FIET, the Children’s and Youth Theater Fair of the Balearic Islands, will be celebrating its twentieth edition in 2022, quite a milestone! The FIET is a festival of culture that turns the town of Vilafranca de Bonany, in Mallorca, into a showcase of theater for children and young people, both created in the Islands and beyond our borders.
How do we achieve this? During four days in the month of October, specifically the third week of the month, Vilafranca transforms intothe European epicenter of children’s and family theatre; every corner of the town breathes theatre, companies share time (and home!) with volunteer families who welcome them, all kinds of activities are organized for the general public and for professional audiences… the performing arts become the thread that weaves the life of Vilafranca over a long weekend.
But who is behind this fair? Sa Xerxa, a non-profit association that was also created twenty years ago and is the driving force behind both the FIET and a series of projects for children and young people on the four islands of our archipelago: the Millor! Festival in Cala Millor (Mallorca), the Barruguet Festival in Santa Eulària des Riu (Eivissa), the Children’s Show Show of Formentera, the Maó Children’s Theater Festival and the Cala Rajada Street Arts Festival (Mallorca).
From Sa Xerxa we want to achieve two essential objectives: on the one hand, to encourage quality shows to reach all corners of the Balearic Islands and, at the same time, to be able to contribute decisively to the reinforcement of the cultural industry of our community
Now that we are celebrating 20 years, we are in a delicate economic moment that threatens the continuity of both the FIET and the global project of Sa Xerxa. For this reason, we want to ask you to help us make this twentieth edition of our fair a reality and that we can continue forward with our project of making culture one of the engines of our islands.
From the very beginning in the association we set ourselves our Ítaca: to be Sa Xerxa for children’s and youth theater in the Balearic Islands. And these years have given us a beautiful journey, along which we have filled our networks with experiences, joys and knowledge that have inspired and grown both the FIET and the global project of Sa Xerxa.
Looking back, we see everything we have achieved and we want to fight to escape the economic fragility we have been living with for years. The FIET is a point of reference for the performing arts for children and young people both in Spain and Europe, spearheading in offering quality shows for the little ones in the house. Around this small big fair we have built a whole network of initiatives and projects that seek to bring the theater closer to the towns throughout the Balearic Islands:
- The Millor! festival (Cala Millor), Barruguet (Santa Eulària des Riu), the Formentera Children’s Show Show, the Maó Children’s Theater Festival and the Cala Rajada Street Arts Festival
- TAP – Teatre als Pobles, program of shows for children in different municipalities of the Balearic Islands
- Culture against LGTBI-phobia, programming of shows and workshops on sexual diversity for middle and high school students
- Guillem d’Efak Award, for the creation of dramatic texts for children’s and youth theatre
- BÒTIL (Balears Offers Theater and Literature), a competition designed to promote the creation of small-format shows based on works of Catalan literature, especially by authors from the Balearic Islands
We want this twentieth anniversary to mark the turning point for FIET and, by extension, for Sa Xerxa. We want to celebrate all the progress we have made so far and set a course for the future, to continue developing our projects and inventing new ones with the aim of always offering first-class culture to a very special audience: children.
Over the years, the FIET has become one of the most popular gatherings for both professionals and the family public. It attracts, each edition, around 19,000 spectators and is one of the most highly rated professional children’s and youth theater fairs in Spain.
That’s why we don’t want to stop celebrating FIET 2022, it’s a milestone too loaded with symbolism to let it pass. From Sa Xerxa we commit to putting all the enthusiasm, drive and work that is necessary into it, but we need support to be able to make it a reality and to be able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together:
- hire professional companies, both local and state, to offer their shows,
- hire material and technical staff to help materialize these shows,
- form a solid organizational team to make everything fit,
- manage communication, logistics, attention to professionals, and all other day-to-day aspects of the fair,
- and, above all, to offer the public a wonderful FIET so they can enjoy it 100%!
With your collaboration we will be able to survive this 2022 and continue to dream that we have at least 20 more years ahead!
We want to keep going. We will only achieve this with your support.
We want to continue with this beautiful cultural project. SAVE FIET, SAVE SA XERXA!
Tax incentives for donations
Remember that your donations can deduct between 35 and 80% of the total amount of your donation, depending on whether you are a natural or legal person. You can calculate what the Treasury returns to you athttps://ca.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal.
In addition, at https://vimeo.com/246988506 you will find information on how to download the certificate of your donation.
Since Sa Xerxa, we have cultivated the desire to enjoy culture for 20 years. 20 years bringing theater to children, bringing theater to towns and the Balearic Islands. 20 years of hard work, of activism in favor of culture for everyone, and also of financial difficulties to stabilize the project.
It is true that Sa Xerxa receives funding from different local institutions to carry out the FIET and its other projects, but the truth is that since 2012 we have encountered several obstacles that have hindered our path: precisely in 2012, when we were about to touch the consolidation, the suspension of the payment of some grants already granted was ordered; between 2018 and 2020 the amounts received from various administrations were reduced; in addition, in recent years the type of projects that can receive support has been increasingly limited and, therefore, we have had to suspend the Guillem D’Efak Award.
However, we want to look to the future with optimism and that is why we are launching this campaign; in the vocabulary of the FIET and Sa Xerxa team there is no place for defeat or failure. We address all those people who love culture, who believe that it should have a central place in our society, and that children and young people should have projects made specifically for them; they are the future of our society and, for this reason, we think that they shouldto educate in the values of tolerance, effort, equality and social inclusion, from the conviction that culture is a right that must reach everyone without making a distinction based on the economic level or the place of residence of the citizens.
Doing this year’s FIET is an exerciseof self-affirmation and the claim: We want to continue bringing theater closer to children and towns and from here persist in our activity in favor of the essential people: children, young people, families, creators, schools, godparents… and d ‘among all of them above all to affect the most excluded groups. Because each and every one with their different abilities has the right to access culture, with all the personal and social benefits that this implies.
The road has not been easy, but we want to keep going.
Will you help us continue to offer theater for everyone?
SAVE FIET, SAVE SA XERXA!
