Adar, a different kind of festival to revitalize the rural world
Pablo A. Marín Estrada Gijón
The IV edition of the summer event will bring music, installations, dance and visual art to the towns of Belmonte, Salas, Somiedo, Grado and Llanes from August 8 to 18.
The fourth edition of the Adar festival, a cultural initiative that seeks to revitalize the rural world through the arts and music in all its expressions, especially those linked to new technologies and contemporary creation, will begin tomorrow in Grado. On this occasion, the activities will take place until Sunday, August 18 in different locations in the councils of Belmonte de Miranda, Salas, Grado, Pola de Somiedo and Llanes. Concerts and micro-concerts, artistic installations, performances and dance make up the program of this meeting that will conclude with a popular party with cider and empanada in Leiguarda (Belmonte), the place from which this proposal arose and where the Association for the Development of the Arts in the Rural Environment, promoter of the same, has its headquarters.
As evoked by musician and composer Guillermo Laporta, creator of Adar together with fellow performer Josefina Urraca, the project was born four years ago in the middle of the pandemic when both settled in a village in Belmonte de Miranda: "We realized that there was a need, although we didn't know it existed, to connect the rural world with the current arts and use them as a means to revitalize it. We knew many artists who would be delighted to come to places like that and with that idea we put together the first edition," he explains. Since then, the festival has been growing and forging its own identity, based on two aspects. On the one hand, the artistic residencies at the Leiguarda headquarters -which has a small rehearsal room and lodging- where different creators come to create works that are later presented at the festival. The other axis is Adar en Ruta, which takes the various proposals of music, visual arts and other forms of expression to rural communities throughout Asturias.
This year's edition will feature internationally renowned musicians such as Jone de la Fuente (violin), Almudena Rivas (viola), Natania Hoffman (cello), Mario Molina (piano), Guillermo Laporta (flute), and Josefina Urraca (piano). The festival presents a repertoire that includes works by Mozart, Debussy, Vivaldi, and contemporary composers such as Andrea Casarrubios. The North American creator Sarah K. Williams will also be present with an artistic installation with which the dancers Rebeca Martín Tassis and Izar Gayo will interact. For her part, University of Oviedo researcher Raquel López Fernández will provide the component of scientific transfer and cultural mediation, interpreting and contextualizing the works presented.
The program, which begins tomorrow with the opening of the art installations in Grado, will continue on Monday 12 with a concert at the Monastery of San Antolín de Bedón (Llanes). The following day there will be another in the Monastery of Cornellana and on Wednesday 14, in the market of La Pola de Somiedo. The activities move on Friday 16 to Leiguarda with two micro-concerts at the headquarters of Adar and the Hórreo Casantos, ending with a sound walk and cider. Live music will arrive on Saturday 17th at the Palace of Miranda-Valdecarzana in Grado, a microconcert at the Chapel of Dolores with scenography by Sarah K. Williams and an installation also by her at the Palace of Fontela. The closing will be on Sunday 18 in Leiguarda with a recital in the surroundings of the church and a popular party.
The aim of the festival, Laporta stresses, is to "bring the arts and classical or contemporary music to areas where it is not expected", a mark that distinguishes this event from other similar ones, since, as he points out: "We are not looking for the concept of a summer music festival that attracts people from everywhere, something that could be almost counterproductive here. We intend to revitalize and activate the rural territory itself, involving the population itself. Something, by the way, not easy and for that reason we are grateful for the support that Caja Rural gives us for the project and the Consejería de Cultura to finance it". The horizon of the initiative: to continue growing in the future with new ideas and spaces.
