A way to co-create online

Interview with Irene Calvis from Irish National Opera

We talk to the wonderful Irene Calvis, Social Access Co-Ordinator for the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, who has worked to successfully introduce the Co-Creation Space to her many, MANY amazing community members from the Raval neighbourhood.

Can you introduce yourself and what you do at Liceu?

Hello! I am Irene Calvís, responsible for the LiceuApropa social program at the Opera House in Barcelona. I have been working at the Liceu since 2002, taking on different roles in the institution. But since almost 10 years ago I have been in charge of all the programs that have to do with facilitating access to the Liceu for everyone, guaranteeing the right to culture. I am currently the coordinator of the entire social area of the community opera La gata perduda for Traction and the project leader of the Trial Liceu.

Wow, sounds like you’re kept very busy! What is the La gata perduda project all about?

La gata perduda is a newly created opera with a community spirit made by residents and organizations of the Raval neighbourhood in Barcelona. Raval is a humble, diverse and transgressive neighbourhood in the heart of Barcelona where many different nationalities live together. The Liceu itself is located in the Raval district, although it has historically turned its back on it.

La gata perduda is an opera where professional artists have worked together with non-professional artists who have participated or co-created the opera at different stages of its creation. For example, the opera posters have been created by users of the Sínia Occupational Centre and students from the La Massana Art School. The costumes were created by Montse Amenós and made by two social organizations from the neighbourhood Top Manta and Dona Kolors. The scenography floor has been created by six street artists (graffiti artists) together with young people from the social cooperative Impulsem. The cat sculpture has been created by neighbourhood artist José Menchero in collaboration with young students from the Massana school. Two hundred and sixty neighbours have allowed themselves to be photographed by students from the Faculty of Communication Blanquerna and the artist Jordi Guillumet, to be printed in the costumes of the opera.

Eleven amateur choral groups from the Raval neighbourhood sing the character of Cor del Raval, that means more than two hundred and sixty people! The four neighbourhood music schools are involved: musicians from the Liceu Conservatory play in the orchestra pit, musicians from Taller de Músics school play modern instruments on stage, the Xamfrà school participates with the school's Women's Choir - one of the eleven opera choirs -  and Escola de Músics School contribute up to three choral groups to the opera as well as the choral coordination of Cristina Colomer. In addition, the students of the Miquel Tarradell High School are the authors of the plot summary of the opera following international Easy Reading criteria.

That’s such a huge number of people to keep track of, fair play! Could you tell us what the co-creation space is and how you used it during the development of La Gata Perduda?

The co-creation space tool is a newly created tool designed to take into account the needs of the participants and creators of the Irish National Opera and Liceu trials. It serves as a communication and data sharing space but it also works like a social media hub. In the case of the Liceu, the users of the Sínia Occupational Centre contributed to its design based on the needs they would have to make the posters for the opera and it has been a key tool in the communication of the eleven choirs that make up the role of Cor del Raval in the opera. In October 2021, Cristina Colomer, the coordinator of the eleven choirs, started uploading audio recordings of the music and the vocal and piano scores of the opera. In this way, all the people of Cor del Raval could download the information and study from home.

If we take into account that the project has coincided during the worst period of the pandemic, this has been a very useful tool of communication between the singers. For more than a year, singers, choir directors and the choir coordinator have used the tool to communicate with each other and to share and comment on images and videos of the rehearsals. The Liceu staff have also used it as a communication channel.

It seems like it was a hugely useful tool for you all to adopt for this project, considering the scale of it. What were the community participants’ reactions to using this technology?

The implementation of the tool was not easy. This opera involves elderly people who are not used to technology. They had difficulty accessing the Co-Creation Space as well as using it but once they had it installed on their mobile phones, they used it.

Some of the singers and especially the choir coordinator, during the review and improvement of the tool carried out last December, said that they needed to be able to have folders to facilitate the search for information. 

Do you think the co-creation space will be of benefit to similar projects in the future?

Yes I think so, it could be widely utilised across many different projects.

Thanks so much Irene and thank you for sharing your amazing project with us! 

FOLLOW THE TRACTION PROJECT

The TRACTION members are creating a new website that will be available once the project ends (publication expected for the beginning of 2023). This website aims to target the cultural and creative industry showing what worked for us in opera co-creation and what didn’t, with the aim of being a useful tool to promote future co-creation in performing arts. All the technology enablers created in TRACTION, including the Co-Creation Stage, will be shared through a Wiki as open-source with instructions on how to use it. We hope this will be useful for other institutions and companies in their participatory art approaches.

You can find more about La gata perduda here and to learn about the TRACTION project, you can visit the website www.traction-project.eu.