With the aim of highlighting the heritage of Castilla y León, Living Heritage begins, a program with theatrical routes, cinema and performing arts, which will offer various performing arts activities, guided visits to monuments, film screenings and dramatized routes in Ávila, Salamanca and Segovia, the three cities in the region declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
This program will run from Friday to Sunday the first weekends of each summer month: July 4, 5 and 6; August 1, 2 and 3; and September 5, 6 and 7, and citizens will be able to find out the details of each action at the Castilla y León tourist information telephone number set up by the Junta, at number 902 203 030.
The regional government is currently negotiating with the hoteliers and restaurateurs of the three capitals involved to coordinate a series of traditional Castilian and Leonese recipes with others that are not, which tourists who come to this land can enjoy.
Movies to start the activities will begin on Friday night, starting at 11:00 pm, with a silent film projection in the open air with live music. The Plaza de Bracamonte (in Ávila), the Plaza de Juan XXIII (in Salamanca) and the Church of San Juan de los Caballeros (in Segovia), will host the screenings. The films chosen have been ‘ The last’ , by F.W. Murnau (with musical accompaniment by Javier Pérez de Azpeitia and The Silent Band ); ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ , by Robert Wiene (with music by DJ Kike); ‘Nosferatu ‘, by Murnau (with the sound setting by Trío de Free Jazz); and ‘The phantom of the opera ‘, by Rupert Julian (accompanied by the pianist Josetxo Fernández Ortega).
In addition, on Saturdays from 7:00 p.m. the Provincial Historical Archive of Ávila, the Casa de las Conchas in Salamanca and the Church of San Juan de los Caballeros in Segovia will host anime screenings, with films such as ‘Akira’ , by Katsuhiro Otomo or ‘The grave of the fireflies’ , by Isao Takahata.
On Saturdays and Sundays in the morning (starting at 11 a.m.), theatrical routes will be developed with actors in period clothes that will explain the history of the cities, legends, characters and historical or natural heritage, with a tour that will start from the Puerta de Butchers on the wall of Ávila, in the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca and at the reception of the visitor center of La Judería, in Segovia. Another of the offers included in the program will be the one called ‘The monument of the month’ , which will take place on Saturdays and Sundays from 1:00 p.m., with guided tours led by experts who will reveal the virtues of the Monastery of Santo Tomás, the Cathedral and the Palace of the Deanes in Ávila; the cloisters of the Dominican Convent, the Casa de las Conchas and the inner courtyard of La Salina, in Salamanca; and La Judería, the aqueduct and the Monastery of San Vicente El Real in Segovia. The performing arts will also be a fundamental member of this Heritage on Stage, and the medieval walls of our cities will be filled with life with multidisciplinary shows that will take place from 10 pm. In June, the protagonist will be flamenco, with performances by Concha Buika at the Palacio del Episcopio (Ávila), El Cigala at the Patio de Fonseca (Salamanca), and the Lebrijano Dorantes at the Torreón de Lozoya (Segovia). In August it will be the turn of the multimedia shows, with ‘Venetian Nights’ in the Mercado Chico de Ávila, by TGC Cultural; ‘Mujeres de Shakespeare’ , by María Rovira and the Compañía Trànsit Dansa, at the Palacio de Fonseca in Salamanca; and the assembly of aerial dance ‘Mara ‘ on the paving of the Cathedral of Segovia. The round will close in September with three dance numbers: ‘Alma porteña ‘, by the Antonio Najarro Company, in the Church of San Francisco de Ávila; the performance of Cesc Gelabert in the Patio de Fonseca, and of the bowling school of the Compañía de Aída Gómez, in the Patio of the Alcázar of Segovia.
The mayor of Ávila, Miguel Ángel García Nieto, applauded the initiative of the Board and stressed that Castilla y León is the only Community in the world with three cities declared World Heritage of Humanity, a strength that we must take advantage of. In addition, the first mayor of Avila stressed that it is “a successful initiative” and asked that this good line of work of the regional government not stop.
And is that of the 150,000 cities in the world, only 116 are inscribed on the list of World Heritage of Humanity, and of those three are in Castilla y León.