If one pays attention to the films of the French ‘Nouvelle Vague’, especially to the films of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, there’s a situation which keeps occurring frequently: the characters run. It’s not a forced or non premeditated gesture, it’s the complete opposite. In the intensity of the movement of the characters on the giant screen, in their route or direction at the time of the scene, there’s something which positions them facing the world, maybe a generational effect, poetic ideology charged in the image: running is conquering the world, catching life, going towards the unknown or the unreachable.

And so we have Antoine Doinel, the alter ego of the very same Truffaut, in the films ’400 Blows’, ‘Antoine and Colette’, ‘Stolen kisses’, ‘Bed and board’ and ‘Love on the run’, where he does nothing else but run from a situation to another. In these give films Antoine, of a nervous and disturbed personality, doesn’t but get involved in amusing mix ups by running from one place to another, from one woman to another, from experience to experience without letting the world surrounding him to stop him. The way of running of Antoine isn’t the one of a person who is late, all the contrary: in his way of running there’s the hurry of wanting to arrive early, to reach what’s about to happen in life, of wanting to travel to the future, the feeling of being alive between one romance and the other.

And so, running in everyday life as a way of exercise and due to the benefits that it brings to our body health and wellbeing, is not totally unrelated to this poetic way of facing life. What would running be but a constant march and struggle with one self to carry on advancing, to support the body on the edge of movement where a fall is evaded by the landing of the other leg, and then the other one, going towards all places in constant speed, breathing, bringing oxygen into the body.

Hence the importance of breathing and the rhythm, which bring us back to calm, inner peace, movement meditation and the carrying out of a certain knowledge, from the body and for the body. Running makes us maintain a rhythm when moving; tiredness, which is unavoidable and part of all exercise, comes according to our breathing, how we execute it. Going out for a run and learning to recognize our breathing, control it and bossing it, brings us back to a state of self-sufficiency, of better intuition of how the body works as previously mentioned. This way, we free stress, we burn calories and we acquire more energy.

To experiment the world of exercise and races, the VI Christmas Race in Seville is an option to participate with other runners, as well as getting to know the city in a community and from another perspective. The route will begin at the Parque de los Príncipes and will go past the Carlos Cano roundabout, the República Dominicana roundabout, Carrero Blanco Avenue, among other places, to finish once again at the Parque de los Príncipes. This event is organized by the Local Sports institute of Seville and will take place on the 18th of December at 11am. There will also be a draw for all those who cross the finish line, with prizes in the form of sports items as well as other activities after the race.

Alexa Ray

Get apartments in Seville and go out and run down its beautiful streets and public places.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Until the 15th of January of 2012, the Centro de Arte Andaluz Contemporáneo de Sevilla (Andalucian Contemporary Art Centre in Seville) presents the work ‘Constructing/Dismantling. Margin and city’, by the Austrian conceptual artist Andreas Fogarasi. The work which will be presented in the Claustrón Sur (South), corresponds to the first individual exhibition of the artist at the CAAC, and it’s under the frame of the Margin and City session.

Andreas Fogarasi was born in Vienna in 1977. He studied fine arts and architecture. He works of the political, social and economic role which culture and art in particular carry out, as a mean to understand the own mechanisms of production and reproduction. His reflection and critique to the economic and political interests which are hidden in the art world and the way in which they influence the spectator, is what his work reflects in a brilliant way.

As an architect and expert in how cities are articulated, constructed and reconstructed, Fogarasi focuses in a special way on contemporary cities. He takes architecture and urbanism which conform them according to the hegemonic vision of dominant culture, after hiding certain social and economic connotations, such as poverty, segregation and obscene richness in a minority.

The recurrent topic in all of his work is the commercialization of the city, built on stereotypes which mark images which go in detriment of plurality and heterogeneity of urban identity.

‘Constructing/Dismantling’ gathers a few of his interesting works. ‘Süden’, for example, made in 2005, investigates the process of the emergence of populations around the great car factories in the 20th century, and the culture of industrial development. This urbanization process begins with the process of development of the bourgeoisie of the 18th century, where the factory settles next to the house of the owner and it develops shacks for the workers to live in. As capitalism got stronger, the owners looked for more inhabitable areas where to install their mansions and the workers carried on living next to the factories, and as the welfare state st in, the shacks became populations and commerce emerged in the immediate vicinity of the large factories.

