The Department of Culture is launching an international programme that will allow audiences to enjoy theatrical and performing arts productions from different countries and cultures
The Cabildo de Fuerteventura, through its Department of Culture, presents ‘Horizontes Escénicos’, a new performing arts series created with the aim of turning the Island’s stages into an open window to the world.
Throughout its programme, the initiative will bring together theatrical and performing arts productions from different countries, introducing majorero audiences to other ways of understanding, creating and experiencing the performing arts. Theatre, dance, contemporary creation and other disciplines will come together in a series that champions cultural diversity and exchange between artists, territories and audiences.
‘Horizontes Escénicos’ is based on a simple idea: the stage has no borders. Each show will allow audiences to travel to other places through stories, languages, bodies, music and different ways of understanding artistic creation.
The Department of Culture of the Cabildo de Fuerteventura, led by Rayco León, points out that this new series aims to broaden audiences’ horizons and enrich the Island’s cultural offering by adding international productions to the programme that are not usually present in the Canary Islands’ performing arts circuits.
“With ‘Horizontes Escénicos’ we want Fuerteventura to also become a meeting point between cultures, so that audiences can travel without leaving the Island and discover, through the performing arts, other realities, other stories and other ways of looking at the world,” says Rayco León, Councillor for Culture.
The programme will take place in various performance venues across Fuerteventura and will feature shows aimed at different audiences, building a line-up that seeks to combine artistic quality, cultural diversity and accessibility.
In addition to staging performances, the series aims to create a space for encounter and dialogue around contemporary creation, fostering connections between Fuerteventura and artists and companies from different parts of the world.
‘Horizontes Escénicos’ will pay special attention to performing arts from the African continent. Africa’s geographical proximity to the Canary Islands offers an opportunity to strengthen cultural ties and bring the voices, languages and perspectives of African artists and companies to Fuerteventura. Through its productions, the series aims to foster greater understanding of the cultural realities of African countries and reinforce Fuerteventura’s role as a bridge between continents and a meeting space between cultures.
An open window to the world
‘Horizontes Escénicos’ aims to become a regular fixture in Fuerteventura’s cultural programme and to help position the Island as a territory open to international artistic creation.
Because travelling also means listening to other stories. Because getting to know other cultures is also a way of getting to know ourselves. And because, when the curtain rises, borders disappear.
The first show in the series will be ‘Ndjou-Ndjou’, a production by Cameroonian choreographer and dancer Ekilibro Noah together with the Obosso company. The show fuses hip-hop with Mbali Etoudi, a traditional Cameroonian dance, to explore the meeting point between Cameroonian rites and cultural heritage and expressions of hip-hop culture.
The choreographic duo invokes the spirit of Ndjou-Ndjou. Originating in Cameroon, Mbali Etoudi is an acrobatic dance that emerged during the colonial era. Struck by the similarities between Mbali and hip-hop, choreographer Ekilibro Noah drew on its rhythmic world to reconnect with his own history and with the rituals of the traditional society of his childhood. In the circle, to the beat of the drums, bodies commune and recall their cultural heritage in an attempt to reinvent themselves.
The show will take place on 30 October at 8.30pm at the Island Auditorium. Admission is free, subject to prior booking via the website culturafuerteventura.es.
