<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Culture]]> 10 <![CDATA[Triptych landed (III): … and the beautiful complexity of living]]> A pair of well-worn wings, displayed (ready to fly when needed or desired), on a shelf in the studio that Joan Miró built in Mont-roig del Camp, after falling in love with the landscape at eighteen. The photograph, exhibited at the Fundació Miró in Palma, is by Jean Marie del Moral: in black and white, it portrays the atrophied – but possible – limbs, with all the grays we never speak of. To cut off the wings, to mow the grass underfoot, to close all paths. The tongue warns against systematic evil and the artist rebels against it: bravely, he mutilates himself to coexist with the other mutilated, while carefully preserving ancestral limbs to roam freely through his work.

]]> <![CDATA[Moha]]> Not too many days ago I had a bump with the car. Nothing of great importance, more than a slightly dented door and the documentary and management hassle that the thing entails in the following days. This week I went to the workshop assigned to me by the insurance company to have it appraised. A workshop run by Manacor people of the kind they now call 'of a lifetime'. 'You'll have to wait a little, because the young man who takes care of it starts at nine', and I went back into the car and spent some time there scrolling through my mobile phone.After a few minutes, "the young man who takes care of it" appeared, smiling. "I'll take a couple of photos and send them to the house. If they don't see any signs of fraud, we'll move forward and you won't have to bring it back until we have to fix it," he told me amiably. We entered the office: "I'll jot down my direct number for you," and he gave me a card with a name written by hand. I'm not wearing my glasses. "Who should I ask for?" "Moha," he told me.If you had heard us, you would not have made any difference. Both of us adapting to the slightly formal and a little distant and cordial tone that the communicative situation required. Both of us in a 'lifelong' Manacor Catalan. Basically, because both of us are, 'lifelong' Manacor residents, from my life and from hers.And we'll leave it at that, I'll call him. There's no more difference between Moha and me than the origin of the name, within the professional relationship we've had. Obviously, then each to their own home, and the dogs to Coll's, as they say. Already in the car, I delve into my linguistic and cultural musings. I've thought about our great-grandparents in Havana, or in Buenos Aires, which are the two mythical names with which people of a certain time summarized the Majorcan diaspora in America. How must they have done it? They must have learned and spoken the language of the place, of course. But they must have looked for each other, they must have formed a community. What language did they speak to their children, if they formed a family there? All sorts of situations must have occurred. It depended on whether both parents were from here or not, whether they saw themselves returning to Mallorca someday, whether they thought that to ensure the future in the new land it was convenient to speak to them in Spanish or whether, on the contrary, they didn't want their children to lose the language their parents had taught them in any way.Just like all the people who arrive in Mallorca and who right now represent a third of the population. The narratives, depending on who articulates them, use different, sometimes antagonistic vocabularies: “coexistence”, “interculturality”, “integration”, “assimilation”, “cultural substitution”, “invasion”...We are moving in slippery terrain that allows for two interpretations: the most raw and uninhibited capitalism has settled within our homes. It is as if the United States had disembarked its model directly on this small island of ours in the middle of the Mediterranean. Incessant and tumultuous movements of population to feed the monetary greed of a handful of new rich and speculators, so that they can continue to pluck the golden goose of tourism on the backs of others; and a society divided into isolated communities, into stagnant ghettos that seek no other bond than the commercial or labor one, and even then. Rootedness and sense of belonging are weak. It is a way to keep communities poorly anchored to the territory, with no interest in defending it, and divided, with no possibility of organizing collectively, of uniting for a common cause, of questioning this or that policy together.However, let's talk about the second reading. Languages and cultures can be linked to a territory, but they can also be linked to a community. Neither of these two assumptions makes them better than others. Nor worse. All cultures, all languages, are necessary to sustain the global 'lingosystem'. Each way of speaking represents a way of understanding and interpreting the world. As humans, we cannot afford to do without any. Neither the others', nor our own. No one is in a position to tell another what language to speak, nor what form their cultural expressions should take. And we Catalan speakers in Mallorca know this well, because, however little we want to keep the presence of the language alive, we come up against ignorance, contempt, and affront.The singer and creator Joana Gomila (what would we do without her?) recently gave us a new idea: the right to cultural opacity. The idea is from the thinker from the island of Martinique, Édouard Glissant, who says that people, cultures, and languages do not have the obligation to be completely transparent or understandable to others. The idea of "translating everything" into one's own frameworks is very much linked to a way of understanding the world that is very colonial, perhaps even supremacist.Let's think of all of us, of all the Majorcans of today, those who were born here and those who have come. Whatever their lineage and their names. All have the right to preserve an irreducible part of their culture, the right not to be completely translatable, the right to exist without having to justify themselves according to external categories. Let's think about it, we Catalans of Mallorca, for ourselves, in this essential depth of our way of seeing and understanding the world. If we do, we will be more capable of empathizing also, for that very reason, with all this otherness that is now so ours, so from here, and that does not arrive as a threat to dilute us, but as an opportunity to make us richer, and I'm not talking about money.Because suspicion, obsession, and hatred, in general, are not usually cultural, even though the Spanish far-right, and now also the Catalan one, want to dress it up as such. Hatred, obsession, and suspicion, unfortunately, are class-based and the rejection of difference is arbitrary and depersonalizing.Moha's case from the workshop sends me back to school, which is, for now, the only meeting space we have managed to set up. That's where this normality comes from. From there, empathy must be able to emerge and suspicion towards difference must be dismantled. And from there, the building material we need must be able to emerge to construct the necessary bridges and meeting spaces, also in adult life, to become a plural, healthy society and, yes, call me naive, with the Catalan language as the backbone of it all.