In his other works, such as ‘Kultur und Freizeit’ of 2006, Fogarasi makes a wooden construction as a device so that spectators observe and interact with the videos which are projected in the cultural centres of Budapest, where they’re given different uses to those which were meant in their construction, due to the political changes which happened after the fall of real socialisms. ‘Folkenmuseum’ made in 2010 documents a Norwegian museum in which they reconstruct the history of country life through a fictitious town.

‘Constructing/Dismantling’, made in 2010, is a video-installation which gives its name to the exhibition. It’s three videos which show different spaces in a city, and in this case it’s Santiago de Compostela. He focuses on representative buildings taking the City of Culture of the architect Peter Eisenman and other locations of temporary use such as fairgrounds.

For more information: http://www.caac.es/programa/foga11/frame.htm

Nancy Guzman

apartments in Seville is waiting for you to decide to spend a few relaxing days of good vibes in this city open to culture and difference. So come and visit this wonderful exhibition.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Maestranza Theater in Seville, located next to the homonymous bullring, is the operatic landmark of southern Spain and, if you ask me, even from all this part of Europe. Although regularly the season does not represent more than five or six titles, the productions are of sufficient quality to reach grandeur. This line inserts the ambitious project, which begun last season, aiming to stage the trilogy Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Anyone who wants to enjoy the entire series should know that already missed Das Rheingold, although it has not sold out yet (reservations are in great demand) for The Valkyrie, part of this colossal trilogy. The site we have already mentioned, the Maestranza Teather in Seville. The dates, between the 11^th and the 20^th of November 2011. Only four functions.

The Valkyrie, is according to all critics, the apotheosis of romantic drama. In the play, there is a mix of the fantastic stories of mythological gods with the underlying issues of the late nineteenth century, when the Freudian subconscious was already in the air. The plot revolves around the incestuous passion between siblings, between fathers and daughters and between gods and humans. While the gods are entertained by the vicissitudes of human beings, the cosmic forces help heroes to restore their identity, strength and courage. But not all the Valkyrie secret meetings, but the unfortunate death, as corresponds to a dramatic opera, is stalking the protagonists who succumb one after another to the fates, but not before proclaiming to the four invincible winds force their love. The drama, set in an indeterminate time in the forests and the creatures of nature are built in real stars, representing the apogee opera that gave way to more mundane plots (in the odd case) early Verdi or Puccini the twentieth century.

The grandeur of Der Ring des Nibelungen, of which the Valkyrie is part of, can not be explained without the detached patronage of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who did everything possible (paying debts, inviting Wagner to his court in Munich and putting all he needed at his disposal) the composer did not have to worry about anything different than create a complex work in terms of characters, plot and staging. This support came even to the construction of special Tannhäuser cave scenes, located in the basement of Linderhof Castle in Bavaria. Without detracting from his representations of this strange and fascinating theatrical scenes, presumably that same scene at Maestranza is just spectacular. Visit the link of the event http://www.teatrodelamaestranza.es/secciones/prog/prog_ficha.php?id=488 where you will find all practical information about it.

Candela Vizcaíno

: If you don’t live in Seville, but still want to attend this opera performance or other event, you can rent apartments in Seville The Maestranza is four steps away from the Torre del Oro and right across the Guadalquivir and Calle Betis.

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Translated by: Hans
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Film in Europe has always characterized itself for having a much more subjective and questioning cut, in comparison to the great Hollywood machinery. This doesn’t mean that no blockbusters or great commercial films are made in Europe for a sector who is much more interested in entertainment than in ‘culture’. The problem once again is in approaching the way in which film is being addressed recently. Hence that a film festival like the European Film Festival in Seville is used to provide a mapping for recent productions, new directors, producers, actors and actresses, as well as seeing up close how the film industry and market has been working in this part of the world.

