The Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo; the director of the National Archaeological Museum, Isabel Izquierdo; the director of the Women’s Institute, Isabel García; the director of Ellas Crean, Concha Hernández; and the deputy director of State Museums of the Ministry of Culture, Mercedes Roldán; have presented the program of the 20th edition of the festival Ellas Crean, which will take place from March 2 to 31.

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20th edition of the Ellas Crean festival

This initiative is organized by the Ministry of Equality, through the Women’s Institute, and takes place within the framework of the celebration of 8M, International Women’s Day.

The program is made up of more than forty activities of music, dance, poetry, meetings, theatre, cinema, performance or exhibitions; which aim to make visible the work of artists and creators of the world of culture.

The Minister of Equality assured during the presentation, which took place at the National Archaeological Museum, that feminism, culture and art have a very important role in our society. “This government is committed to real equality in all areas. Of course, also with the creation and artistic and intellectual production, the dissemination of the same, as well as promoting the balanced presence of women and men in the artistic and cultural public offer”, she added.

Great creators for an anniversary
In this edition, the event will feature an exceptional artist who has accompanied the festival since the first edition and is a symbol for Ellas Crean: Carmen Linares, National Music Award and Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts. She will perform on this 20th anniversary in an emblematic museum for the festival, the National Archaeological Museum (March 7), and in a space as special as the courtyard of Pozo Moro, a landmark of Iberian archaeology.

Another of the essential venues of Ellas Crean, the Prado Museum (March 2), will host the opening of this edition with the concert by Raquel Andueza & La Galanía, who will present a program of baroque music conceived for the Muses Hall of the museum and which has women as protagonists. Free improvisation, with the group led by the prestigious Chefa Alonso (March 20) and the most current jazz, with one of our young promises, Irene Reig (March 3), who presents her latest work, will complete the musical program of this edition.

Poetry will have a very special protagonism in Ellas Crean, from the hand of a benchmark in this genre that, by happy coincidence, also celebrates its 20 years of life: the publishing house La Bella Varsovia, captained with wisdom and care by Elena Medel. It will be an afternoon of poetry that will bring together women writers from five different generations, five different ways of looking at the world and telling it: Pilar Adón, Amalia Bautista, Aurora H. Camero, Ana Rossetti and Almudena Vidorreta, at the National Library of Spain (March 6). We will have more poetry in the reading and conversation about 18 ciervas by Rosana Acquaroni, with Nora Levinton and the poet from Madrid at Teatro del Barrio (March 12).

Ellas Crean and dance
Dance has always been present in Ellas Crean, although for several editions this discipline has occupied a privileged place in the festival, reinventing the halls of the best museums in Madrid with its program Dance in Museums. As explained this morning by the Deputy Director General of State Museums of the Ministry of Culture, Mercedes Roldán, “year after year, Danza en los museos is included within Ellas Crean, exploring the possible dialogues between museum spaces, museum collections and choreographic creation, while supporting and giving visibility to women creators in the field of dance.” Sol Picó (National Dance Award), Laia Santanach, Mari Paula, Nerea Martínez, Carmen Werner, Manuela Barrero and Carmen Muñoz (National Dance Award) will be the seven choreographers who will perform in iconic places such as Museo del Prado, Museo de Artes Decorativas, Museo del Romanticismo or Museo Arqueológico Nacional.

Film
Cinema, one of the artistic disciplines where more talent is emerging thanks to the effective policies that have been put in place, will be one of the arts highlighted in this edition of Ellas Crean, especially in the figure of Margarita Alexandre, pioneer film director both in Franco’s Spain and in revolutionary Cuba, whose autobiography La otra cara de la luna will be presented, followed by the screening of her film La gata at the Cine Doré of the Filmoteca Española (March 26). In addition, at the headquarters of the same Filmoteca (C/ Magdalena, 10) the exhibition Errantes y perseverantes. The century of Margarita Alexandre, Lola Flores and Ana Mariscal, a journey through the careers of three great names in Spanish cinema.

There will be much more cinema at Ellas Crean, such as the series Women Filmmakers of the 21st Century: Neus Ballús, Jaione Camborda and Diana Toucedo at Cine Doré (March and April) or the screening of Madame Curie / Radioactive, by Marjane Satrapi (March 11), and Marie Curie, by Marie Noëlle (March 15), as part of the joint program of the Polish Institute of Culture-Institut Français around the figure of Marie Sklodowska-Curie.

The documentary Brainwashed: Sex, Camera, Power, by Nina Menkes (March 8); the screening and discussion of Camille Claudel, by Bruno Dumont (March 21), with María Pérez Pilar V. Foronda; and Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud (March 30), complete the film program.

Meetings and much more
Meetings are the time for dialogue, discussion and enrichment at Ellas Crean. Thus, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, a committed scientist will bring together María Vallet-Regí, Belén Yuste, Espido Freire and Lourdes Lucía at the Residencia de Estudiantes (March 4) and Mujer y memoria to Yolanda Villaluenga and Zara Fernández de Moya at the Museo Antropológico (March 5).

Women archaeologists will have a leading role in 10 years building looks. El Museo Arqueológico Nacional por una arqueología también en femenino (March 7) and Nora Levinton, Semíramis González, María López and Pilar V. Foronda will talk about De lo subversivo a la locura como inspiración at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (March 13).

Three exhibitions (Noemi Iglesias Barrio, Isabel Quintanilla and Stephanie Comilang) and a performance by Las Dominguez de Ramos (March 19) at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, theater at the Fernan Gomez. Centro Cultural de la Villa (Mi abuela no se llama Carmen, directed by Ana Mayo, from March 1 to 17), cinema at the French Institute, the participation of the students of the Alfonso X El Sabio University (March 15), the dramatized reading Pierre and Marie Curie, themselves at the Muñoz Seca Theater (March 18) and the IV International Contest of Works by Women Composers of the Rafael Orozco Conservatory of Music of Cordoba are some of the other proposals that will complete the program of this anniversary edition.