The map of the programming of FASTT, the festival that brings theatre, circus, dance and magic to the micro-villages of Alt Empordà

GironaThere are festivals and festivals. Those looking for the masses and the big headliners. Others who, with an ant job, have a completely different mission: to create a network, unite neighbors and bring quality culture to places where it is difficult for councils to reach, especially due to budget problems. Even if it is with good shows but with a reduced format, of a hundred spectators. Thus, in the midst of a pandemic, the Empordà Performing Arts Festival reinvented itself, the fastt, adding a T at the end, that of territory. And spreading little by little through different micro-towns in the Alt-Empordane region, with an offer always outdoors in public spaces. “Our intention is not to make a mass festival, because these meeting spaces are later ephemeral and end up disappearing”, explains its director, Rebecca Alabert.

Born in 2013 in the era of Mas Gironí de Garrigàs by a collective of performing arts professionals, FAST had the objective of bringing theater to the Empordà during the summer months, where the the only proposals were mostly musical. But since 2020 it has been expanding and this year offers theater, circus, dance and magic programming during all weekends in July in ten different towns ranging from 100 to 900 inhabitants. From Agullana to Garrigàs, passing through Maçanet de Cabrenys, Ordis, Sant Mori, Siurana, Vilamacolum, Vilanant and Palau de Santa Eulàlia. And with award-winning formats such as the monologue The Pine Giant by Pau Vinyals, best small-format show of the 2023 Critics Awards and which will open the festival program on July 7 in Agullana. Or on July 21 in Garrigàs with a second under the sand the approach to Blood Wedding which makes Federico García Lorca speak with a Girona accent by the very young Col·lectiu Desasosiego, FiraTàrrega Mortiz prize for the best street premiere of 2022.

The third visit of La Calòrica

It will be at the Palau de Santa Eulàlia, the municipality with the fewest inhabitants in the Alt Empordà – which has recently exceeded the number of 100 registered and celebrated with the reopening of the rural school and this year, a nursery school – , where FASTT has decided to create this year “the biggest show”, in Alabert’s words. It will be on Saturday 22 July with the political comedy the birds of La Calòrica, inspired by Aristophanes’ comedy of the same title. The first time the company set foot in the festival was in 2015 and it was still quite unknown in theater circles. Now it will be the third year in which he participates and after having become a phenomenon for all kinds of audiences. “I remember a strong connection, because then we agreed: we had few resources but we knew that this would not be an excuse to offer a minor theatrical show – remembers Joan Yago, one of the members of La Calòrica -. We all worked as if we were at the Venice Biennale “.

This year, the proposals embrace all kinds of formats, but above all they want to avoid the “street theatre” label. The FASTT aims to transport theater from the theater to the open air, but not to turn it into a minor or more improvised genre. In addition to Pau Vinyals’ monologue, Mariona Esplugues will talk about mental health with Color , a very personal and at the same time optimistic monologue, at the multi-sports court in Ordis. The autobiographical experience will continue on Saturday 15 July in Sant Mori, with My grandmother is immortal (Essay on a possible funeral), a documentary play in which the Cia. Creació Kunstant will witness to the public a ceremony to say goodbye to the grandmother of the creator of the show. The dance night will be a week later, on July 29, in Maçanet de Cabrenys. Along with Agullana, they are the two towns that have joined the FASTT this 2022 and the church of Sant Martí will be a witness. You can see the vertical dance show Stone Town, from the Cia. Quarrobi Vertical Dance d’Euskadi.

Create meeting spaces

The program will close on July 30 in Vilamacolum with another funeral, but this time in a humorous tone. It will be with B.O.B.A.S, from fellow Valencian Jimena Cavalletti. A family-style clown show in which three women find themselves having to officiate at a funeral where neither the priest nor the dead man arrives. It will be the starting point for a final party in the town square with tsaranga and music faithful to the “festive” nature of the festival. This is emphasized by its director, who defines the FASTT above all as a meeting space, a place of shared tables. The ones that started in the era of Mas Gironí de Garrigàs, which still hosts the team that organizes the festival throughout July, and now spread to different towns in the region. That’s why, every function day, the venue opens two hours earlier with the offer of one food truck and the proposal for the festival’s own beer, hand-made by Limbik with lemons and marialluisa from the micro-villages.