Unfortunately it has to also be considered that, like many other cultural institutions, spaces which dedicate themselves to the alleged production of knowledge, the quantity of film festivals which have spread all over Europe is considerable. The economic crisis seems to not have much to do with culture, apparently. From where do the funds that finance these events come from? Actually, many of these organizations are self-financed or sponsored by local institutions. The European Film Festival in Seville is organized by the Institute of Culture and Arts of Seville and the Andalucía Film Commission.

Film festivals are great touristic potential for any region, and that’s why they invest in an event of such magnitude, just like they do in Barcelona or Sitges for example. Maybe it’s a good time to re-think what an adequate cultural offering really is, and in what measure is it a democratic offering to which everyone can access. The parade of celebrities which usually represents these events is nothing more than the interest to validate and give prestige to the institution that organizes certain events, festivals or ceremonies. Little does it have to do with the approach of the public towards directors and film stars but more about the media impact that the presence of these people can have on the festival.

Seville is a city with plenty of charm and, definitely, it’s one of the best places for this festival. If you’re a film lover, leave everything you’re doing and come to this festival which seems to be an interesting outlook on what’s been cooking in the film industry in recent times. Also, this year, the European Film Festival in Seville will have a section dedicated, as a tribute, to Russian film. In some way, today, films made in Russia are still not very popular among the other European countries and on a wider international level, despite being quite a broad industry. In the same way, this Russian film showing can be beneficial and encourage people to be part of the screenings that the European Film Festival of Seville offers for this 2011 edition. As you know, the festival runs from the 4th until the 11th of November. For more information visit the following webpage: http://www.festivaldesevilla.com/

Alexa Ray

Get apartments in Seville and be part of this European Film Festival. Seville will thrill you with its beautiful streets.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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The festival in the Andalucian capital is one of the youngest ones which have revelled in Europe in the last few years. Although it’s still not an ‘adult’ (in 2011 it celebrates its eighth edition), it unfolds a quality programme (which can also be said about the communication), despite the well known issue of the decrease of the budget. Let’s begin by saying that the Seville European Film Festival (SEFF’2011) takes place in the home of the Casino Exposición, which is announced just like that, and few people know that you access it by the semicircular terrace attached to the Lope de Vega Theatre, in front of the Tobacco Factory, which today is the School of Philology. I mention this information so that the traveller or the disorientated local don’t get lost trying to look for the entrance. The economic cuts have also imposed themselves on this event: it has gone down from twelve days to eight, specifically from the 4th until the 11th of November. During the morning, afternoon and evening (as it’s the norm for a festival) they will screen the different films which are competing in this edition which is dedicated to new Russian film, a section which has twenty-five films competing, among films, short films and documentaries.

In the Official Section of the SEFF’2011 sixteen films will present themselves for the competition. The film ‘Los muertos no se tocan, nene’ (‘Don’t touch the dead, boy’) by José Luis García Sánchez will inaugurate the event, and it will be closed with ‘Shame’ by Steve McQueen. Between one and the other, they will screen productions from Belgium, France, Russia, Norway and Greece. Eurimages (unreleased works protected by homonymous funds of the European Community) will begin with the film ‘Petrucciani’, by the Indian-born British director Michael Radford, author of acclaimed films such as ‘The merchant of Venice’ or ‘The postman (and Pablo Neruda)’. As usual in this type of events, we’ll have to be alert of the red carpet where, probably, we’ll see the most famous names from the Spanish film scene. Who definitely is expected is the Russian director Nikita Mijalkov (Moscow, 1945), or Mikhalkov, according to other credits, who competes with two films, ‘Elena’ and ‘Heart’s Boomerang’, and presents a cycle on his country’s film and, also, will be awarded, this is a certainty, with the Honorary Prize as a tribute to his whole career. What we don’t know is if one of his films will also win the Giraldillo de Oro, the main award. For that we’ll have to wait for the awards ceremony which will take place on November 10th.

Although the tickets and the parallel activities are pretty seductive for the interested film fan, they are especially for the students of the University of Seville, because the promoters have organized a ‘seminar’ (‘The literature of Valle-Inclán in García-Sánchez’s film’), which computes with two credits of free configuration in the CV of the University. Attempting to be a cultural bridge between Europe and North Africa, this event is worthy of the attention of all film lovers. Here’s the link of the official website (http://www.festivaldesevilla.com/) where you can find all the information on tickets and the programme.

