School Blog

In addition to the many religious festivals in Spain, there are also those dedicated to worldly things. For example, the Tango Festival in Granada, which is dedicated to tango music and dance. It has been held every March since 1988 for a whole week.

In addition to live music and dance performances, there are also dance courses, readings, lectures, exhibitions, film evenings and many other cultural highlights. Performances by international tango stars in Granada are not uncommon this week.

Tango is presented as an urban culture and you can get a good idea of what tango means in the events and courses mentioned. The Argentine tango composer Enrique Discépolo once said it was “a sad thought that you can dance to”. But the tango festival in Granada isn't really that sad. The focus of the event is on enjoying music, partying and dancing and celebrating music together.

You can experience the individual dance performances either in the stages and theaters (especially the theater "Isabel La Católica") or on the numerous squares in Granada. Whether accompanied by the piano or the double bass, by the guitar, violin or bandoneon - the tango will sweep you away if it hasn't already done so.

1340. Knowing that his besieged Kingdom of Granada is doomed to disappear due to the advance of the neighboring kingdoms, Yusuf I, the Sultan of Granada, embarks on the construction of a building that reflects the splendor of his civilization and defies oblivion: the Alhambra palaces. His vizier, Ibn al-Khatib (Amr Waked), poet and genius ahead of his time, participates in this colossal challenge. But when the sultan's son, Muhammad V, inherits the throne and involves him in the new policies of his reign, the vizier is torn between the ideas of his old world and the emerging new one. His chronicles tell us the history of the Granada of the s. XIV, the swan song of Muslim Europe.

Granada is the privileged environment in which the most anticipated concerts of one of the longest-running, award-winning and respected jazz festivals in Europe take place: the Granada International Jazz Festival. Since that first edition in 1980, the Granada International Jazz Festival has spent forty years uninterruptedly welcoming the excellence of jazz history: Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Charlie Haden, Art Blakey, Tete Montoliu, Dizzy Gillespie, Wayne Shorter, Abbey Lincoln, Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Bebo and Chucho Valdés, Ron Carter, Eliane Elias, Robert Glasper, among an endless list of musicians with whom he has managed to create very intense and rewarding emotional bonds.

Fans who travel from many parts of Spain and Europe come to this event to enjoy extraordinary concerts in the beautiful and emblematic Teatro Isabel la Católica and throughout the city with Jazz in parallel with more than 80 concerts and activities, generating an exciting jazz atmosphere. The Granada International Jazz Festival, in the fall, is a must.

THE FESTIVAL
Organized by the Granada City Council, Granada Provincial Council, the Culture and Historical Memory Delegation and the AguaGranada Foundation, the Young Filmmakers Festival has been committed for three decades to the discovery of new talents, celebrating the diversity of contemporary cinema with a special interest in debut films and short films by the most promising filmmakers on the world scene. An international festival, open to the selection of films that explore new audiovisual forms without distinction of genre, duration or format.

The twenty-eighth edition will take place from October 25 to 30, 2022 in order to generate a space for reflection and meeting between creators, industry professionals and the public of Granada. A place of experimentation and approximation between artistic expressions that continues the trail left by the Granada-born filmmaker José Val del Omar, whose influence is historically linked to the contest, which awards the Val del Omar Award for the best film.

With the Isabel la Católica Theater as the main venue, different proposals will fuse cinema and live music. Special sessions with which to bring the public closer to the creators and recover the value of the big screen experience.

The Palacio de Conde Gabias will host the sessions of the International Competition and the Aguaespejo Competition, while La Madraza, the Espacio V Centenario and the Filmoteca de Andalucía will be other spaces that will host events and screenings related to the festival, which will include master classes, round tables, concerts, presentations and training activities to take cinema beyond the theater, overflowing the city.

The heath has arrived to the Alhambra city. The small streets of the Albaicín are full of small corners where people find shelter from the strong sun. The terraces are filled with granadinos and visitors just enjoying a good cold beer and a tasty fresh tapa.