]]> <![CDATA[Protest speech of Fades at the Palma Book Fair: "Culture is not protected as a right"]]>

The Mallorcan urban music group Fades inaugurated this Friday the 44th edition of the Palma Book Fair with a markedly vindictive opening speech in defense of the Catalan language, local culture, and the role of young creators. The trio, formed by Àngel Exojo, Ferran Pi, and Vicenç Calafell, took advantage of the inaugural event to demand more institutional support for culture made in Catalan and to denounce policies that, in their opinion, contribute to weakening its public presence.

]]> <![CDATA['La Balanguera' will play this Friday in all Eroski establishments in Mallorca]]>

The Eroski supermarkets in Mallorca will join this Friday, May 29, in the great simultaneous singing of La Balanguera promoted by the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB). The chain will play the anthem of Mallorca over the public address system at 12 p.m. and 8 p.m. in all establishments on the island, with the aim of contributing to the commemoration of the centenary of the musical premiere of Joan Alcover's poem with music by Amadeu Vives.

]]> <![CDATA[Extended]]>

The program notes of Calidoscopi, the latest creation by Estudi Zero, state that “characters are moved by absurd, violent, or profoundly human situations”. True, but it would be even more so if the conjunction were copulative instead of disjunctive. If the situations are absurd and violent, it is clear that they are undeniably very human. The caricature does not distort reality but accentuates it, so that this bold, irrational, and bizarre point makes the metaphorical drawing of the human condition arrive with more effectiveness. That the performance is composed of different small stories brings the Sans seal, in such a way that it transports us to that journey that Karl Valentin was piloting in this very room. For the occasion, several authors are listed in the roster of Calidoscopi –Esteve Soler, Juan Mayorga and Joël Pommerat–, which makes the mood of the different sketches raise the heat of each one considerably. There is no white humor. All contain a high dose of venom, in the same proportion as causticity and sarcasm, and without fear of crossing red lines.The first story, that of the man run over by a bus, about which I will say no more because it would be a spoiler, sets the tone of the performance. Black humor in its purest form. Human cruelty or lack of humanity, which in this case is the same, shines with all its splendor. That of the couple who confess to their twenty-year-old son that he was not a desired child, exponentially increases the portion of inhumanity. That of the seller of anything you can imagine is a mirror directed towards the stalls. And so on. All in all, rounded off with a musical number performed by Dominic Hull, a My way in the purest crooner style, accompanied by the rest of the cast and dressed as Fortunio Bonanova and the Glamouramas were in their glorious American years. Naturally, in such a diverse ensemble it is not easy to find the ideal point of homogeneity, but, even so, the performance treasures enough uniformity, both in the different stories and in the interpretation of the seven protagonists, who in such a marathon performance become an immense crowd of characters, always dressed very differently. Only a small caveat, the wigs are not very necessary. With the different changes of register, which are there, it is enough.