Candela Vizcaíno

Remember that, if you live outside the Andalucian capital, you can book your tickets and apartments in Seville online, where you can relax from all the films. We’ll wait here for you and your thoughts on the festival.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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The beauty of being Bear. What is being Bear? Very simple: being gay and not having the typical standards that the gay community also has in terms of physical beauty, image and attitude. And, of course, the LGBT community in general is one of the most open-minded ones and always willing to camble, both aesthetically, culturally and morally as well as in attitude and music. The Bears are already a wide community around the globe, and it’s important that the Bear community have a place to meet and exchange for all of those who are a bit heavier, have more hair on their body or maybe less hair on their head. Generally, the Bear profile is along these lines, as well as being very cheerful, smiling and happy to celebrate their bodies. You only have to have some attitude, no fear and celebrate the love for body and life.

And if we decided to adopt a position above the body and further than the aesthetics that culture bombards us with all the time, we’d have to be aware that the body should always be celebrated, in every single way. And this goes further than any hedonistic stance, since our body is our only luggage during the time that we’re given to live, and we should enjoy it always. The freedom that exists inside the LGBT community and the political importance that the configuration of the body has inside it, makes of the body a revolutionary weapon and an experimentation space for change inside the common bourgeois organization that we live in. Certainly, the body does not escape the capitalist mechanics, and we’re constantly bombarded with ways of how to carry our own body. Maybe we should maintain an alert position in front of all of this. The heterosexual community, somehow, is not aware of the mechanisms that exist behind the whole advertising, television, music and culture in which both the masculine and feminine genders are put up as standards of Western and Oriental culture. However, the body and sexuality are above all of these limits.

If you’re Bear or sympathise with them or you like these beautiful and heavy hairy men, don’t miss out on going to GuadalkiBear Seville 2011. It will be an international meeting where you’ll be able to enjoy the company of other Bears like you and get to meet people with great vibe. Among the events prepared for this Bear festival there’ll be walks in the beautiful city of Seville, as well as boat cruises, sessions in different gay-friendly bars as well as loud partying so you can dance and give everything you’ve got on the dancefloor. For more information visit the following webpage: http://www.guadalkibear.com/

Alexa Ray

Don’t miss out on getting apartments in Seville and be part of this Bear celebration. The Bear universe is for you, and even more in this beautiful city of Seville. A few mysteries and adventures await.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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The tragic death of Andy Warhol by an unfortunate medical negligence- he, somehow was already dead, he who miraculously saved the life of Valerie Solanas in a brutal attack, two decades before (attack whose only positive side effect was perhaps to bring Billy Name to his legendary volunteer prison time in the darkroom, in which he took months and months locked up), he, who had managed to evade the date in which officially his days were due to end, to confirm his role of contemporary myth, just to  eventually end up in an aseptic room of a New York hospital away from any sense of threat almost at the worst time (although at these points, the best and worst moments, are only established, with perspective when everything is over and our existence is reduced to the amount of stories we want to count on) as Lennon, Marley, Harrison and even as Nico (What idiocy, to die falling off a bicycle in Ibiza after having gone through so much)

Like so many others that perhaps because they were too great the Moirae can not deal with anyone able to give them the death face to face, have to deal with this childish accident, carelessness, chance, a cowardly blow struck almost without wishing for any pusillanimous being often, as I said, almost at the worst time because it is bad time to die when we seem happy and even renewed, excited again with new challenges and projects, and work with so much life ahead, we’ve left behind gales and storms and managed to cross our Cape Horn and it does not seem like in any possible way, that the neglect of a racist or homophobic or simply tired, or depressed nurse, absent for any reason that day, ended out and finishing and clearing our steps in the world, this tragic death, I mentioned before, resulted in perhaps the only positive side effect of the matter, something had to rhyme with the departure of Billy Name, the darkroom, the meeting after many years without even talking, John Cale and Lou Reed to make Songs for Drella (1990), an exceptional tribute album. In one song, the extraordinary Trouble With classicist through Cale, we heard the voice of Warhol expressing his sincere admiration for the young junkies who use their spray to paint on trains and walls of the city center.

