This year’s edition of the Barcelona Grec Festival comfortably achieved its twofold goal of promoting and backing local talent and offering major international productions. This was the last edition to be directed by Cesc Casadesús, who has been the artistic director of the city’s summer festival for eight years. Taking over will be the cultural programmer and producer Leticia Martín Ruiz, who until now was the assistant director and production director at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

This edition featured 85 shows and more than 50 activities, with leading acts from the local scene who had already formed part of previous editions of the festival, from La Veronal and El Conde de Torrefiel to Sílvia Pérez Cruz and many others. There were big international talents too, including the creations of the Polish theatre director Krzysztof Warlikowski, the director Christiane Jatahy, the US chorographer William Forsythe and the London choreographer of Israeli origin Hofesh Shechter.

One of the main venues at the festival, the Teatre Grec (in the image. Photo: Alice Brazzit) sold out all its seats for ten of the eleven shows there, starting with the inaugural concerts of Sílvia Pérez Cruz and continuing with others such as the concert by Rita Payés, the updated version of El misantrop by La Brutal, the celebrations to mark fifty years of Dagoll Dagom and the new extended show Sonoma, by La Veronal.

Special moments in this edition included the 24 hours on stage by the actress Maria Hervás in the show The Second Woman at the Teatre Lliure, the concert by Kae Tempest and Clara Aguilar at Paral·lel 62 and the two nights at La Paloma devoted to the universe of Sílvia Pérez Cruz.

The festival shows the creations of local talents, but in many cases produces them. This year’s Grec offered the chance to see 36 joint productions which the festival was involved in, including Les mans, Malamort, Em dic Josep, L’últim dia and Tots Ocells, to name just a few.

Artists such as the same Sílvia Pérez Cruz and creations such as Qui som?, by Baró d’evel (Blaï Mateu and Camile Decourtye) and the show Dämon, el funeral de Bergman, by Angélica Liddle, could also be seen at this year’s Grec Festiva, and also at the Festival d’Avignon, the grand forum for European stage arts which the Barcelona Grec Festival has collaborated with for years.