]]> <![CDATA["Poetry is the opportunity to use words in another way"]]>

Born in Sant Joan in 1998, Júlia Febrer Bausà is part of this new generation of voices that approach poetry with their own perspective, made of word, image, and matter. Her name has begun to resonate strongly within the literary landscape after winning the Ciutat de Manacor de Poesia Miquel Àngel Riera 2025 prize with Arrel inoïda, a work that confirms the solidity of an author still young, but with an already well-defined poetic universe. This recognition has been joined this year by the Martí Dot de Poesia prize, organized by the Sant Feliu de Llobregat City Council, for the poetry collection Llum de cendra, which will be published in the autumn.

]]> <![CDATA[A whole experience]]>

The imposing cloister of Sant Bonaventura hosted the Ceremony of the Whirling Dervishes, organized by the Toni Catany Foundation, who, as the program states, was a lover of the cultures of the Mediterranean, which he traveled and of which he left artistic testimony in countless photographic series. It is not a spectacle, it isa whole liturgical experience, as Halil Bárcena, the director of the Institute of Sufi Studies of Barcelona, explained very well shortly before initiating this Sêma: The Sufi Journey, performed by the Neva Sufi Ensemble. A group composed, on the one hand, by four musicians with their traditional instruments, the ney, the qanun, the ud, and the bendir —more or less, a flute, a trapezoidal zither, an Arabic lute, and a drum— also responsible for voicing the selam, the greeting in Turkish. On the other hand, the semazens, dancing dervishes, another four, who repeat the turns, always from left to right, with their right hand turned towards the sky and the left towards the ground, the way to establish a link between the soul and the body, between the divine and the human.Robert Graves said in the preface toThe Sufis, by the foundational thinker Idries Shah, that “Sufism represented a current of inner illumination centered on love and self-knowledge, free from oppressive dogmas”. All this was evident in this representation of the music and dances of the classical Mevlevi Sufi tradition. The venue, full; the silence, absolute, reverential. As if it were a service with all its mystical weight. The ascetic movements of the dervishes were responsible for marking the spiritual idiosyncrasy of the performance, while at the same time exhibiting a cadence that was both aesthetic and sober and cenobitic.The music, emotional and profound, with the traditional melodic phrases of the maqamat, which, as the voices chanted the names of the prophets, brought to the performance the pure and transcendent alloy between one and another. It was the feeling that it was all much more than our senses could grasp at first instance. It was a fitting and emotional tribute, but also an open door to another way of seeing and living.

]]> <![CDATA[The Principal of Inca consolidates itself with a notable increase in audience]]>

While the Teatre i l’Auditori of Manacor face an important change of era with the change of manager, after almost 40 years with Tomeu Amengual at the helm, the Teatre Principal of Inca consolidates an audience that, since its inauguration in 2021, has not stopped growing. If the 2022-2023 season closed with 28,000 attendees, the 2024-2025 season ended with more than 34,000. Many of them, moreover, from Inca. “More and more people from Inca are coming to the theater, trusting the proposals we offer, but since the audience from the rest of the island is also growing, the percentages mean that the increase in local audience, which was one of the main objectives to achieve, is blurred”, explains Miquel Àngel Raió, director of the center since September 2022. “Of course, we would like to achieve a model like Manacor’s, with more than 50% local audience, but now we are operating with different percentages. We have 30% of people from Inca and 70% of people from the rest of Mallorca”, he specifies.

]]> <![CDATA[The Palma Book Fair will repeat in Plaça d'Espanya with more than 40 activities]]>

The Palma Book Fair will return this year to Plaça d’Espanya, where from May 29 to June 7 it will bring together 16 bookstores and more than 40 activities in its 44th edition. The program will include literary presentations, workshops, concerts, storytelling, and family activities, with a special focus on local and emerging talent.

]]> <![CDATA[Alcúdia transforms into a grand circus stage: the eleventh edition of CircAire arrives]]>

Alcúdia once again becomes, this weekend, for the eleventh edition, a grand circus stage. From this Friday until Sunday, the municipality will host an intense program of the best shows of this discipline in its contemporary and outdoor version.

