Festa do Avante!

Festival site (partial view)

The Festa do Avante! takes place annually on the first weekend in September in Amora (Seixal) . The press festival of the weekly Avante! , the newspaper of the Portuguese Communist Party , is a three-day major cultural event in Portugal .

history

The Festa took place for the first time after the Carnation Revolution , in 1976 on what was then the Feira Internacional de Lisboa (FIL). It took place in the following years in Jamor (1977, 1978), in Alto da Ajuda (1979–1986) and in Loures (1988, 1989). In 1987 the festival could not take place. In 1990 the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) succeeded in buying a site, the Quinta da Atalaia , in the municipality of Amora ( Seixal district ) on the opposite side of the river from Lisbon , and has held the Festa do Avante there every year since then ! . The pavilions are redesigned every year. The festival is largely run on a voluntary basis.

The “Festa” is one of the largest cultural events in Portugal with over 500,000 visitors annually.

program

Poster with program items for the Festa , seen in 2014 in the seaside resort of Figueira da Foz

Traditionally, the festival begins on Friday afternoon with a short speech by the PCP party chairman and ends on Sunday afternoon with a longer PCP event. The party traditionally uses the Sunday afternoon as a public party event on the largest stage on the site ( Palco 25 de Abril ). A large number of events will continue to take place at all other venues at the same time.

The annual "Festa" offers a barely manageable number of program items. A comprehensive festival magazine (2007: 110 pages) lists all program items and locations, a small festival edition of “Avante!” Presents the most important events separately, and further information and reports are available on the festival radio. The “Festa” program includes concerts on various large and small stages, open and covered. The spectrum ranges from classical music to jazz , blues and world music to punk , ska , metal , hip-hop and all varieties of pop / rock and electronic dance music. There is also fado , folklore and popular music. In addition, there are exhibitions, readings, workshops , theater, cinema and dance (both dance art and folklore) in various tents .

Themed pavilions are distributed over the entire site. Each regional PCP organization presents its home region gastronomically and culturally, there are pavilions on topics such as women's rights , future technologies , migration , youth or internationalism , and international parties and organizations that are friends also present their countries gastronomically and culturally.

There are health stations, telephone booths, ATMs, information stands, luggage storage and campsites. There will also be a book fair, a CD , record and DVD exchange, wine tastings, food stalls, themed bars and restaurants, arts and crafts tents, discussion forums, cabaret and sporting events (athletics, parachuting, cycling races, soccer tournaments, etc.) throughout the festival. .

A typical feature of this festival is the instrumental song A carvalhesa , which can be heard over and over again . It goes back to a folk tune from Trás-os-Montes first recorded by Kurt Schindler in 1932 . The song is played on the main stage before the first evening concert of the “Festa” and represents a first high point. It has been played at every “Festa” since the 1985 election campaign and can be heard repeatedly at various points on the site. A majority of (mostly young) festival-goers then always start a hopping, exuberant circle dance. The song is considered the "anthem" of the Festa do Avante! .