La Fura dels Baus

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La Fura dels Baus is one of the world’s most electrifying performance companies.Their visually amazing productions have been seen worldwide. They are still probably best known for orchestrating the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, though more recently they’ve been getting a lot of press for their forays into opera and other big scale events such as those on their ship "Naumon", a huge floating performing arts center.

Dreams In Flight at the Singapore Arts Festival 2007 opening

La Fura dels Baus is a Catalan theatrical group founded in 1979 in Barcelona known for their urban theatre, use of unusual settings and blurring of the boundaries separating audience and actor.

La Fura dels Baus is a company in a permanent process of transformation that, since it was founded in 1979, has approached new challenges in the field of the performing arts. Its occasional shows and events have had an enormous impact on both international critics and audiences. It would be no exaggeration to say that since Actions (1983) La Fura dels Baus can be considered as a cult group for its thousands of followers all over the world. La Fura has developed its own language, style and aesthetics over the years based on collective creation.

Over 2.500 performances in 4 continents have been already followed by an audience of over 3 million people. La Fura dels Baus is considered as a cult group for thousands of followers.

Since the 1990s the company has worked in the fields of written drama, digital theatre, opera, major events (macroshows) and films. It still continues relentlessly evolving, experimenting and searching for new ground.

Last 2004 La Fura dels Baus was celebrating its 25th anniversary.

From 1979 to 1983, La Fura dels Baus performed street theatre, these efforts evolved towards a concept of theatre that combines a wide range of stage resources based on the classical idea of an all-round show. The main contribution of La Fura was to approach its shows by encouraging the audience take an active part in areas traditionally reserved for the public and adapting its stage work to the very architectural elements found in the spaces in which each performance takes place. This blend of techniques and disciplines crystallized into the term “Furan language”, a term that has also been used to define the work of other theatre companies. Accions (1984) was the first show to use “Furan language” followed by Suz/O/Suz (1985), Tier Mon (1988), Noun (1990), MTM (1994), Manes (1996), ØBS (2000), Matria 1-Tetralogía Anfíbia-La Creación (2004) and OBIT (2004).

Since the early 1990s, La Fura dels Baus has diversified its creative efforts, moving into the fields of written drama, digital theatre and street theatre, performing contemporary theatre projects, opera or producing major corporate events. La Fura produced the opening ceremony for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, which was broadcast and watched live by more than 500 million viewers. After this first macroshow, companies such as Pepsi, Mercedes Benz, Peugeot, Volkswagen, Swatch, Airtel, Microsoft, Abolsut Vodka, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros, the Port of Barcelona, Telecom Italia or Sun Micros-systems have since commissioned the group to produce promotional macroshows for them around the world.

The particular concept of shows designed by La Fura dels Baus is shown in its large scale performances such as "L’home del mil.leni", to celebrate the new millennium 2000, which drew an audience of more than 20.000 in Barcelona and the Divine Comedy performed in Florence in front more than 35.000 spectators, La Navaja en el Ojo that opened the Biennial of Valencia, which attracted an audience of more than 20,000 or Naumaquia 1- Tetralogía Anfíbia- El Juego Eterno, which drew an audience of more than 15.000 spectators at Forum de las Culturas of Barcelona.

La Fura dels Baus has created its own record label, with a catalogue of 14 recordings; it has also published its work on other labels, including Dro, Virgin and Subterfuge. A number of courses and workshops have trained actors in “Furan language”. The company has included new technologies in its work, in Work in Progress 97 for example, an on-line show that put on simultaneous performances in different cities in a digital theatre environment.

The incursions of La Fura dels Baus into the world of opera include Atlántida, by Manuel de Falla, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, by Claude Debussy, The Damnation of Faust, by Hector Berlioz and D.Q. Don Quixot in Barcelona, by José Luis Turina. The premier of On the Marble Cliffs in Mannheim in March 2002, based on the work of the same name by Ernst Jünger, saw the first use of videoconferencing as a stage element in an opera. The same year the staging of Hector Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony by La Fura dels Baus was shown for the first time in Palermo, which was a reinterpretation of a classic work of symphonic music. In 2003 we stage in Bochum, at the Ruhr Triennale, W. A Mozart's The Magic Flute, revived in 2005 at the Opera de la Bastille in Paris and at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

La Fura dels Baus has also worked in the unconventional and always risky areas of written drama or Italian style theatre, such as F@ust 3.0, a show that examines the classical work of Goethe, Ombra, a reinterpretation of various texts by Federico García Lorca or XXX, a version of De Sade’s Philosophy in the Boudoir that closed last October 2004 its international tour, after almost 3 years.

