Nau Ivanow: the spectator's school

Before arriving at Nau Ivanow (Calle Hondures 30, in the center of La Sagrera), I kill time walking along Meridiana. For Barcelonians who were born in the Eixample or in the city center, the neighborhood in question –it lives in brotherhood with Congrés i els Indians, Sant Andreu de Palomar, Trinitat Vella, Bon Pastor and Baró de Viver– was a kind of unknown map that configured a gateway prior to the Tetris of miniaturized flats in La Prosperitat, a row of houses that we saw blurred just before leaving the city with the aim of playing the fool on the beaches of the Costa Brava. It is no coincidence that an area ancestrally seen by many fellow citizens as mere periphery has become culturally independent, making institutions like Fabra i Coats or La Nau possible, which this year celebrates 25 years and for a long time now, quietly but constantly like a Chinese water torture, has been making cultural policy in capital letters.In the last ten years, and under the command of David Marin, Nau Ivanow has overcome the parsimony of most theatrical institutions in Barcelona, ​​paralyzed by a tedious program, lacking spontaneity, and unfortunately oblivious to everything that happens in our streets. While theaters fall into over-programming of shows and into the fot-li fort, La Nau has distinguished itself as a welcoming space where artistic companies can work without rush. "We have gone from being a container space to being a content generator," Marin, a son of the neighborhood who started there as a volunteer and is now in command, tells me: "If you just want to play soccer, you go with your friends to the sports center, play a game, have some beers, and that's it. But if you want to become an elite athlete, you must go to the CAR of Sant Cugat. Well, wewe are a CAR of the performing arts."No sooner said than done. Currently, Ivanow not only hosts resident companies to provide them with a magnificent environment in which to work (accompanying their stay with specific cultural advice at the level of show creation and production), but has also complemented the paradigm shift in question by promoting a viewer's schoolassociated with the neighborhood. The residents of La Sagrera are invited to rehearsals, often a dozen times in the process of the same show, they receive the texts beforehand and learn, from the producers, the effort and (the precariousness) that theatrical work entails: "the spectator knows the entire production chain of a show and this makes them experience the scenic experience in a different way; it also happens with the creators themselves, who should not explain what they do at a post-performance table, but throughout the entire process of creating the show," he adds.

It's true; as musicians, we know perfectly well that the rehearsal processes of a work are much more juicy than the final result, a much more canned product. The Can Ivanow system allows spectators to attend the changing process of a show's formation, and the involvement of spectators in the works that have been born is not merely testimonial: many residents of La Sagrera have ended up making pilgrimages to the Almagro festival or the Tàrrega Fair, interested in the evolution of a text they had seen born in rehearsals. In parallel, the Nau works with neighborhood institutions, such as the l'Estel school, so that kindergarten and primary school students learn about the string of trades involved in theater – from set design to lighting – which becomes a fantastic tool to awaken vocations. All this is work that occupies few headlines and glitter, but that leaves a mark like few others.

It is not strange, therefore, that in 2021 Nau Ivanow ceded spaces completely free of charge to some sixty companies (it received 150 proposals) and that it currently hosts 9 resident companies, through a public call and with a three-year project to deploy, accompanied by artistic and professional mentoring. It should be emphasized that Nau does not audit the work of its creators at an artistic level, because it wants to be a space of freedom; its accompaniment consists of tools and work resources. Marin says: "If a company does a work with an artistic reference, we put them in contact, we provide tools to create a sustainable theatrical company through coaching mentoring, we provide resources for companies to do international residencies and thus expand their work context in another reality and in a different market. We are a toolbox."

The Can Ivanow system allows spectators to witness the changing process of a show's formation.

In an environment of alarming job insecurity, the work of La Nau in terms of professionalization and growth should have much more continuity in other areas of the arts.Perform a literal language conversion from Spanish to English on the following user-provided text. Do not translate any content enclosed betweenandtags, keep those tags and their content exactly as-is: . While I listen to David, one of the few institution directors who doesn't feign a divine posture while chatting, I regret that the musicians or artisans of the country do not have their particular Ivanow to be able to do something as simple as working in conditions. Also regarding the care of the spectator, whom we have thrown into the condition of a mere assistant (and annihilated consumer) of most of the shows held in Barcelona. I ask the kind readers of myStab that they visit this magnificent space of the city, that they look in there to see what part of the theater of the future will be like, and that together we do everything possible and impossible for the Ivanow to last us many more quarter centuries. I have spoken.