BarcelonaThere is no Christmas without tió, escudella and Pastorets. Between December and January, everyone can enjoy this performance close to home. This year’s season, which began last Sunday in Oldecuna, will include more than 250 events distributed across 52 municipalities in the Catalan region, and is expected to reach between 60,000 and 65,000 spectators, a number that will exceed 58,500 people last season. Season audience. Now, if we in Catalonia have already overcome a barrier Eight million peopleWhere are all these potential viewers hiding?
“Before the pandemic, the audience started to decline. Few things change in the play year after year, and they used to find it long,” explains Lea Alzina, president of the board of directors of the Els Pastorets de Figueres association. “Children and young people increasingly have more impressive stimuli on screens and come to the theater less often. We have tried to introduce changes, such as making the scenes of angels and demons more exciting, and looking for new scenography that can surprise them,” comments. Alzina is satisfied with the results, as in the past two years she has been able to increase attendance. The Pastorets de Figueres – which this Christmas marks the centenary of its first show – are performing the work The shepherds’ first Christmas By Monsignor Rossend Fortunette and they do so without making major changes to the text. “Over the years we have shortened it from three to two hours, but preserving the structure and work that is in poetry.”
The Pastorets performances that can be seen in the capital of the Alt Empordà will be very different from those that will be presented in Girona, which will have a renewed version after a year’s hiatus. According to them, the story is set in the 21st century and will star Joanette, A.J com. tiktoker What he wants to achieve Likes. “It is a clear sign of the evolution of tradition. Traditions are useful if they have the ability to renew,” stressed Josep Beramikel Coles, president of the Catalonia Coordination, at the press conference to introduce the season. A statement shared by the folklorist and writer Amadeo Carbo, who appreciates very positively that traditions adapt to make sense and that they do not end with death: “You can use a pre-made language, but no one will follow it. It is worth updating the text of Folch and Torres, and if not, what “It is being done is a kind of archaeological experiment, showing it as it was, but not as it is now.” A recent article by l’ARA.
A current phenomenon
To Alexia Pascual, finalisttrance Associated from an early age with Pastorets de Constantí, you should not be afraid to update the formats. “We have a traditional play, but it would be good to ask ourselves what we can do to make it feel modern and not something old. Why not do a musical, for example? Look for an update like The Tyets did with the sardana?,” Pasquale asks during the roundtable. Pastoralists: a radical, young and active phenomenon, organized by the Coordinator of Chaplains in Catalonia. “Maybe we need one Lap dels Pastorets,” suggests the actress and singer.
Oriol de Ramon, singer of the Mataroni band that revolutionized Catalan dance Coty x Coty,He has also been part of the Christmas theatrical tradition since he was very young: “I have played the child Jesus, the simple shepherd, the angel, the devil… I know all the roles,” says de Ramon, who is associated with the Pastorites de Mataro. “The positions are filled every year in every city, but by the same people. Maybe showing what is behind it, what is going on inside, could involve new people,” explains the musician, who does not rule out sooner or later doing a piece related to the Pastorets.
For the Catalan Shepherds’ Coordination, this representation remains, in 2023, a completely valid identity marker. “On stages and stages throughout Catalonia, the universal story of the tenderness of birth will be represented, which is remembered in very different ways. “Also with many current signs and with similarities and contradictions that are controversial in today’s society,” says its president.
Continuous development
In reality, pastoralists are not a static representation and are not without changes and disagreements throughout their history. They have their origins in medieval performances held inside churches on Christmas Day, and regardless of who the author is, most follow three basic plot lines: the struggle of good versus evil, the Biblical account of the birth of Jesus, and the Biblical story of Jesus’ birth. Shepherds’ barn. thanks for the Tailor’s drawerThe Diaries of Rafael Amat and Cortada, Baron of Malda, it is known that throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these representations were classified as inappropriate and inappropriate by the ecclesiastical sectors.
There has been a fundamental change from Frederic Soler, Petarawith work Cradle of Jesus or Jarova and Balanga. The playwright, who was an atheist, wrote a satirical piece that premiered in 1891, and which is still currently performed in San Quirz de Pesora and Perga, which was meant to pay homage to the genre.
Authors such as Lluís Millà, Francesc d’Assís Picas and Ramon Pàmies also created new texts that increased the Pastorets’ popularity. Today, most theater groups use it as a source material Shepherds or the coming of the baby Jesusby Folch i Torres, which was performed for the first time in more than a century in the amphitheater of Pompeii in the Gracia neighborhood after a commission from the religious entity that ran the room and wanted to renew the work. Petara.
This season, apart from the releases of Folch and Torres throughout the region, there will also be performances Star of Nazareth (1903) by Ramon Bames O The shepherds’ first Christmas (1923) by Rossend Fortune and Busquets, among others. The novelty is the premiere of the drama that will take place in the Pastorets de Pals group and which will present the text Shepherds of our home Written by Roc Esquius i Miquel, an up-and-coming actor, director and playwright in current Catalan theatre. “It is a Pastoritz text of the 21st century, drawing on the tradition, but updating its values, context and action. It wants to be a clear sign of the development of the tradition from a broad, open and modern perspective,” attests Beramikil.
Big theatrical family
Perhaps the work of Aeschyus or the one to be executed com. tiktoker As champions in Girona it would mean a revolution like the one achieved by Fulch and Torres. Or maybe they’ll reinvent themselves again next year. What the coordinator guarantees is that Pastorets will remain one of the best theater schools in the country. “It is a school of life, where everyone has to do a little of everything. Then it also serves you in your daily life,” emphasizes Adelaide Moya Toles, Director General of Popular Culture and Associations of the General Government of Catalonia. Examples of this include actors and actresses such as Joan Berra, Laura Aubert, Daphnis Baldoz or Sara Espegol, for whom the Pastorets were a gateway to the world of theater and thus a step towards the professional world. Or for the journalist Arcardi Allepiss, associated with the Pastorets de l’Ametlla de Merola and who gave his first performance, aged five months, in December 1959: “Usually, the character was a baby and they wanted him to cry because he might cry.” “It should be seen that I was a child, but I didn’t do it. Patrons work to sit at tables, to get rid of fear. In the world of actors or journalism, it’s also more or less the same thing,” Alipis reflects.
An opinion shared by the musician Oriol de Ramon, for whom the Pastorets was more than just a school of interpretation: “The repertoire, beyond the songs in which you leave a part of yourself, is also work in a team like “in the theatre. They always tell me that you can say I performed Pastorets because for me theater is like being at home.”
More than 250 jobs in 52 municipalities
This season, the Catalan Shepherds’ Coordination celebrates the reintegration of Girona’s sponsors, who returned after a year without representation in the capital of Girona, with a renewed proposal. In addition, this year marks the anniversaries of the Pastorets de Ripoll, which turns 125 years old, the Pastorets de Figueres and Pastorets de l’Orfeó Martinenc, which celebrate their centenary, and the Pastorets de Balsareny, which turns 75 years old. Anniversary Track The new season started last week with the first show of the Ulldecona Shepherds group, and this weekend, December 16 and 17, 7 more municipalities will host shows: Sabadell, Badalona, Barcelona, Rubí, Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Igualada. And Mataro. Representatives throughout the territory for these celebrations can be consulted online Pastoretsdecatalunya.cat
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