Barcelona Builds a Global Village.doc

1、Barcelona Builds a Global Village March 14, 2004 Barcelona Builds a Global Village By JENNIFER DUNNING ONE of the quickest ways to plunge into the vivid culture and personality of Barcelona is simply to turn on BTV, the lively local television channel, and watch Barcelonians take their turns on the

2、videomaton, coin-operated video cameras scattered around the city. Lovers kiss or giggle. Grizzled old-timers push their grandchildren forward and new parents proudly hold up their infants for inspection. Sidewalk philosophers offer their world views and would-be performers get their chance in the s

3、potlight. Forum Barcelona 2004, which opens on May 9 and continues through Sept. 26, 141 days and nights, as the advertisements breathlessly proclaim, is an ambitious $2.3 billion international enterprise sponsored in part by Unesco. But its essential town-meeting flavor is not all that different fr

4、om the videomaton. In what promises to be a heady exchange of ideas and visions, social planners, intellectuals, politicians, artists and advocates for various causes will gather to participate in 45 dialogues on the themes of cultural diversity, sustainable development and conditions for peace. Par

5、ticipants range from superstars like Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Bill Clinton (whose attendance was still pending), Bono and Noam Chomsky to New York-area heroes like Cora Weiss, the 1960s New York peace advocate, and the urbanist Jane Jacobs, who will appear on video. Forum organizers hope to attract fiv

6、e million visitors. This serious side of the event, which is expected to be the first of several annual forums to be held in world cities, was probably best described by Pasqual Maragall, the charmingly rumpled new Socialist president of Catalonia, who conceived of the Forum. The Forum could become

7、the third leg of Davos and Porto Alegre, Mr. Maragall said, referring to the world conferences in Switzerland and Brazil. Speakers are all paid a meager stipend of about $1,250. So Mr. Clinton thinks the idea is good enough, Oleguer Sarsanedas, a Forum spokesman, said. The same with Mr. Gorbachev. M

8、any of the sessions, which are open to the public by preregistration and payment of an admission fee on the Forum Web site, will take place in an imposing new raised triangular building at the heart of the huge 3,000-acre festival site, on Barcelonas handsome, sprawling waterfront. Designed by the S

9、wiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the winners of the 2001 Pritzker Prize, the skylighted building houses an auditorium and television and radio production center, with open-air plazas on the roof and under the building. Water will course through from pools on the roof, in one of m

10、any acknowledgments of the Mediterraneans role in Barcelonas culture and history. Conferences will also be held at the new Barcelona International Convention Center, designed by a Catalan architect, Josep Lluis Mateo. Also at the site are two new parks with amphitheaters and a third along the beach,

11、 as well as a new marina and the artificial Pangea Island, accessible only to swimmers. The public may participate in the dialogues by registering questions and recording comments on computers to be set up in public spaces around the city. We didnt want a conventional conference full of men in gray

12、who know and talk with each other, Mireia Belil, a Forum spokeswoman, said. The principles and culture of listening will be fostered at the event, she said - speakers will not only talk but will also listen to their audiences. And the plan is to continue the worldwide debate in the future on the For

13、um Web site, with participating cities adding to the exchange each year. Everyone in Barcelona seems to have an opinion about the event, though few seem sure of exactly what it is. It is an interesting idea to organize a forum where the least important can have a voice, Andreu Morte i Teres, a theat

14、er director and novelist who heads the experimental Mercat de les Flors theater. The smallest voice can speak with the biggest voice. And Forum 2004 will offer a chance to get to know Barcelona in all its irrepressible vitality, in performances, exhibitions, street events and workshops throughout th

15、e city. Many productions are new and allude to Forum themes. Some 1,500 performances were scheduled at last count, including programs by 20 circuses and typically anarchic Catalan street-theater groups like La Fura dels Baus and Els Comediants. Catalans tend to be an endearing blend of equally passi

16、onate practicality and idealism. Starting with its World Exhibition of 1888, Barcelona has seized on international events like the Olympics and Forum 2004 as a pretext for rebuilding the city. Eagle-eyed festival visitors may glimpse a new urban solar power station, waste-water treatment plant and i

17、ncinerator in the distance, all of them screened by new man-made dunes and parklands. On the ground, a giant mural of Mediterranean fish sprawls, seen best by planes flying in to the city airport. That and the redevelopment of a depressed small-industry area called Bess - a word that is pronounced i

