D-forming the forum. cultural repression in Barcelona
By la mutanta
Monday 4th October
This weekend in Barcelona the D-form festival of
underground and itinerant performance was broken up
violently by a military style police operation. Police
arrived at the festival site, a big square of concrete
in the industrial and dock land area of town, just
before dawn on Friday morning. About three hundred
people where there, preparing for the festival,
setting up infrastructure and sculptures, scenery and
spaces. There was already a skate park, a kid’s area,
band stage, enormous circus big top, bars and cafes,
internet centre, many different performance spaces. We
all struggled out of our trucks and caravans in the
twilight, blinking at blue flashing lights and large
numbers of armed police and riot cops. We stalled for
time, calling in lawyers and the media, more cops
arrived bringing with them tow trucks and rubbish
crushers. This tense stand off game continued for a
while. We started to pack up, reluctantly, slowly,
hoping that the festival would have some last minute
reprieve. More police arrived, wild eyed and wired on
something. They didn’t want to converse with those of
us who tried. Some beautiful moments of performance
erupted, circus girls cart wheeling in front of the
riot cops, crazy desperate acrobatics, stilt walkers,
stalking in and out of the battle lines swing flags…
till we all finally came to realise that it was
hopeless to continue to try and hold the site. In that
moment of d-form deflation someone climbed on to the
top of the huge circus tent and began to play his
trumpet, the clear notes drifting out over the site as
we packed up, seeming like the solitary persistent
sound of hope.
Things got very hectic after that. The police lost
patience with our slow motion packing and began to
move in on us. Sculptures where ceased and crushed in
the bin Lorries. I remember the sickening crunching
sounds as we frantically tried to gather up all our
stuff. Spaces and scenery that had taken a day or two
to assemble had to be dismantled in minutes, thrown
randomly into what every truck had space by many
urgent hands. Our circus, like, most other groups
there, had our entire livelihoods spread out on that
dusty concrete, our theatre equipment, trapeze rig,
our homes. We would have lost it all if it hadn’t been
for the way every one moved fast, helping each other
in that moment of mad flight as we scrambled to get
moving before the trunctions started to descend.
So what is really happening here? Many different
stories led to and away from that crisis point on
Thursday morning. The stories of the different
companies, many of whom had made there way across
Europe to participate, the stories of the local and
international team who had been working for months to
organise the festival, but also the wider story of
culture as it is in Europe now. This summer Barcelona
has hosted the European Forum of culture. This big
show case of all things cultural has turned out to be
a massive and expensive flop, badly attended and
widely critised for it’s hypocrisy: a forum for
peace, art and sustainabliltiy which is sponsored by
weapons manufactures; a supposed promoter of cultural
diversity, hosting such delights as a “gypsy week”,
which has been build on a spot from which a big camp
of gypsy families where forcible evicted to make way
for the sleek and glossy new Forum venue.
D-form festival was a critical response to the Forum,
an attempt to show case genuine grass roots art from
all over Europe, an independent and genuine
representation. Saying:”Look: this is culture in Eurpe
now! This is what’s happening in miriad different
places…” from squats and protests, on the streets
and the party scene, at theatre and music festivals,
urban warehouses and in remote mountain villages. All
of these small autonomous moments of cultural
_expression, have been happening with out sponsorship
or state funding, using underground decentralised
networks to communicate with and inspire each other.
D-from was an attempt to bring lots of these sparks
together. The festival organisers wanted to open up
our performance scene and reach out to a big audience.
Although most people involved are used to organising
things on the underground with out waiting for
permission from authorities, for this event long
negotiations where entered into with the council and
cultural offices in Barcelona in the attempt to get
the festival a venue and legal status. The council was
at first encouraging, promising to provide a suitable
location but at the last moment a totally impractical
and inappropriate place was proposed. It was far too
small, in doors with no parking space and an eleven
o’clock curfew. The festival was left with no choice
but to squat a venue and now that the council had
hastily withdrawn their support we no had rights and
no festival.
