The festival that planted a barricade of culture in front of the excavators that once wanted to amputate a piece of the seaside neighborhood of València turns ten years old. The Cabanyal Íntim invited Valencians to enter the neighborhood houses to enjoy small plays inside with the aim of highlighting the area in danger of demolition.. A decade has passed in which the festival has not stopped growing in quality and aspirations, Playwrights and companies of the stature of Carla Chillida have passed through it, Patricia Pardo, The Bald Tit, Danish and Bambalina Dogs, and has even reached the MAX awards with works such as The children's chapel o Sindrhomo. Demonstrating that it is much more than a showcase for the exhibition of pieces, It is a quarry of good Valencian theater. We have spoken with your director, Isabel Caballero, a Valencian from the Ayora neighborhood who, despite living on the other side of Serrería, From a very young age she has been a regular at the Cabanyal Thursday market., adoption neighborhood of which she declares herself a true lover.
How was the Cabanyal Íntim created??
Cabanyal Íntim was born in the year 2011, in the middle of the cultural desert that we were living. At that time there was almost nothing in this city, We received very few cultural proposals from outside and we only invested in pharaonic projects.. Many beautiful and special things happened that year., there was a lot of human energy wanting to change things, wanting to create, to turn the situation around, there was like magic in the atmosphere. On one side, there was a need for cultural offerings in the city, and on the other, there was great frustration due to the lack of them, and this made projects like ours or Russafa Escènica explode., who was also born that same year. We were preparing our show at that time. Sinful minutes in a house in Cabanyal with our company Francachela Teatro, and suddenly, One night after rehearsing having a gin and tonic with Jacobo Julio, the idea arose to propose to the neighbors to take their Cabanyal Portes Obertes project one step further and bring performing arts inside the houses of the neighborhood.. I remember telling Maite from Teatro la Estrella at a demonstration. (of the many that there were that year) and he thought it was a great idea. So we got to work.
The festival was born with a clearly vindictive desire, that of revaluing a degraded neighborhood over which the threat of demolition hung. Ten years later the processes have been reversed and it is now at risk of gentrification. You have suffered it yourselves with the sale of one of your headquarters, The Collective, to an investment fund Israeli. How do you live that paradox? How do you see the neighborhood today??
It makes me feel sorry, because it seems that the neighborhood, on one side or another, You are in danger of losing part of your identity and that is what should never happen. Clearly it is a sweet treat for the potential investor., Well, it is a very special neighborhood., with the sea, the beach, the light… and many tourists look for that. And it is already known: One more tourist is one less neighbor and we cannot allow the neighborhood to be filled with tourists and apartments.. The change and price rise is unstoppable, the fact that many owners now come from abroad with high purchasing power to buy a dilapidated house for a lot of money and then spend the same or even more to restore it. We have to defend the neighborhood tooth and nail, try to create authentic spaces linked to the people who live in the neighborhood, affordable rentals and not let it become another Russafa or a worse lake. Prices have gone up a lot, bars pop up like mushrooms on every corner, Suddenly it is a trendy neighborhood and I don't like that because the outcome is that in the end there is displacement and people with less purchasing power have to end up leaving the neighborhood.. Projects like ours have to continue existing because they are rooted in the neighborhood and the people who live there..
It is unquestionable that professionalization must be sought, increased budget and better working conditions, But are you worried about losing that essence a little? punk What made the festival so special??
Of course, but things change and we get older. Those opening parties that we had in the past at Escorxador, so crazy and fun, they will not return, but they will remain in our memory forever. everything changes, Time never stops and looking back makes us long for what was and is no longer, and I have such beautiful memories of these ten years of festival that I will always keep in my memory box... This year, when we have been reviewing videos from previous editions, they have made me feel so longing for what was lost: those parties, that Slaughterhouse, those houses that hardly remain unrenovated, authentic... But in these years of experience we have learned a lot and we have tried to improve conditions. We have tried to dignify our work as much as possible and we have also supported new creations from emerging companies and other more consolidated ones., wanting to live a different experience or try risky ideas. We will try to ensure that the festival does not lose its essence despite the obvious changes, even though the neighborhood is no longer the same as it was ten years ago, but we continue to prioritize human relations over commercial ones, coexistence, the fact that a neighbor opens the doors of his house to a theater company and lives that experience up close without economic exchange.
Do you receive institutional support? Are you happy with the support of the Administration? Do you think it's enough?