Summer fills every corner of Granada with culture. You can get soaked in with tons of music, dance, movies, and many summer festivals that are held all over the city.

Also, there are plenty of public pools and water parks if you are in the mood of a good cold dip in the water to forget about the intense heath. And at night, a fresh terrace with good views, a good movie in one of the many summer theaters around the city or just enjoy a nice walk.

We specially recommend the open air cinema sessions and  Flamenco and music performances at the Museo del Sacromonte.

Also Sierra Nevada National Park is not only to enjoy during winter and ski season. During the summer there are a lot of options for the adventurers (hiking, mountain biking, horse riding). If you like extreme sports or only to enjoy beautiful sceneries, this is your place for the season. From Pradollano, the main town of the ski and mountain station, you can start a lot of hiking routes of every level of difficulty and even use the cableway to reach those highest points in the mountain. Another interesting spot to visit is Hoya de la Mora with beautiful nature and sceneries to enjoy. If you are lucky you can even spot some mountain goats along the way. Once the snow has melted, it is impressive how rich is the nature up there and all the amazing activities to enjoy.

You can enjoy a wide range of concerts in Granada, from classical to opera, flamenco and rock. As a popular university city, always associated with creativity, it has plenty of smaller venues catering to eclectic tastes.

The main venues in terms of capacity are Auditorio Manuel de Falla, Palacio de Deportes de Granada, and the Palacio de Congresos y Exposiciones de Granada, the largest covered auditórium in Andalucia. Two of the most outstanding historically are the Palacio Carlos V, and the Generalife summer gardens, both part of the Alhambra complex.

In terms of concert halls, Teatro Alhambra and Teatro Isabel la Catolica offer classical and flamenco performances.

Smaller venues are mostly found around the Realejo area, near Campo de Principe where many students go out - look out for Placeta de Strummer, a small square named after Joe Strummer, who lived in Granada in the 1970s and 1980s. Check out Planta Baja, Sala El Tren, Café Tertulia and Sala Booga Club. Also the Calle Pedro Antonio de Alarcon has plenty of diverse bars with live music.

For flamenco, try the Jardines de Zoraya, in the Albaicin district, while Eshavira in Calle Elvira has jazz and flamenco.

Granada holds the famous Music and Dance Festival every year from June to July, with concert venues including the open-air theatre in the Generalife, the summer gardens of the Alhambra, and the unusual circular courtyard of the 16th-century Palacio Carlos V.

When the Music and Dance Festivsl comes to an end, the programme Lorca and Granada in the Generalife Gardens starts. This venue was created in 2002 by the Junta of Andalucía, as the major cultural offer for Granada's summer evenings. Each year it pays tribute to Lorca's work through flamenco theatre and dance. Shows staged over the years have included Poeta en Nueva York, by Blanca Li, and Romancero Gitano and Yerma, by Cristina Hoyos. According to statistics, the shows have been seen by over 400,000 people so far and enjoy average ticket sales of 90%.

The celebration of the centenary of the first Cante Jondo Flamenco contest will have a key presence in the 71st edition of the Granada Festival. Under the heading #granada1922, the historic contest held in Granada will be this year's Festival's main theme. Legendary flamenco artists such as Rancapino, Juan Villar, Vicente Soto, José de la Tomasa or Pepe Habichuela will visit the Festival together with very well known flamenco singers such as Marina Heredia, Mayte Martín, Jesús Méndez, Rafael de Utrera, Pedro El Granaíno or the youngest Kiki Morente. The Malandain Ballet Biarritz will recall with its choreographies the premieres of the ballets of The Firebird and The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

We will enjoy some current Spanish and flamenco dance performances that the Ballet Nacional de España will put on the stage of the Teatro del Generalife, or the flamenco companies of María Pagés (De Sheherazade) and Patricia Guerrero (Deliranza).

This year's resident artist will be the German violist Tabea Zimmermann without a doubt the best current performer of this instrument.