This fascination came, perhaps from both his unerring instinct for art, as well as his most classical wave (Warhol’s art education was impeccable), as in every city in the world, during thousands of years, it has been practiced in one way or another-and probably no other artistic activity and illustrate better reflects the heart, pulse and respiration of the city, the art of graffiti.

Paul Oilzum

The recent publication in Spain of the book ‘The essential names of street art and Spanish graffiti’ is a wonderful invitation to look at the urban drift, which is constantly reinventing the city. Dare to face the challenge, for example, by following the course of the Guadalquivir, when renting apartments in Seville

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Translated by: Hans
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On the 27th of October, the Andalusian Center of Contemporary Art in Seville opens its exhibition “Margen y Ciudad” from Spanish artist Lara Almarcegui. The artist has done some incredible work themed around cities and forgotten spaces, evoking the idea of loss of memory of those places which reside on the margins of the city’s collective consciousness as a result of being ruins.

Lara Almarcegui was born in Zaragoza in 1972. She studied Fine Art at the University of Cuenca, and later at the Art Department at the University of Lisbon. In the 1990s, she was invited by Werner Büttner to the Art Department at Hamburg, and later attended the School of Fine Art in Nantes in France, and also completed a post-grad at De Ateliers 63 in Amsterdam.

Her work in installation and intervention is known as Demolitions, Auto-constructions and Wastelands, and has led her to be a key figure in the studies of Urban Art, as she pays a special attention to the development of cities, and its treatment of its forgotten spaces. These are the spaces Almarcegui seeks out – those ruined, ignored areas of a city – in order to give them cultural visibility once again.

In her work Auto-construction Installation in Amsterdam, made in 2004, she focuses on auto-construction and recuperation, with a series of 26 photographs on 20x30cm, and texts of 10x15cm which are placed on tables. With these interventions, Almarcegui hopes to draw to the attention of the public, and the urban community, and encourage them to acknowledge these spaces, and how their abandonment has become a part of collective memory.

This project was carried out in the French city of Saint Nazaire, where she used different recuperated and salvaged parts from the city’s shipyards, bringing them to the attention of locals. Each individual part spoke of the context and the society which had been created by its inhabitants – but above all, it referred back to the moment in the past when these abandoned elements had been of use, and how different the city was then.

Her conceptual work is an intense pursuit of the idea of memorialization – of the engagement of a city’s inhabitants with its past, and the changing circumstances which have been forgotten through time; and of the different models of the construction of the city, whereby many places have been condemned to abandonment, such as the big factories which prevailed during the high era of industrial capitalism, occupying now disused spaces, along side the also empty old worker’s houses.

The territory used by Almarcegui is the city. It is there where she conducts her dissection – in those areas well off the beaten path of the tourist trail. What she is looking for are the derelict and abandoned places which have been reclaimed by inhabitants without the knowledge of its past identity, or what its function or use was before it was empty. This could be anything from a trail line no longer in use, an old dockyard, or simply a family home which has been fled.

For more information http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/caac/programa/alma11/frame.htm

Nancy Guzman

A great work which connects us to the city, and its collective memory. “Margen y Ciudad” is on until 4th of March. So don’t miss out on your chance to see it when you rent apartments in Seville in the wonderful city of Seville.

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Translated by: Poppy
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The narrator of the famous award-winning novel by Javier Marias “All The Souls” (1989), a character who many years later reappears again as the narrator in the trilogy “Tu rostro Mañana”,  confronted the awkward questions of his students at Oxford during the critical and disturbing two years spent there as a visiting professor inventing different fabulous etymologies of Spanish words hoping that nobody would bother -which would otherwise be in most cases quite useless-  checking in a specialized dictionary how those etymologies related to his responses to what the true meaning was.

