Elaine Grayling and Maria Cambril, two world premieres at Fira Mediterrània 2024
Maria Cambil and Elaine Grayling, alumni of the Bachelor’s Degree in Performing Arts – Acting from the ERAM University of Arts – UdG, are part of the performance program at Fira Mediterrània Manresa 2024.
This will be the 27th edition of Fira Mediterrània, where artistic proposals that use roots, tradition, and popular culture as creative drivers are showcased. From October 10th to 13th, we will be able to enjoy multidisciplinary proposals that speak about the present, presented in three main itineraries: world music and folk, traditional dance and popular culture, and finally, memory, legacy, and oral storytelling, featuring performing and street arts that draw from popular culture. (Fira Mediterrània Manresa. “What is it?”. 2024)
In addition to the public proposals, a professional marketplace will be created in parallel to encourage the exchange of visions and ideas, foster new contacts, and promote the buying and selling in both the performing arts and music sectors.
Maria Cambil, alumni of the Bachelor’s Degree in Performing Arts – Acting, premieres on Thursday, October 10th at the Espai Memòries with the play “Calla, Judit, calla” by Malsai Produccions, where she has done the dramaturgy and direction. It is a play inspired by the spiritualist, freethinker, anarchist, and feminist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. The play is set in the 19th century, where, accompanied by the music of Carles Vidal, the performer Clàudia Ferrer tells us through her monologue how the protagonist, young Judit, energetic, vital, rebellious, and kind-hearted, refuses to waste away within the walls of the textile factory where she works. Anarchist ideas and spiritualist practices spread among the workers and take root in Judit’s heart as she spends her youthful days locked inside the factory. (Ràdio Palamós. 2024)
“Calla, Judit, calla” is a dialogue, a confrontation between words and the music that accompanies them, caresses them, lifts them, pushes them, and disturbs them. (L’estruch. 2024)
In this play, we also find Laura Alcalà, professor of “Dance Interpretation Techniques” at ERAM, who has worked on the choreography.
“Let’s leave and get out of here, let’s go run barefoot through the mud and puddles! And they tell me, come on Judit, be quiet. (Maria Cambil. 2024. Calla, Judit, calla – Malsai Produccions. . YouTube.) Photo from Festival Z.
Elaine Grayling, also an alumna of the Bachelor’s Degree in Performing Arts, is the creator, researcher, and performer of “Man mano, il tempo scorre.” We can enjoy her world premiere on Saturday, October 12th at 1 p.m. at the Teatre Kursaal space in Manresa.
Elaine Grayling preparing the dough for gnocchi. (Photo by Stewart, D.)
The work is a gastronomic and theatrical journey through memories proposed by Grayling. It reclaims social rituals, like time spent in the kitchen, even with strangers, as a space of care. It is a lived experience, transmitting the memory of her family through the everyday and intimate encounter surrounding the gnocchi recipe, a traditional Italian fresh pasta.
“I decided to cook with gnocchis because it comes from my mother’s Italian heritage, and from a memory of my grandmother. A memory I had of her was of her kneading in the kitchen.” (Can Grau Cultura. 2024. Elaine Grayling, “Man mano, il tempo scorre”. . YouTube.)
Grayling’s work presents an immersive dialogue between the personal and collective memory, transgenerational connections, and the resilience of intimate traditions.
“Man mano”, in Italian “little by little”, is a project that invites a group of strangers to share time, inhabit it with their hands, words and the simplest social act; cook and eat together. (Barcelona Theatre. 2024)
(Photo by Rodríguez, P.)
At Fira Mediterrània we will be able to enjoy the absolute premiere of both formats of the work, both “la ricetta” and “l’incontro“. Unlike “l’incontro“, in “la ricetta“, it is an intimate meeting with 15 people from the public to cook around a table.
The two works have participated in their creation process for Festival Z and El Canal in the form of residencies, where we have been able to see the projects grow and mature to where they are today.