]]> <![CDATA[Llorenç Santamaria, named Illustrious Son of Santa Maria in an emotional plenary session during the Fair]]>

The Santa Maria del Camí Town Council this Sunday named singer Llorenç Santamaria an Illustrious Son during an extraordinary plenary session held at Ses Cases des Mestres, coinciding with the town's Fair Day. The agreement was approved unanimously by all municipal groups.

]]> <![CDATA[How was David Ordinas, according to his friend: "He sang and played bass in a 'heavy' band"]]>

Born in 1979 in Palma. He has roots in Felanitx (on his mother's side) and Santa Margalida (on his father's side). He has lived in Madrid for years, but, in the eyes of others, he has the power of omnipresence, because he can give the impression that he is everywhere. His favorite place in the world is Portocolom. He is the middle of three siblings and if one thing characterizes him it is that he has "inexhaustible energy". It is strange that someone doesn't know who he is, because every now and then he enters everyone's dining rooms, and it's not that he does it silently: we are talking about the television presenter David Ordinas (I know more than you, The best party…), who is also a singer, composer and actor. Xisco Pericàs introduces him to us, and they have known each other since they were four years old.

]]> <![CDATA[The children of the moon]]> While in the streets of the neighborhoods and villages of Mallorca we relived the Passion of Jesus Christ and from the chimneys the scents of the "panades" (a type of pastry) and "rubiols" (a type of sweet pastry) emerged, thousands of visitors and tourists were descending at full speed, with vans and black SUVs, from the Tizi n'Tichka pass towards the desert, there, in the immense snowy mountain ranges of the African Atlas. What were those visitors looking for?Through the vehicles' speakers, catchy, modern, and rhythmic music played, a little hypnotic. It was by the Amazigh group Tarwa N Ayur, with the voice of singer Sarah Mou. That mysterious afrofusion rhythm would accompany them to the dunes of Erg Chebbi – known for their golden sand and for being among the highest in Morocco –, just outside Merzouga and Khamlia.The young guides and drivers, many of them Amazigh, while driving, hummed the lyrics that Sarah Mou was setting to music; a song titled Amoudou especially motivated them.Let's walk together on this journey,children of the earth and of the moon,we carry the strength of fathers,and not even the desert wind will stop us.Before 1936, route 9, which goes from Marrakech to Ouarzazate, did not exist. The French colonial troops – with the 4th Regiment of the Foreign Legion – took the lead in this work, which lasted a good handful of years. Obviously, the Amazigh population of the immense and white mountains threw themselves into it.Without the road, there were only narrow paths and rock passages, suitable only for mules and donkeys, because camels were too cold during the frequent snowfalls. For centuries, the slow caravans of the children of the moon had to risk themselves in silence through the snow to bring their goods to Marrakesh and Casablanca.That road had colonial purposes of dominion, but the current one brings two worlds closer, especially two cultures – the Arab and the Amazigh – separated by nature, tradition, and identity. It should be remembered that the Amazigh people are much older than the arrival of the Arabs in these territories. They managed – the Amazigh – an almost unique feat: after the arrival and embrace of Islam, they managed to have their own Koranic school; we know them as the followers of Malek or Malikis, in which their identity, tradition, and customs have had their own space that has endured to this day.Talking about civilizations would be too daring, but we can talk about culture. The route to the black desert, the city of Zagora and the Todra gorges opened the doors to the knowledge of Amazigh culture for us. So intimate, attractive, different, and mysterious for us Westerners.In our case, the Amazigh people of the Rif had arrived in Mallorca around the year 1981 approximately, and their number continued to increase over the years. We must point out, however, that the Amazigh people do not form a strictly homogeneous group. Geography and history have played their part and have fostered nuances among them. To understand this, and since we were talking about music at the beginning, we can use it as an example of these specific traits.The music of the southern Amazigh people –Agadir, desert, Atlas– has slow, almost hypnotic rhythms; repetition is frequent with a mantra effect, and the atmosphere it generates is open, contemplative, almost spiritual. The voices are soft but deep – that of Sarah Mou–, singing to the inner soul. The themes usually speak of the journey, the path through the desert of life, of the land, the people, time, and the moon. The group Tarwa N Ayur –the children of the moon– would be a good representative of this archetype. On the other hand, in the Rif region –our Amazigh people of Mallorca– they tend to have faster, more marked rhythms, less repetitive, more direct and lively. They are usually more festive, even combative, types of music. The voices are usually strong, assertive. They speak of daily life, emigration, social difficulties, and a more explicit identity.At this point I like to recall that the name of the mosque in sa Pobla is Ibno Amazic –sons of the Amazigh people–; obviously, when officials from the Moroccan consulate in Palma arrive for a visit, they raise their eyebrows and wrinkle their noses. Differences enrich a people; homogenizations kill it. While the south sings and looks inward, the Amazigh of the north sing outward, away from themselves. Both employ metaphorical and evocative languages. Both refer to images of the moon, the wind, the path, difficulties, mountains, and the desert.When I was preparing this article, I was surprised by the little information available online about the musical ensemble and the soloist who accompanied us throughout the text. Curiously, they have developed part of their project in international circuits, always taking care and seeking songs deeply rooted in Amazigh culture, language, and spirituality. Now I understand that this fact explains many things. Many Amazigh artists prioritize the community, the people, and music above their own individual selves.I think, and I am convinced, that the sounds of the desert are imperceptible to our Western ears. We tend to listen and feel outwards and not inwards. Curiously, Saint Augustine of Hippo, most likely a 4th-century Berber, worked and preached from a thought in which the need for travel always leads inwards: “Do not go outside; go inside yourself. In the inner man dwells truth.”A mystical thought and need, understood by the Amazigh people since antiquity.The Balearic people of Catalan culture feel identified with the Amazigh people; we understand each other. Two peoples, without a nation-state, with a clear linguistic and identity decline. In constant struggle for survival. Attacked by other peoples, with other ways of understanding the world, who need to expand and control their neighbors in order not to die. What were those visitors looking for? They were looking for the children of the moon.

