L'animal a l'esquena – Celrà (Girona)

- El Teatro – Tunis http://www.elteatro.net/

- Indisciplinarte – Terni http://www.indisciplinarte.it/

- HaRaKa – Cairo http://www.facebook.com/group.ph

Miniatures is a multi-step development project of itinerant character, based on the creation and dissemination of short pieces in different cultural contexts that emphasize dialogs and exchanges between artists of the Mediterranean basin.

A seminar with Daniel Blanchard. In the frame of the project "El combate del pensamiento" (`The struggle with thought').

Today we use communication channels, but not ones pertaining to words. What has been called the end of ideologies is a crisis of words where all of us use the same terms for antagonistic problems: creativity, cooperation, experimentation or freedom etc serve power just as much as resistance.

In this seminar, we propose to tackle this problem in the company of Daniel Blanchard, early member of Socialisme ou Barbarie, who has made the saying "crisis of words"a key to understanding the relationship between critical discourse and reality. Blanchard believes it is not possible to escape from this crisis of words. Rather, it must be left open as a condition for reinventing it as language. Today politics is a semiotic battleground where we must conquer words in order to transform the world.

For years Espai en Blanc has located their practical-theoretical proposals in the heart of this crisis, searching for the words that affect the ways in which we embody a critical thought.

With the collaboration of MASKA, Anna Lindh Foundation and the network project Autonomía y complejidad.

At these geographic coordinates, two lines that cross each other, we will continue the meeting started in Beirut in June 2007 during the project Sites of Imagination by the artists Idoia Zabaleta, Ixiar Rozas, Germán Jáuregui, Leo Castro and the Lebanese artist collective Zoukak. As reciprocal hosts, L'animal a l'esquena will welcome Zoukak in residence. Moare Danza and Periferiak collaborate in this project.

Corpi in rete si inserisce in un programma di scambi con la Catalogna sviluppati nell'ultimo decennio dall'associazione Carovana S.M.I., attraverso progetti di cooperazione internazionale sostenuti dalla commissione Europea (Cultura 2000, Meda, Fondazione euromediterranea Anna Lindh per il dialogo tra le culture). L'obbiettivo è quello di rinforzare la cooperazione con questa regione che per ragioni storico culturali rappresenta un interfaccia significativa per la Sardegna.

La Catalogna, infatti nell'ambito della danza e delle arti performative contemporanee è diventata, nell'area Mediterranea, un volano dello sviluppo di innovative pratiche creative e produttive, per cui l'arte è compresa come un permanente percorso di ricerca e formazione e la cooperazione internazionale strumento per la mobilità di idee e metodologie all'avanguardia, attraverso la circolazione delle persone e delle opere.

Un progetto ambizioso che ha come obiettivo quello di stimolare "sguardi reciproci"tra artisti, operatori e pubblici della Sardegna e Catalogna, deve darsi tempi lenti, modalità rispettose ed attente alle differenze, che sappiano trasformare somiglianze e distanze in organici sistemi di crescita culturale.

Questo programma quindi si compone di una serie di spettacoli, performance ed incontri che non hanno lo scopo di esporre la Sardegna ma di rinforzare la fragilità delle relazioni nel mondo della globalizzazione, tra contemporaneità e memoria culturale e far nascere futuri progetti di cooperazione. Il parternariato con la Catalogna rappresenta un'opportunità per dare continuità a programmi di alta formazione e promuovere l'internazionalizzazione delle produzioni di Arti performative contemporanee in Sardegna.

Un progetto che in prima istanza vuole dare visibilità agli artisti emergenti, quelli giovani e quelli datati, che dalla Sardegna partono e ritornano ma per proiettarsi altrove.

In una regione come la Sardegna l'emergenza artistica non ha età, invecchia con la speranza che la Politica comprenda che l'Arte non è solo strumento di visibilità o marketing turistico
ma per eccellenza lo strumento per sviluppare "Immaterialità Generatrice".


"I corpi in rete, a braccio,
i corpi concatenati nella danza rituale,
che si stringono allineandosi, per salvarsi,
scaldarsi, controllarsi, organizzarsi.
I corpi in rete. I corpi in mente, il corpo mente.
I corpi arcaici e nuovi,
inconciliabili.
Chi si nutre d'identità
e chi naviga solitario
senza appartenere a nessuna memoria,
vagando libero nel satellitare informatico,
libero di mostrarsi o nascondersi
per non essere 'preso in rete'."

Ornella D'Agostino

Continuation of the first writing and reflection laboratory initiated in 2005 at L'animal a l'esquena in order to publish in 2008 a book and DVD on Steve Paxton's (USA) reflections and works about the gravity and the spine. Project in collaboration with Contredanse - Dance Documentation Center located in Brussels.