The company has also worked in the field of classical theatre. The premier of a version of Euripides’ The Trojan Women co-directed by Irene Pappas and La Fura dels Baus, with music by Vangelis and set design by Santiago Calatrava, took place in Sagunt (Valencia) in September 2001.

Faust 5.0, La Fura’s first venture into the world of film direction opened in 2001. This feature film, co-directed with Isidro Ortiz, has been awarded numerous prizes, and among these the Golden Méliès 2003 for the best European film in the fantastic genere.

NAUMON is a la Fura's ship, a floating performing arts center that has been to ports like Barcelona, Sardinia, Portugal, Beirut, Taipei, Newcastle or Haifa carrying various artistic, educational and cultural containers.Including the shows NAUMAQUIA, SUB, TERRAMAQUIA and MATRIA

On October 2004, La Fura dels Baus made the première of OBIT, a performance about life and death.

The company is working with news projects and languages. A version of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, had its première in Japan on September 2005 and would be on tour till February, 2007.

On 2006 La Fura designed a macro-show to inaugurate the Design Fair in Milano. At the same time, they’ve done the premier of their two new operas for the National Opera House in Paris (P.Garnier) “Le Chateau de Barbebleu” and “Le journal d’un disparu” the last 26th of January 2007 and they will visit Barcelona next autumn.

Also during 2006 the company has been finishing the new “furero language” show “Imperium” which premier in the mark of the celebrations of the Spanish Year in China, the 1st of May 2007. Finally, La Fura keeps working in the opera world with the mise-en-scène of the “Wagner Tetralogy”, whose premiere will take place in April 2007, in the new auditorium of the Palau de les Arts I les Ciències of València and, “La Hija del Cielo” that will be shown for the first time in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in September 2007.

Currently, the Company is in process to create “Boris Godunov”, a new theatre piece, to be performed on stage and that will premiere next March.

1 | Shows using the “Furan language”

These shows are based on the characteristics that have traditionally defined the work of La Fura dels Baus right from the start: use of unconventional venues, music, movement, application of natural and industrial materials, including new technologies and the active participation of the audience in the show. This approach to theatre has meant that the company has also managed to attract audiences that are not usually theatre-goers.

2 | Special events

La Fura dels Baus’ own method and aesthetics has proved to be an irresistible attraction for institutions, advertising agencies and cultural organizations around the world. This appeal has led to the creation of shows in which the company has developed its full creative potential for communication. On such occasions, the “Furan language” is adapted to large audiences, to large stage areas, to a huge audience and to an architectural scale.

3 | Opera

Opera as a “total performance” requires in-depth treatment of all its stage potential. Although the musical side of opera has traditionally overshadowed its theatrical aspects, in recent decades, based on approaches such as those adopted by La Fura dels Baus, the genre has been undergoing a profound change. La Fura has opted for the use of audiovisual devices, for generative stage settings and alternative uses of the roles of singers, actors and choruses. La Fura has defined its own distinctive style in the world of opera.

4 | Stage shows

The potential offered by stage or Italian-style theatre has also been the subject of intense experimentation by La Fura dels Baus. The company has used resources, such as video and other image-based media or creation of its own stage sets, drawing on its experience in other areas of theatre, to bring its idea to written drama by encouraging the audience to take part, although in this case from the comfort of their seats.

5 | New perceptions

The Internet has become a privileged venue for La Fura's work. The web, seen as the best way of reaching even the remotest parts of the world, has been used by the company to present and perform interactive theatre works. The result, called “digital theatre”, is the “sum of actors and bits”. The creation of innovative web pages and the integration of the web in its shows, as another of its dramatic resources, have placed La Fura dels Baus at the forefront of cybernaut experimentation.

6 | Music

Music is constantly used in all the company’s work, to such an extent that on occasions it has provided the framework for the show itself. Each new stage production by La Fura dels Baus generates a parallel musical project that eventually takes the form of a record being produced. The same inquiring and insistently dynamic spirit that infuses the company’s stage work is applied to its musical concepts. The music of La Fura dels Baus is a mixture, not only of styles, but also of intentions, references and attitudes opposing the concept of sound

7 | Cinema

Fausto 5.0, the first film by La Fura dels Baus, is the logical result of a career that stands out for its work with images. Even though it is its first film, La Fura has already been involved in the cinema on certain occasions in the past, such as Goya in Bordeaux by Carlos Saura.