]]> <![CDATA[Spring had a price]]> It seems that these days we have once again had a bit – too much – of cultural controversy following the publication in Spanish of what we now consider to be Mercè Rodoreda's best novel. David Uclés, the recent star of Spanish literature (he has sold thirty editions of his first novel, and the second, winner of the Nadal prize, is selling quite well) writes an epilogue and even illustrates, rather unattractively, the cover of the work. Some opinion leaders have decided to criticize the proposal, as if Catalan literature could not be prefaced by Spanish authors, even though it is Uclés' success that makes it tempting for his name to accompany Rodoreda's novel for Spanish readers. Uclés, whether one likes what he writes or not (and it must be liked, because it sells) can serve to attract readers, in a country, Spain, where neither Rodoreda nor any Catalan has had much literary fortune writing in Catalan (but not the Catalans who have written in Spanish, from Gironella to Cercas passing through Mendoza…). Uclés, however, is still a symptom, and now a symbol. It doesn't matter if his literature is weak –as the best critics point out–: it sells. And because it sells, he is then given a prize like the Nadal, because he had already made a name for himself, even though it is known that when he was nobody, he tried to win it several times. We already know how it works, then: a prize is given to someone because they are already somebody, not because they have written a good book (everyone says it's nonsense). Before, however, things didn't work like that. Publishers intended to direct the public's taste, not to satisfy it or blindly conform to it. Literature, or rather the world of commercial books, is just one more branch of the attention economy, which right now is also shaping culture. Who grabs attention? Who is being talked about? Who manages to attract glances and focus conversations, or articles, even if it's to oppose them? Well, those we talk about manage to translate that attention into money, be it through literature or politics. This is trumpism, but it is also Rufián, who states these last days that he prefers to be on TikTok rather than in libraries; it is on TikTok where people spend more hours right now. And we know he is right, but at the same time we know he shouldn't be. There are very skillful people at knowing where to place themselves: they grasp what to say, what to do, with whom to relate to in order to capitalize on dispersed attention. Mendoza did it this week by speaking against Sant Jordi, and Uclés does it by approaching a reference that has never stopped being talked about: be it Rodoreda or a city of Barcelona reduced to a museum of cultural folklorisms, to t-shirt images, like the one he himself has created for the cover of La mort i la primavera. That all this be controversial or criticized favors him, curiously, needless to say much more than if it were excellent and, therefore, did not make anyone lift their eyes from the screen… Long live culture. 

