Twelve years after its last edition, the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in Tarragona will host the “III International Congress on 'Balls Parlats'. 'Balls Parlats' from the Perspective of Gender and Decolonialism”. The event, organized by the Department of Catalan Philology, will take place from September 24 to 26 on the Campus Catalunya and aims to be a forum for debate on the ancient art of street popular theatre in the 21st-century context.
The congress will focus on how gender perspective, counter-hegemonic resistance, and anti-colonial critique help to visualize the social inequalities and conflicts present in territories where 'balls parlats' and similar manifestations still endure, such as Catalonia, various areas of the Iberian Peninsula, regions of Europe, and overseas countries with Iberian heritage.
The presented communications will address the role of women in 'balls parlats', the use of language in relation to the feminine gender, the presence of saints or the Virgin Mary in this popular theatre, and the updates of this art form in the face of new visions and conflicts of the 21st century.
The 'balls parlats' shaped a distinctive festival model in the southern regions and the south of Catalonia, and they still endure. Some never disappeared, while others were revived from the 1970s onwards with the re-establishment of democratic town councils. Research into the ancient texts of these performances began at the Delegation of the University of Barcelona in Tarragona, the embryo of the URV, with Professor Guillem-Jordi Graells, and continued with Professor Montserrat Palau from the URV's Department of Catalan Philology.
This third edition of the congress follows the second, held in 2014, which was internationalized by History of Theatre professor Francesc Massip. While the first congress laid the groundwork for categorizing these cultural manifestations and comparing them with other popular theatre forms, the second expanded these comparisons globally.
The inaugural lecture, on Thursday, September 24 at 9:45 AM, will be delivered by Jordi Bertran, discussing “Humanism in the Genesis of the New Scenic Formula of 'Balls Parlats'”. The closing lecture, on Tuesday, September 25 at 6:00 PM, will be given by Montserrat Palau with the presentation “Saints, Martyrs, and Punished Transgressors. Misogyny and Inertias”.
Other notable lectures include those on dialogued dances in Latin America by Oscar-Armando García Gutiérrez (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), the festivals of Moors and Christians from a decolonial perspective by Raül Sanchis Francès (URV), and the analysis of pastoral representations in Basque and Occitan by Patricia Heiniger-Casteret (University of Pau, France).
On Saturday, September 26 at 10:30 AM, there will be a demonstration of 'balls parlats' in the Plaça de les Cols in Tarragona featuring the Ball de Sebastiana del Castillo de Tarragona, the Ball de Malcasats de Torredembarra, the Ball de la Rosaura de Reus, and the Ball de Sogra i Nora de Tarragona.
