HOP Festival

21st and 22nd of december

The Mercat de les Flors and other cultural venues around the city once again host the HOP Festival, the most important event devoted to the contemporary creation of urban dance in Catalonia.

Since their origins as social dances in the sixties and seventies, urban dances have mutated repeatedly over the decades. Their pioneers were mainly children and young people, outside the academic or institutional frameworks traditionally associated with the performing arts. To the extent that they are expressions of popular culture, these dances represent the identity of the communities that generated them, their values ​​and their aspirations: a particularly relevant issue if we take into account the fact that these groups (African-American, Latin, Caribbean or LGBT, among others) have historically been oppressed and marginalized.

The commercialization of forms of expression linked to the hip-hop culture in the eighties, as well as the subsequent emergence of the Internet and social networks, helped to globalize the practice of urban dance. In this process of re-contextualisation (geographic, temporal, cultural and so on), these languages ​​entered into dialogue with identities, styles, values ​​and uses of dance that were very different from the original ones.

This cross-border encounter (literal and symbolic) allowed urban dance – without losing its social and festive aspects – to come into contact with other aesthetics and poetics with regard to occupying the performance space. On the other hand, circus, contemporary dance and flamenco artists have been interested in urban dance for many years now and incorporate its components into their shows.

The HOP Festival invites us to discover first-hand the multiple dimensions of urban dance: workshops for professionals and amateurs, jam sessions, activities for the whole family, shows by local and international companies, and spaces for dialogue and thought focussed on the contemporary creation of urban dance.

A major festival, open to all publics and essential for an understanding of the present situation of the sector.

Organised by the association El Generador, Art i Creació Cultural

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