This is the story of a promise that could not be kept, a teacher made to his students. The teacher was Anthony Benigis. The students were boys and girls from the rural school in Bañuelos de Bureba, a town in Burgos province. He made the promise one winter's day in 1936. He promised them the sea.
In 1934, the young Catalan teacher Antoni Penagís arrived at the rural school in Bañuelos de Poreba, a small town in Burgos. A few months later, he paid for a stamp and a gramophone out of his own pocket. Since that same year, boys and girls have been spreading their feelings, dreams and ideas.
In January 1936, Boys and Girls published Al-Mar. Seeing children who have never seen it before. The notebook contains “in the form of poetry rather than prose, schoolchildren’s expressions of how they envisioned the sea, their fears and their dreams.” The master promises them that in the same summer he will take them to Catalonia so that they can get acquainted with the sea. On July 25, 1936, Benages was shot. The Master's promise can no longer be fulfilled.
The piece – the result of the first meeting of these two creators – proposes an apparatus in which objects, poem and documentary material coexist without hierarchy.
Technical sheet:
Duration: 1 hour and 05 minutes
Recommended for ages 14 and up
Author: Xavier Bobis and Alberto Conejero
Directed by: Xavier Bobis and Alberto Conejero
With: Xavier Bobis and Sergi Torricella
Dramaturgy: Alberto Conejero, based on texts for girls and boys of the Bañuelos de Bureba School, by their teachers Antoni Benigues, Marina Garcés and Alberto Conejero.
Stage Space: Pip Emmerich
Audiovisualists: Albert Koma
Soundspace: Julia Carboneras
Original music: Antonio José Martínez Palacios (1902-1936), in recordings by José Luis Bernardo de Queiros and Elisa Rabado Gambrena.
Lighting: Joe Serra and Mario Andres Gomez
Art design: Anna Okyere
Painting: La Perrin
Documentary tips and photos: Serge Bernal
Audio testimonials: Documentary film “The Portrait Painter of Alberto Bugello and Sergi Bernal”.
Practical student at Escola Eòlia: Natalia Jiménez
Executive production: Emma Povey
In collaboration with Martí Sales in translating texts into Catalan.
Thanks: The Benaigues family, Marina Garces, Javier Iglesias, José Luis Bernaldo de Quiros, Elisa Rabado Gambrena, Carmen Agullo Diaz (University of Valencia), Salomo Márquez y Sureda (University of Girona), Alejandro Pérez Olivares (University of La Laguna), Santiago Vega Sombria (Complutense University of Madrid), Escola Elia, Ángel Canigeral, Susana Román and all the TNC team who accompanied us throughout the process.
Production: National Theater of Catalonia, FITT Festival in Tarragona and Xavier Pupis.
With support from ICEC, the Catalan Institute of Cultural Institutions, L'Animal a l'Esquena.
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