It’s hard to describe the frazzled insanity of the
past couple of days. All of us scattered around the
town, sleep deprived, gathering where we can, in
squats and on beaches, constantly being moved, fined
and harassed by police. Amongst us all communication
is fragmented, mad roomers and Chinese whispers
abound, complaints and blame is thrown around but
through it all lot of mutual support looking after
each other, defiance, wild eyed laughter, falling back
on our own strength.
On Saturday it look for a few hours as if we had found
another site, just out of town on private land, but
the first trucks arrived there to find the police
waiting for them. It also transpired that the person
who had offered the site had already invited sound
systems to come there for a technival, a situation
that D-form had been trying hard to avoid since they
wanted to put on a performance event, not the usual
mad techno party.
By Saturday evening we where forced to accept that
D-form festival wasn’t going to happen. But we where
all still there frustrated but not crushed, all
dressed up with nowhere to go.All the pent up energy
peaked in a big loud peaceful protest which took over
the centre of the town. More than three thousand
people danced through the streets while Ochos de
Brucha, a local hip-hop flamenco band played on the
back of a truck. The fact the so many people took to
the street spontaneously shows not only the passion
surrounding this festival but also suggests that had
it gone ahead it would have been very well attended.
Since then the energy is dieing down. People are
taking stock of the considerable debts and damage.
There is lots to be discussed and lots to be learnt.
D-from festival didn’t happen as we had imagined but
something very powerful took place. We still have our
visions, our networks and after (a bit more sleep!),
our energy.
THE SHOW MUST GO ON!
=====
( o o )
oooO–(_)–Oooo.
eat your television
http://www.beyondtv.org
this is so fucked up – I’d thought the countries like Spain
were a bit more chilled out and not like the (sometimes) narrow-minded mean spirited Middle Englanders.
for all their faults I’ve never known British authorities to be so vindictive as to let everyone set up like that and then storm the place with riot police!
Usually in the UK the party either gets left alone or visited by a few bobbies, or people close down the next afternoon without too much bloodshed on either side. At the worst there have been some skirmishes; but if cops already know about a party they stop it by various means before it happens and AFAIK have never let a rig set up and then try to stop a party!
What the fuck were the Spanish authorities playing at? It could have been a good and peaceful festival, even if not “done through proper channels” (and it seems like the organisers even tried to do it officially but were fucked around too much).
I was considering going to spain next year but now I do not want to spend my euros there to pay for authorities that oppress their own people.
Is this our European Union? Sounds more like the Soviet Union to me..
you might think that other countries are more liberal about people having a bit of a dance. don’t believe a word of it.
Barcelona has laid clim to being the most happening city in Espania but in reality…
a good friend played Jazz guitar with a 2 Watt amp in La Ramblas. The @culturally enthusiastic@ local council have banned ANY kind of amplified music without a license.
Have you ever wondered how people become ‘statues’?
Forget it mate. Raving is an English occupation. Come on.
Most of my friends who went raving in Europe have come back now – earlier in the year they pleaded with me to join them but I could not get the time off and my passport had expired so stayed in Britain this summer..
I’ve seen all the photos and heard many of the stories from the summer; although people who went enjoyed most of their time I am still bloody glad I stayed in England this year!
OK the weather may be better but it seems that although the Frenchtek was good and CZtek was good until it got rinsed, the best the euro-ravers are getting is a very grudging acceptance of the event.
In FR as closing time approached there were robo-vans which would automatically discharge CS after a certain point, and all sorts of cops and even military planes advancing to clear the site!
The CZtek bust has been discussed in some detail both here and on kacchina and tunnel crew boards; sadly it seems that things are getting worse since the EU expanded.
The other thing that seems to happen at euro-raves is that locals are more likely to take matters into their own hands. I was told of an incident at the Italian rave where crews had to defend themselves from locals by producing a firearm (at least no shots were fired)!
OK the raves are big and the weather good but there seems to be far more risk and uncertainty there than I am prepared to put up with (especially after spending a few hundred euros to get there!)
Looks like the UK is still by far the best country to rave in…
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