September means filling the calendar again: getting back into routines, resuming commitments, and making room for everything summer had put on hold. After the calm —and also the intensity— of the holidays, the pace of daily life changes and, almost without realizing it, the calendar fills up again. And not just ours: Barcelona’s too, as the city comes back to life culturally in September, filling its streets, stages, and cultural venues with new events and activities. This weekend, music, shows, cinema, festivals, and unique spaces invite us to go out again and rediscover the city.
There will be big stages and unexpected spots, live music, stories unfolding on screen, and spaces that invite you to discover a hidden side of the city. From Aitana, the ‘superstar’ turning the Palau Sant Jordi into her Cuarto azul, to Fito Páez’s intimate concert at the Palau de la Música Catalana; from the fantastical universe of Cirque du Soleil and its new show to unexpected settings such as the Palau del Marquès d’Alfarràs in the Parc del Laberint d’Horta. And that’s not all: the weekend is also packed with neighborhood festivals and unique exhibitions.
Inventions, acrobatics and fantasy under the Cirque du Soleil big top
L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, until October 18
Cirque du Soleil is a guarantee of impossible acrobatics and shows that leave both young and old open-mouthed. This time, however, the company born four decades ago in Canada proposes going beyond the circus to delve into a parallel reality where machines, inventions, and eccentric characters coexist under the same tent, installed in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. It is the universe of KURIOS – Cabinet of Curiosities, the company's 35th production that has toured more than forty cities and captivated more than six million spectators before arriving in Catalan territory.
The name refers to the old cabinets of curiosities, collections of unique objects, rarities, and artifacts that during the Renaissance were the predecessors of today's museums. In this case, the cabinet is owned by the Seeker, an eccentric inventor convinced that, beneath the reality we know, another universe is hidden. When he opens his collection, the objects and characters that inhabit it come to life to turn the stage into a succession of impossible characters, machines, and acrobatic acts.
A movie palace hidden in Barcelona
Palau del Marquès d'Alfarràs, Wednesdays and Sundays, at 10:30 AM and 12 PM
The Horta Labyrinth is one of Barcelona's most unique gardens, but among its cypress trees and paths hides a building that for years has remained outside the usual cultural circuit. It is the Palace of the Marquis of Alfarràs, also known as Palau Desvalls, a construction of medieval origin that is part of the park complex and that now reopens its doors through guided tours that allow tracing the history of the building.
The history of the palace dates back to the 11th century, when the Torre Sobirana, a defensive construction that over the years was integrated into the Desvalls estate, already stood on the same site. It was in the 18th century when Joan Antoni Desvalls transformed the space and promoted the construction of the palace and gardens that today form the Horta Labyrinth complex. A building with a unique history —which has even served as a film set, with some scenes from Perfume, the 2006 film based on Patrick Süskind's novel, filmed in its rooms and terraces— which had deteriorated in recent years. After a rehabilitation process, the palace reopens from this September 2 with guided tours that allow discovering its interiors.
Last chance to see the world through Steve McCurry’s lens
Palau Martorell, until September 6
The gaze has been one of those elements capable of transforming painted faces into universal icons of art history. From the enigmatic gaze of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa to that of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, who turns her face towards the viewer as if she had just discovered him, eyes have been able to hold us in front of a work. Centuries after these two paintings, Steve McCurry has also found in the gaze one of the most powerful ways to appeal to the viewer through his photographs.
McCurry's photographs bring us closer to realities marked by war, displacement, poverty, or natural disasters, but they do not always explicitly resort to violence. In his images, a poignant gaze —like that of the young Afghan refugee Sharbat Gula, which is already part of the collective imagination—, a face, or a small gesture can be enough to explain what lies outside the frame. The ICONS exhibition, which closes this weekend at Palau Martorell, traces these gestures and gazes through almost 150 photographs gathered over McCurry's four-decade career.
Four nights in Aitana’s Cuarto Azul
Palau Sant Jordi, September 4, 5, 7 and 8
To transform the Palau Sant Jordi into an intimate and personal room. A room tinged with blue. This is the setting proposed by Aitana, the 'superstar' from Sant Climent de Llobregat, in the four concerts she will offer this week as part of the Cuarto Azul World Tour, with tickets sold out months ago. A tour that began in Argentina and has already passed through more than twenty cities before arriving in Barcelona, where Aitana returns after the success of last year's massive concert at the Olympic Stadium, before 40,000 people.