Between June 13 and July 10, over 28 days, the Granada Festival will offer a total of 96 music and dance shows (50 in the general program and 46 in the Fex).

in the dance section the festival will be present for the first time one of the most solid European companies, the Slovenian National ballet Ljubljana, with a production of Le Corsaire, choreography by José Carlos Martínez.

Bach modern, another of this year's thematic cycles, will include four artists of great international prominence who will establish a dialogue between the timeless musical universe of J.S. Bach and the contemporary scores of three seminal composers of the 20th century: György Kurtág, Olivier Messiaen and Dmitri Shostakovich.

#Brahms125 will pay a small tribute to the brilliant Hamburg composer Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), whose 125th anniversary of his death in Viena is commemorated this year.

Among the great performers who will come to Granada this year, we highlight the first of two enormous Russian talents, despite their youth: the pianist Daniil Trifonov, who has just turned 30; and the incredibly young Alexandra Dovgan, who at just 14, has captivated the most demanding audiences in Europe.

For further information visit: https://granadafestival.org/

Granada kicks off this year's programming of the Tango Festival on March 16 with the show "Jazz, Flamenco and Tango, the banks of a wide river".

The artists Sergio de Lope (flute), Fabrizio Mocata (piano) and Manu Masaedo (percussion), along with numerous guest artists, will perform under the central theme of considering tango as a universal genre.

"Tango belongs to a country that is an archipelago with cities from all over the world, including the city of Granada ..."

This day there is a pilgrimage to Sacromonte and a mass in his honor.

The famous Pilgrimage of San Cecilio to the Abbey of Sacromonte begins at 11.00 in the morning, when a municipal delegation, escorted by the four maceros of the city, set off along the Camino Viejo del Fargue towards the Abbey. Subsequently, the members of the municipal corporation go inside the Abbey, where the celebration of a mass officiated by the Archbishop of Granada takes place.

As in any pilgrimage there is a part of popular festive acts such as local and regional dances and music at the foot of the Sacromonte Abbey. Where a stage and a bar are set up to serve all the pilgrims, tourists and neighbors who want to celebrate the party.

Many groups, preferably young people and families, spread out over the mountain and make their country meal with wine from the region, jayuya cakes, salaíllas, cod, broad beans, Sacromonte tortilla and other local products.

This pilgrimage has been celebrated since 1599, the year in which a plague devastated Granada and from which, according to tradition, it came out by invoking the saint. In the past, many people from Granada went up and made a pilgrimage to the caves to venerate the relics before an institutional pilgrimage was made official.

The Granada International Tango Festival is undoubtedly one of the most important musical events on Granada's cultural agenda. This year the festival will take place from March 15 to 20, 2022.

Since its inauguration in 1988, the festival has become a pioneering event in the world of tango in Europe. The Festival takes place in the month of March and offers numerous musical shows, live concerts, photographic exhibitions, poetry readings and dance classes. The public has the possibility to observe or participate in the various activities.

The most important artists in the world of tango have participated in this festival that is characterized by bringing together all aspects of tango culture (instrumental tango, singing and dancing) and by taking advantage of the mix of elements that give tango its own identity within urban culture.

The program of night shows takes place in the most important theatre in Granada, the "Teatro sabel la Católica".

Anyone who wishes to visit Granada and live an exciting cultural experience will be captivated by the diversity of the Granada Tango Festival.

We are pleased to inform you that Yoga Estudio has reopend its doors on January 10, 2022. The studio will be managed by Esther Baubo and the wonderful team of people who make up Baubo Yoga.

For Esther Baubo it is a great challenge to take the reins of this emblematic place as well as to somehow "take the witness" of the incredible legacy that Eladia Martinez left. The team will work with great enthusiasm.

It is important to note that Baubo Yoga is not an exclusive center for Iyengar Yoga.

They offer traditional Hatha Yoga classes and also are going to offer a variety of styles and contemporary fusions so that students can choose the one that best suits their demands and particularities.

Also in 2022 our school will continue offering Spanish and Yoga workshops in collaboration with different yoga estudios in Granada. For further course information visit our website.