Virtual conversation between Gabriel Calderón and Aída Pallarès

This year’s edition of Barcelona’s Grec Festival set its sights on Latin America and, despite the inclemency of COVID-19, which prevented travelling and transoceanic trips, from the Beckett we will look to contribute all the same to this knowledge, through the possibilities offered to us by network communications technologies. It is for this reason that we are proposed a series of in-depth conversations with some Latin-American creators, selected precisely because of their link with what the Grec 2020 should have been. We are doing it hand in hand with some specialised journalists who will enable us a rigorous approach to each of the figures involved.

The conversation on Wednesday 15 July is between playwright Gabriel Calderón and cultural journalist Aída Pallarès.

Gabriel Calderón

Playwright, theatre director and actor. He has written over 20 plays for theatre and has been recognised with various awards, including the National Literature Prize on two occasions: in 2011 for Mi pequeño mundo porno and in 2016 for Ex: Tal vez la vida sea ridícula.

In 2004, he received a grant from the Fundación Carolina to visit Spain for the “Course for professionals in playwriting and theatre directing” and in 2009 he took part in the International Summer Residency for Emerging Playwrights at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Since 2011 he has been a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and resident artiste at the Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry in Paris, France.

His plays have been presented in Argentina, Brazil, Spain, France, United States, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. His texts have been translated into French, German, English, Greek and Portuguese. With his shows he has participated in reiterated opportunities at international theatre festivals in the Americas and Europe. He has participated in lectures, classes and seminars in Argentina (Ibero-American Seminar of Creative Dramaturgy coordinated by Mauricio Kartun/ELTI- Latin-American Theatre Meeting / Velez Arfield Library), Brazil (Sao Paulo- Playwriting Hub of the British Council SP/Universidad de Santa Catalina), Chile (Universidad de Chile/Universidad Finis Terrae/Universidad Católica), Cuba (Casa de las Américas/May Theatre Festival), Mexico (Guadalajara Festival of Reading/DF Transdrama), France (Nouvelle Sorbonne Paris 3/Casa de Amerique Latine/Theatre Quartier d’Ivry/Université Paul Valery), Israel-Palestine (Jerusalem-Palestine National Theatre) and Switzerland (Lausanne-HETSR La Manufacture/Haute Ecole de Théâtre de Suisse Romande).

Currently he is actively working at the Teatro Nazionale in Modena, with the Fondatzione Teatro de Emilia Romagna and at the Scuola di Teatro Iolanda Gazzerro in Modena.