'Joc de xiquetes', from the Valencian company Bullanga, Max Prize of the Public 2018
Written and directed by Adrián Novella, the work is based on real events and proposes the inclusion of the public in the work
Almost 5000 people have voted for their favorite shows through the Max Awards website and the #VotaMax application
The organizing committee of the Max Performing Arts Awards has granted the Max Public Award to Joc de xiquetes (Game of girls), work written and directed by Adrián Novella for the Valencian theater company Bullanga. It is the first time that the Max awards this special award – which adds to the Max of Honor and Max Amateur or Social Character awards, as well as the 19 contest categories-, with which you want to recognize the favorite show of this Season for Performing Arts fans. Almost 5000 people They have voted through the website of the Max Awards and a mobile application for two months.
"When we received the news of the prize we did not believe it," enthuses the Valencian playwright and director Adrián Novella. "We obtained two nominations (Best Revelation Show and Best Revelation Authorship) in this XXI edition of the Max Awards, but we did not make it to the final. It gave us a lot of pain. For that reason, that the public has opted for a work of a small company and that barely takes four years in active like ours, we were very excited. The best of all is to think that a work in which the audience is involved has been recognized by the public. How well everything fits! "He stresses.
The architects of the assembly Joc de xiquetes will receive the award on June 18 at the gala of the XXI edition of the Max Awards of Performing Arts organized by the SGAE Foundation, with the collaboration of the City of Seville, Seville Tourism, INAEM, Cartuja Center CITE, Ernst & Young and Fluge, in the new cultural space Cartuja Center CITE of the Andalusian capital.
Based on real facts
Written and directed by Adrián Novella and interpreted by Miquel Arnau, Resu Belmonte, Vicent Domingo, Gemma Taberner, Ariana Higón Y Jorge Valle, Joc de xiquetes It has been defined by the theatrical company Bullanga as a "bitter comedy for an adult audience". Thus, from a real event, the montage recreates a meeting of fathers and mothers in a school while the public is part of the comedy to be assigned a role to enter and participate actively in this "game of girls and boys."
Through this format of participatory theater, the piece proposes a hard reflection on communication or, better yet, on that hyper-communication that we face today and in which nothing and nobody seems to be safe. The WhatsApp groups of parents of the schools are, according to Novella, a good example of those cases in which the "misrepresentation of reality can end up causing fatal consequences. In any case, during the development of the work, we never judge the facts. It is the public who finally decides whether these are real or not. Our objective is to show how this bad communication between one and the other can end up generating an excessive protection of the parents to their children ".
Adrián Novella came to this model of participatory theater through his work as an actor in the company The Cuban. In addition, during his time in the Master in Theater Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), he conducted an investigation on dramaturgies for the inclusion of the public. "I analyzed the work that different companies do in this field and I discovered a formula to introduce it. It's what I wanted to do and, for that, I had to get the audience to identify with the story, to enter fully into it, "he says. Based on this premise, and drawing on a real event around a complaint to a professor for abuses, this work was awarded the Max Prize of the Public, Joc de xiquetes.
The piece premiered in 2016 at the Russafa Escènica theater festival and, after touring various stages of the Valencian Community and Catalonia, it was enjoyed in 2017 at the Third Setmana festival. There he received enthusiastic applause; including that of a Chilean programmer who took the assembly to the Santiago OFF International Festival. Joc de xiquetes it was also represented in Peru and in recent months it has combined its presence in theatrical stages with educational meetings in the classrooms of municipal schools.
About Bullanga Theatrical Company
Created in 2013 by a group of young actors from the School of Dramatic Arts of Valencia, Bullanga was consolidated as a cultural association in 2015. Since its inception, the company has produced its own shows, with the support of a number of collaborators linked to the Performing Arts: dancers and choreographers, musicians and singers, light and sound technicians … The company premiered with The glory of the people and has continued with titles like The dream of the galaxies or Maruschka Comèdia russa on the terreta nostra.
For its part, the author and director of the award-winning Joc de xiquetes, Adrián Novella, is a founding member of Bullanga, a company with which he has directed some of his works, and teaches theater in different educational centers and institutions. The dramaturgy for the inclusion of the public is the hallmark of his latest creations; between them, Maruschka Comèdia russa on the terreta nostra (Premi Micalet de Teatre 2017) or Joc de xiquetes.
Three special prizes
In addition to the 19 contest categories, this year there are three special awards: Max de Honor, which has recognized the career of the dramatist and theater director José Sanchís Sinisterra; Max Amateur or Social Character, this time for Dance Mobile; and the Special Max of the Public, in which more than 5000 people have voted for their favorite shows through a mobile application and the Max Awards website.
Organized by the SGAE Foundation since 1998, the Max Awards, whose award is designed by the poet and artist Joan Brossa (Barcelona-1919/1999), promoter of one of the renewing collectives of post-war Spanish art, has been consolidated over these years as the broadest recognition in the field of Performing Arts in Spain.
(tagsToTranslate) Max Awards