Absent interfaces is a project based on the relationship between body/technologies/performing arts that will be developed until 2010. Working meetings and research will be carry out by the following centres; Tanzquartier (Vienna), CDU (Zagreb), Bodig (Istambul) and L'animal to l'esquena (Celrà), with the participation and collaboration of Scott deLahunta, Daniel Aschwanden, Andrea Bozic, Aylin Chalet, Toni Cots and different guest artists.

From September 4th to 23rd L'animal a l'esquena will organize and host in the city of Girona the second encounter of the international project Sites of Imagination, in partnership with Alkantara (Lisbon), Bunker (Ljubljana), Carovana (Cagliari) and L'Officina (Marseille), and the opening of the pieces produced by the different artistic teams.

The ideal city has been a recurrent theme in Mediterranean imagination and intellectual tradition, a constant in this tradition is the notion that the ideal city should be constructed according to the proportions and needs of the human body.
Almost diametrically opposed to this imaginary utopian city, exists another city: the city of human activity, the organisation and occupation of space before and beyond the geometric occupations of city planners. The city that organically grows and adapts itself to ever changing human necessities.
As urban textures grow more complex and their planification is being handed over to politicians and specialists – sociologists, architects, city planners, mobility experts, real estate agents,...- 'free' space shrinks and individual creativity in the use of public and private space diminishes.
The idea of new cities comes with a promise that is to replace the present with a future that pretends to offer a new-look to the present. But usually cities would not surrender easily to any new project that aspires to rebuild them, they resist and at times they succeed to stop or at least change the projects.
While looking for the ideal city, have we lost individual imagination and creativity?

Five teams of theatre directors, choreographers, performers, musicians, writers, video and sound artists from a diversity of Mediterranean cities, locations and cultures are invited to Girona and its surroundings to finish develop and produce five different pieces of artwork based on concepts, maps, itineraries, relationships and experiences about the contemporary city and the ideal city.
The 25 participants of Sites of Imagination have already met in Lisbon in May, and since then the 5 teams have been working on different locations and exchanges across the Mediterranean: from Lisbon, Cagliari and Celrà to Beirut, and from Cagliari to Istanbul on a continuous journey. Since Lisbon, other artists and collaborators have been invited to participate in the different teams, so Girona will be the location where all the participants of the five teams will be together working and producing each piece. For this occasion L'animal a l'esquena has invited the dance maker Maria Muñoz (Mal Pelo, Celrà) and the theatre maker Espe López (Legaleon Teatro, Irun) to observe and assist on the development of the work of each team.

The program of Sites of Imagination will be performed, both the 20th and the 21st of September, in the form of an itinerary between the Cultural Centre La Mercè and the Chapel of Santa Llucia in Girona.
At midnight on Friday 21st., L'animal a l'esquena will be the location for a final and simple event for all the participants and invited guests.
On the 23rd. Sites of Imagination will depart from Girona and tour Marseille, Lisbon, Cagliari and Ljubljana.

The program of Sites of Imagination in Girona, will also include other activities open to the public at the Cultural Centre La Mercè, from 19th to 22nd September:
Two video programs 'à la carte': from the Ashkal Alwan archive curated by its founder and director Christine Tohme, and from the OVNI archive in Barcelona curated by the video artist Toni Serra.
Ashkal Alwan – The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts is a non profit arts organization based in Beirut – Lebanon since 1994, aiming to initiate and promote critical artistic practices; and to document and build an archival record of contemporary intellectual and creative activity. Their activities include a wide range of projects, work in public spaces, creation of networks and partnerships for reflection, dialogue and exchange.
OVNI – The Observatory Archives are structured around particular themes and have a clear purpose: to encourage a critique of contemporary culture, using different strategies: video art, independent documentary, and mass media archeology. The Archives cover a huge range of works that are very different from one another, but share a commitment to freedom of expression and reflect on our collective fears and pleasures.

One photo exhibition from Lebanon: 'Abandoned rooms' by the visual artist Randa Mirza. 'Abandoned rooms' is a series about fragmented lives, lives that are stuck between the reality of the changeover and the haunting ghost of the war. They speak of the past in the present, of presence in absence, of death and survival, of what is forgotten and what lingers, of what rots and is transformed in a country that keeps rising from its ruins.

International get together of creators, all of them characterised for the interdisciplinary work in the dance field. From the 15th of September to the 31st of October, a total of 13 creators and choreographers from the Mediterranean area travelled between Sardinia, Catalunya and Portugal, with the end result of developing their own creation projects, and at the same time, to participate in common activities of investigation, exchanging and debating. L'animal a l'esquena was focused on work about writing and the registration of the scenic art creative process. This activity was possible with the collaboration between Carovana, L'animal a l'esquena and Danças na Cidade(within the frameword of the international network DBM).

15th – 24th of September: Get together in Alguer
7th of September – 9th October: Get together in Celrà
18th – 31st October: Get together in Lisbon

During these sessions, 'L'animal a l'esquena' (member and co-organizer of Danse Bassin Méditérraneen) organized the annual assembly of DBM with the presentation of the different artists' work on the 5th of June.