18、n a way that turns the areas name into something other than the Spanish word for kisses - were prime aims of the Forum, which was financed in large part by the Spanish government, the Catalan regional and Barcelona city governments. Avinguda Diagonal, a spacious avenue that sweeps across Barcelona,

19、has been extended to the festival site and the port. New roads and bus and subway stops have been built. Exhibitions around the city will include Picasso. War and Peace at the Museu Picasso de Barcelona, May 25 to Sept. 26, and exhibits at the Fundaci Joan Mir and the Museu dArt Contemporani de Barc

20、elona (Macba) that pose provocative questions about modern art. In the port area, the famous Warriors of Xian, Chinese funerary art, will be on display from the start to the close of the forum at the Sant Adri Marina. Sixteen small exhibits on a variety of themes including fair trade, ethical bankin

21、g, women, human rights and the environment will be held on the festival site. So will workshops, many designed to appeal to children, on dance and percussion, musical instruments, problem-solving with mechanisms like giant domino pieces, and crafts and large-scale construction. The formal settings i

22、nclude just about every museum and theater space in Barcelona, among them the gorgeously funky old Paloma dance hall, where a cabaret series will be held. Music, mostly classical, will be the draw for the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the citys opera house, and the newish LAuditori, where Mstislav Rostropo

23、vich is scheduled to conduct the first Forum concert, Brittens War Requiem, on May 14. Most attractions come with a bonus, because they are held in theater spaces and neighborhoods that are themselves destinations. An international musical homage to Pablo Neruda will be performed on June 14 at the f

24、antastically ornate Palau de la Msica Catalana, a 1908 building designed by Lluis Domnech i Montaner. Major pop music stars are also part of the program. Performances by Sting and by a group headed by B. B. King at the Palau Sant Jordi sports arena provide occasions for a trip up Montjuc. One of the

25、 imposing craggy hills that ring Barcelona and help to give the city its feeling of intimacy, Montjuc is an area rich in performing-arts opportunities during the Forum. Bob Dylan is scheduled to sing at the Poble Espanyol, a simulated Spanish town built for the 1992 Olympics, which were held in Barc

26、elona. The ethereal Catalan folk singer Maria del Mar Bonet is to perform at the Teatre Grec, a mossy open-air amphitheater. Clustered close together are three major theaters, where some of the Forums most intriguing drama and dance will be performed. The Teatre Nacional de Catalunya will open the f

27、estivals theater presentations on May 9 with performances of Albert Camuss early play, Caligula. Pina Bauschs Tanztheater Wuppertal is also scheduled to perform there. New productions by Robert Wilson and Peter Sellars will be presented in May and June at the Teatre Lliure, which was originally devi

28、sed as a home for serious plays for working-class audiences, followed in late June by Mikhail Baryshnikov and his new acting company in a play by Rezo Gabriadze. Peter Brook returns with a theater production called Darling Brokar to the Mercat, a huge old former flower market. Mr. Morte has suggesti

29、ons for typical Barcelona experiences. You can see an avant-garde art exhibit at Macba or the CaixaForum, the big glistening modern museum near the Mercat, he said, and then take the subway or go for a stroll in the sun, drink a beer and hang out in a chiringuito - a simple portside bar - until as l

30、ate as 2 a.m. Or you could spend entire days and nights locked in intense discussion about world problems. The idea is to help citizens peel off their indifference, Mr. Sarsanedas said. The hope is that people who participate will know that they are not alone in the world. Asked about the utopian im

31、practicality of it all, Mr. Sarsanedas smiled and offered his favorite description of the event, which came from Adolfo Prez Esquivel, the Argentine Nobel Peace Laureate of 1980 and a Forum participant. The Forum, Mr. Esquivel said, will be a meeting of optimists with different points of view. If Yo

32、u Go The forum will take place in newly constructed installations in the Sant Adri de Bess district on Barcelonas waterfront. Information on Forum Barcelona 2004, which opens on May 9 and closes on Sept. 26, is available on the forum Web site, / or by calling (34) 902 242 004. The Dialogues component of the Forum, at which topics related to cultural diversity, sustainable development and the conditions for peace will be discussed, is open to the public by preregistration on the Web site. A Dialogue ticket also allows attendance a