ES

MAÑA

where Craftsmanship becomes Art

Awards 2022:
TAC Valladolid: Most innovative performance
ARCA Festival Aguilar de Campoo Susanna Herreras Award: Best Performance

MAÑA is artisan circus, between knowledge and intuition and shows how two craftsmen create a huge arch from a large number of heavy crates - using only their hands and a few tools such as levers, pulleys and wheels. The methods have been handed down for centuries - and the craftsmen - or are they artists? - want to bring this valuable knowledge to life, which in a few centuries has changed from craft to artisanry and now to art. As if a grandfather is passing on his traditions to his grandchildren. Skill, ingenuity and the use of ancient technology are the keys!

The transformation from craft to art preserves the knowledge handed down from our grandparents' generations, as if the artist had learnt this knowledge from his grandfather and was now passing it on to his grandson.

Manolo Alcántara is a self-taught circus artist, collaborating many years with several artists, companies and productions. With his company Cia Manolo Alcántara (founded in 2014), he has created three performances to date: Rudo (2014), Déjà vu (2019) and Maña (2022). The three pieces can also be summarised as a trilogy, as the artist himself says: "All creations are based on an inner search, about my fears, successes and visions. The content of Rudo, Déjà Vu and Maña also always has to do with my parents, my family and my son. It is a choice that expresses the past and the present and hopefully points to the future."
Manolo Alcantara was awarded the Premio Nacional by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 2021.