Institutional support has been growing since 2015, especially with the change of government. we have had, since then, the support of Teatre El Musical, which has been fundamental, because the TEM is the theater of the neighborhood and since the management is municipal it is closely linked to the festival. That makes me very happy. We appreciate the institutional support, but it falls short since for the work it costs to build a project like this it is insufficient.
How frustrating and tiring is it to prepare a festival in pandemic times??
It's exhausting. You work three times as hard and everything looks much less. But I felt it had to be done., that we couldn't throw in the towel now. Now more than ever we need projects like Cabanyal Íntim, that fill the darkness that surrounds us with light, that gives us hope so that all this ends soon. For me, going to the theater and surrounding myself with culture has been what has saved me in this pandemic year., We have realized how necessary culture and art are and that it is our vaccine. That is why it is so necessary to continue and that projects like ours continue to have a presence in the city's cultural calendar.. The nicest thing has been seeing how many people have personally thanked me for being there., for celebrating the festival this year. Phrases like: “How happy you make me that Cabanyal Íntim continues this year because we need it!”We feel that the effort is worth it. Because it is a great effort. You have to have plans A, B, C and up to D, and not knowing if at the last moment everything is going to go to waste. But it's better not to think about that and move forward with enthusiasm and, the truth, we do not lack enthusiasm. The response from some places in the neighborhood has been great since, despite the difficult time we live in, They have contacted us to tell us that they want to continue supporting the festival and that in hard times is when you have to be. That's very nice. The festival is a neighborhood festival, that invests in social relationships and taking care of the small, because it is the little things in life that make us happy.
I guess completing ten editions has made you look back, hence this year's motto, "The Time". Tell us the best and worst of this decade at the helm of the festival.
The best, the shared moments of celebration, party, neighborhood, theatrical, of light… the paellas of Brotherhood, the crazy and original proposals that we have experienced. Follow the companies' creations, choose them from paper and see how they grow and become reality, and are implemented in houses and spaces, and then the public arrives and enjoys them and applauds them, and even cries because they move them. See the creations that were born at the festival and then have grown and gone far. It's beautiful and it gives me a lot of joy.. A very nice thing is when we go to choose the houses with the companies. And the general rehearsals, when the work is still in progress. See the relationships that have been created between actors and artists and homeowners, see them enjoy the experience. See the neighborhood become pretty and some houses painted and fixed up.
Worst, the neighbors who are no longer there, the spaces that we can no longer count on because, or if it has been sold or renovated, and they have lost part of their charm. And to think that the social part, that of celebration and party, this year it won't be possible. We always organize meals with the entire team, with the volunteers who participate in each edition, that many of them repeat year after year, but this year it will be hard to have to do without that part.
Where are the shots going this year?, What spaces are you going to occupy??
I am happy because we have managed to adapt to the conditions imposed by this moment and I think we have an exciting festival prepared.. We have contacted different spaces that are not homes, but what do they promise, like the Cabanyal Neighborhood Association- sugar cane, that gives us its headquarters; the wood shop and illuminated signs Woody Loop; let's inaugurate L'Escorxador, that has just been restored, with two plays; We use L’Escola del Cabanyal again (first floor of the Mar d’Amura restaurant), one of the few spaces still unrenovated that was an old school and is very special, and also a yoga studio .
Tell us what works are going to be exhibited in this tenth edition, what actors / companies / playwrights participate?
I am excited that artists who have already participated in other editions will once again celebrate our anniversary with us., as is the case of La Teta Calva, who debuts a piece, or Jimena Cavalletti, that has unleashed the most sincere laughter in other editions. We recover natural mom, a show for babies that was presented in the first edition and is still active, by Inés Cárdenas; the work of Linda Vitolo and Anna Estellés on loneliness in older people, and they also repeat; Mª José Peris with another historical memory proposal, and a concert of Moon and Panorama of Insects, which were also in our first edition, and now they will perform in the desecrated church of San Miguel de los Reyes. It makes me especially excited because, although the building is outside Cabanyal, It used to connect with the neighborhood through the orchard and now it has very easy access along the northern ring road., It is an incredible space. As a final culmination, I have allowed myself to call three female artists who participated in other editions or who have a special connection with the neighborhood and I have asked them to prepare a ten-minute piece as a tribute. It will be an emotional and different closing Santiago Zone, a new circular and innovative space, outdoor, in a field next to the Santiago Apóstol school.
