Biterna

Biterna is a choreography created specifically for the 33rd edition of Dansàneu, the Festival of Cultures of the Pyrenees of the Valls d’Àneu, by dancer and choreographer Aleix Martínez. The performance, which took place in July 2024, was accompanied live by about forty members of the National Young Choir of Catalonia, directed by Mireia Barrera. The musical composition is the work of Pyrenean musician Arnau Obiols.

Biterna gives voice to minorities who have suffered and continue to suffer from discrimination. It is part of one of the thematic axes of Dansàneu, which sought to echo the 600th anniversary of the oldest anti-witchcraft law in Europe, an original document from the Valls d’Àneu that was the first in Europe to condemn gatherings of witches. Hence the title of the piece, Biterna, which alludes to an imaginary place where, according to medieval belief, witches would gather to worship the devil.

« A show in which sound and dance form an almost perfect symbiosis, dragging the audience into moments of collective madness where the crowd points at someone and decides that he deserves to die. »

Daisy Bowen, Hardwood Paroxysm