After the change of stage represented by the Metamorfosis Season tour, Aitana now arrives with a more intimate and personal album. The artist who emerged from Operación Triunfo in 2017 addresses through the lyrics of Cuarto azul loves that end and a complicated personal stage, but without renouncing the freshest and most playful pop that can be seen in songs like Ex Ex or Superestrella.
A window onto cinema from the other side of the world
Cinemes Girona, September 2 to 6
Just a few years ago, the film Parasite was a kind of exception: a Korean film that had managed to cross its country's borders and make a name for itself among the major international awards. But it soon became clear that the success of the film directed by Bong Joon-ho was not an isolated case. BTS and BLACKPINK have turned K-pop into a global phenomenon, Squid Game brought Korean series to millions of viewers, and at the same time, South Korean gastronomy and fashion have also been gaining presence around the world.
Precisely to approach the success of this cinema, the Korean Film Festival Barcelona was born, which this week returns to Cinemes Girona in Barcelona with a selection of titles that travel from commercial cinema to more independent proposals.
Local festival season continues across Barcelona and beyond
After the decorated streets of the Gràcia and Sants festivals, one of the great stages of the Barcelona summer, the main festival continues its journey this September through other neighborhoods and nearby municipalities, before the turn of the city's great popular festival, La Mercè. Meanwhile, neighborhoods such as la Bordeta, la Font del Mont, Vallcarca, Horta, la Salut or el Farró take over during these first days of September, with parades, correfocs, popular meals, family activities and concerts.
And, beyond Barcelona, municipalities such as Sabadell and Santa Coloma de Gramenet also extend the party. In Sabadell, music will be the protagonist with concerts by 31 FAM, Ven’nus, Roger Padrós, Nil Moliner, Macaco or Doctor Prats, while Santa Coloma will combine more than a hundred activities where music will also not be missing from the hand of Chanel, Sopa de Cabra, Sidonie or David Bustamante.
Fito Páez, stripped-back and acoustic at the Palau de la Música Catalana
Palau de la Música Catalana, September 3, at 9:30 p.m.
A piano and voice concert is an unusual format for an artist accustomed to large stages and large-format productions. It is, however, the format with which the Argentine Fito Páez has decided to take a break in Barcelona amidst his intense international activity to offer a much more intimate recital, without a band or great artifice, only with the piano and his voice, at the Palau de la Música Catalana.
With more than four decades of career, Páez will review a repertoire that has marked several generations, with songs like those from El amor después del amor, the best-selling album in the history of Argentine rock. He will do so, however, with a concert format where the songs are stripped of much of the usual accompaniment and will leave all the space to the musician's voice, melodies and lyrics.
José Sacristán face to face with the memory of Fernando Fernán-Gómez at the Romea
Teatre Romea, until October 4
“If the writer Delibes taught me to look, the comedian Fernán-Gómez taught me to listen,” remarks the Madrid actor José Sacristán. Beyond admiring him, the performer had the privilege of knowing him and exchanging long conversations for years. Now, Sacristán revives these conversations and shared memories with Fernán-Gómez through a personal monologue at the Teatre Romea.
Memories that allow us to travel through topics as diverse as childhood, absence, fears, or hopes. And in these memories also appear the voices of the people who were part of Fernán-Gómez's life: his grandmother, his mother, other characters he met, and even that of the child who dreamed of being a writer. Sacristán brings back all these voices in El hijo de la cómica, which can be seen until October 4.
Two markets for design, vintage finds and crafts
Palo Market Fest and Port Flea
Beyond theaters, concert halls, and museums, markets have also become a common setting for weekend plans in Barcelona. There are options for almost all tastes: second-hand, crafts, design, or even gastronomic. In the Catalan capital, however, there is one that has become a benchmark for this type of proposal: the Palo Market Fest, which every first weekend of the month brings together design, gastronomy, music, and crafts in the old Palo Alto venue, in Poblenou.
This weekend, however, the agenda also offers an event for those who prefer to browse among pieces with decades of history: the Port Flea, which will return to the Moll de Mestral of the Olympic Port with a hundred stalls of second-hand clothes, records, collector's items, design, and crafts, accompanied by gastronomic proposals and DJs throughout the day.
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