]]> <![CDATA[Flavors, textures and more things]]>

Third installment of a new season at the Principal Theatre of Inca, home of the Orquestra de Cambra de Mallorca, which we were able to hear once again at the church of Llubí. A program that was already quite appealing in itself, with a degree of difficulty that made it an added value and with an undisputed figure, Eduardo Ríos, violinist of the Berliner Philharmoniker, as the soloist commissioned for the occasion to bring to life the Violin Concerto in D major, op. 6. One of the most convoluted concertos and the only one Ludwig van Beethoven composed for the instrument. A composition that, like so many others, carries its legend attached. Premiered by Franz Clement, he received the score very shortly before the concert, and performed it as if it were almost a first reading, but, moreover, he added a sonata of his own as a cadenza played on a single string and with the violin upside down. So difficult was the execution of the concerto that the virtuosos of the time decided it was unplayable, until, thirty-six years after its premiere, at the age of thirteen, and with Felix Mendelssohn conducting, Josef Joachim placed it on the pedestal it deserved and from which it has never descended again.

]]> <![CDATA[Flavors, textures and more things]]>

Third installment of a new season at the Principal Theatre of Inca, home of the Orquestra de Cambra de Mallorca, which we were able to hear once again at the church of Llubí. A program that was already quite appealing in itself, with a degree of difficulty that made it an added value and with an undisputed figure, Eduardo Ríos, violinist of the Berliner Philharmoniker, as the soloist commissioned for the occasion to bring to life the Violin Concerto in D major, op. 6. One of the most convoluted concertos and the only one Ludwig van Beethoven composed for the instrument. A composition that, like so many others, carries its legend attached. Premiered by Franz Clement, he received the score very shortly before the concert, and performed it as if it were almost a first reading, but, moreover, he added a sonata of his own as a cadenza played on a single string and with the violin upside down. So difficult was the execution of the concerto that the virtuosos of the time decided it was unplayable, until, thirty-six years after its premiere, at the age of thirteen, and with Felix Mendelssohn conducting, Josef Joachim placed it on the pedestal it deserved and from which it has never descended again.

]]> <![CDATA[Vilafranca gives its nod to Book Week with a Poetry Marathon that will bring together 40 voices from the Pla]]>

Vilafranca de Bonany will kick off the Book Week in the municipality with the celebration of the II Poetic Marathon, which will take place on Friday, April 17, and Saturday, April 18, at Restaurant d’Eliss (Ctra. Palma, 29).

]]> <![CDATA[The international committee questions Palma 2031: "The project is insufficient and underdeveloped"]]>

It has been one of the questions the sector has asked itself since the Palma City Council announced its intention to bid for the title of European Capital of Culture: how will a title designed to attract more visitors to such a tourist city as Palma benefit the cultural fabric? And now the international experts who have evaluated the project have answered it: “It is clear that Palma is not looking to increase the volume of cultural programming or attract more visitors, as in both cases they have enough [...] and even understanding the local circumstances and needs, the jury wonders if the title of European Capital of Culture is the best platform to advance the city's aspirations.” This is how the report, made public this Monday, concludes, with which the committee, chaired by Tanja Mlaker, argues the decision to discard Palma from the candidates to obtain the title for the year 2031.

]]> <![CDATA[A handmade television that a village sewed]]>

Every Thursday afternoon, sa Pobla would stop in front of the television. On the screen, there were the festivals, the news, the neighbors, the familiar faces. It was the town looking at itself.

]]> <![CDATA[The man who painted the giant posters for the cinemas in Palma]]>

Palma's cinemas haven't always been promoted with digitally printed posters or illuminated screens. For decades, large hand-painted posters announcing the week's new releases adorned the facades of many theaters. Behind many of those monumental images was the same name: Rafael Ruiz. Now, his work is being brought back to mind with the exhibition Palma, city of cinemaswhich can be seen at the Misericordia cultural center. Among other historical documents, the exhibition includes original material from the poster artist and the documentary The ephemeral dreamDirected by Toni Bestard.

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