The Grec City is kicking off: a series of shows that brings the 2023 Barcelona Grec Festival to private theatres and other venues in Barcelona, with numerous shows featuring local talent, as well as international productions such as Les Traceurs. This event marks the opening of the Grec Ciutat on 2 July at 8 p.m., with a free poetic action by the choreographer Rachid Ouramdane and starring the tight-rope performer Nathan Paulin.

If you want to see the performance at its best, we recommend that you head to Plaça de Catalunya—a good vantage point from which to see the start of this aerial tour. A slackline has been set up between the Movistar Centre building in the square and the Generali building —at the junction between Passeig de Gràcia and Gran Via— which Nathan Paulin will walk along.

This will not be the first time that Ouramdane and Paulin have amazed the public. They did it in Paris, in Mont Saint-Michel (along an extremely long route: 2,400 metres) and in Brazil. On each occasion, the tightrope walker managed to transform the landscape, human or natural, with his mere presence. This is, in fact, a re-intepretation of Barcelona’s landscape. It is accompanied by a soundtrack composed by Jean-Baptiste Julien with narrative by Nathan Paulin, discussing his feelings and sensations while walking at a great height.

What is humanity’s impact on the Earth’s landscape? This is the question Rachid Ouramdame asks with this creation, altering, through his proposal, the image and meaning of the landscapes he participates in. The choreographer and director of the Chaillot – Théâtre national de la Danse in Paris, offers us an aerial walk or dance combined with the poetry of the witness he has used in many of his shows, which sometimes stars artists and sometimes stars, as in this case, extreme sports athletes.

One of these athletes is Nathan Paulin, whom we’ll see not on a stage but on a suspended line. He’s a modern tightrope walker, born in 1994, who seeks an inner peace with his activity, which he finds by combining intense concentration and body control. We’ve seen him in natural settings such as the Navacelles Circus, walking between the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero and bridging the distance between the two La Défense towers, in Paris too, among many other places.

You’ll now see him in Barcelona in a spectacular staging that will make your hair stand on end. Don’t worry, as thoroughly exciting as his poètic performance will be, the artist will have good safety features in place for his walk.

If you’d like to see Nathan Paulin walk along Barcelona’s sky in a Rachid Ouramdane poetic action, come over to Plaça de Catalunya and watch Les Traceurs. You’ll find further information from the Barcelona Grec Festival 2023 website.

Further information.