If they had, and maybe some did, the result of their investigations, known in advance before their membership in the realm of pure invention, perhaps would have not have been too  different of what expected, it is quite possible that he had resorted to the wonderful, in every sense of the word  “Tesoro de la lengua castellana” of Sebastián de Covarrubias, published now exactly four centuries ago in which the etymologies offered often owe as much to the imagination of the writer as to the character of Marias, just concluding that “my insane crazy etymologies were not much more nor less plausible than the real ones … And in any case, as noted by Jack The Ripper, this type of ornamental knowledge lasted a few minutes, either being false, true or half-truths. Sometimes true knowledge is irrelevant, and then you can invent it.”

In fact, the least interesting thing about Covarrubias fascinating book is perhaps his degree of approximation to what we consider a scientific truth, and the most fascinating thing is how  it explores the cavernous interior of words to find in the current secret flowing water where a series of extraordinary stories about ourselves, our world and our own `inner-cave and a nightmare” are. A melancholic humor that squeezes the heart in a horrible dream, as a burden to push you down or fall directly into the trap

The words that join us with the world through stories and history as knowledge is not but the bottomless pit of those stories. The important issue here would be the basis on which we build the story. Sevilla is one of the most historic cities in Europe and the former grounds was precisely what allowed his bishop Isidore (570-636) found there the foundations of a peninsular historiography, perhaps a little damaging to the future of a Spanish unity of destination under the Visigothic monarchy, where he composed his Etymologies, an authoritative text in Europe for centuries, so fanciful and often fabulist like Covarrubias book or the inventions of the character of Marias, who published  twenty volumes of ancient knowledge, conveniently summarized in the service of ” Christian science”

Paul Oilzum

Visit this wonderful city and enjoy its historical surroundings, if you are curious about the origins of Spanish words, you can always read Bishop Isidoro’s books while you rent apartments in Seville

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Translated by: Marc
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Crossing the ancient Almohad wall, by the Arch of the Macarena, we enter one of the most popular neighbourhoods in the city, San Gil.

The heart of this neighbourhood is in San Gil Square (Plaza San Gil), which used to be presided by the parish which carried the same name and which now only preserves its Gothic front. In the 1940s, the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Esperanza moved to this church, building the Basilica of the Macarena, of classic Neo-baroque style, which occupies the northern part of the square.

Due to this, the false idea that this was the neighbourhood of the Macarena spread itself. But San Gil belongs to the old town district, inside the wall perimetre of Seville. La Macarena, however, as one of the city’s historical suburbs, is located outside the walls. The limit between both is established by Calle Resolana and Calle Parlamento de Andalucía. And so, the virgin is called ‘Macarena’ because of the neighbourhood and not the other way around, because the origin of the name is probably Roman.

We switch the register and go to another square, at number 3 where we find the Palacio de los Pumarejo, which gives the name to the field which was the residence of the Count Don Pedro Pumarejo, ‘Caballero’ twenty-four of the Lobby of Sevilla.

This 18th century house-palace became a Toribian school for boys in the 19th century. It finally became an inhabitable house in 1883. The top floor was restored to hold small homes, and in the lower floor they set up workshops and shops. Declared a Cultural Interest Heritage in 2003, it represents one of the most important examples of neighbourhood struggle so that such singular spaces aren’t allowed to disappear.

Walking down Calle San Luís we arrive to the church of Santa Marina, built after the Castillian conquest of Ishbiliya (Seville) in the 13th century, and it represents one of the oldest temples in teh city and a beautiful sample of Gothic style from Burgos and lower-Andalucian mudejar, inspired both by Christian spirituality as by Muslim mystique.

Lastly, following the same street, at number 27 we find the church of San Luís de los Franceses (St. Louis of the French), one of the most lavish Sevillian temples. Of Baroque style, it began to be built in 1699 by Leonardo da Figueroa, and it created its origin as a church of the ancient novitiate of the Jesuits.

Architectonically heterogenic and with a firm social identity thanks to the way of life of its neighbours, this is one of the neighbourhoods with the most popular, symbolic and imaginary strength in the city, the neighbourhood of San Gil.

Cinta Blanch

If you’re looking for apartments in Seville why not stay in the charismatic neighbourhood of San Gil, located in the beautiful historic part of the city.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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