Frugal Traveler: In Europe, a Few Coins for a Wealth of Culture

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 22 Juni 2013 | 17.35

Lourdes Segade for The New York Times; Djamila Grossman for The New York Times; Jock Fistick for The New York Times

Left to right: outside a small performance space at Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona; Volkesbühne in Berlin; inside the Kaaitheater in Brussels.

I figured I might someday take an amibitious cultural jaunt through Europe, catching a classical concert at La Monnaie in Brussels, a musical off Las Ramblas in Barcelona, and cutting-edge dance performances in Berlin — all from the best seats in the house. I just imagined it would have wait until I retired as the Frugal Traveler columnist and retrained as, say, a plastic surgeon to the stars.

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Djamila Grossman for The New York Times

Tending bar at the Madame Claude bar and performance space in Berlin.

In this job, experiencing European culture has typically meant going to museums, preferably on days when they are free. For performing arts I've settled for concerts-in-the-park, and waited in line for hours for a heavily discounted, obstructed-view nosebleed seat to Chekhov's "Three Sisters" at the Comédie-Française in Paris.

But it turns out that to gorge on performing arts in Europe, you don't have to book philharmonic tickets months in advance or ask the concierge to procure a last-minute box at the opera. Instead, you seek out the kind of performances that you (or starving artists you know) might see in your own city: alternative arts in settings not necessarily promoted at the tourist information booth and not always listed in your guidebook. In other words: Europe, Off Broadway style. Not only will this approach save you money — lots and lots, in fact — but it will also grant you access to an intimate, often quirky side of cities usually reserved for discerning residents and a smattering of traveling artists hooked into the local scene through friends and colleagues.

In May, I spent three long weekends in three cities — Barcelona, Berlin and Brussels — all of which are popular with tourists and have affordable and thriving arts options. I decided to see as many shows as I could, as long as they were all under 20 euros (a little over $25 at $1.28 to the euro).

My endeavor did require a certain amount of intrepid travel, though not the kind that involves eating ants or crossing rivers on makeshift rafts. Think, instead: combing through foreign-language listings using Google Translate and, inevitably, sitting through a dud performance or two. The payoff, though, was a dazzling and utterly diverse set of shows ranging from the nearly mainstream (but still cheap) to the over-the-top and provocative, all taken in amid crowds of local artists and art lovers — and very few tourists.

Barcelona

Not only is the cultural scene in Barcelona not particularly international, it's often not even Spanish. The city's emphasis on its Catalan heritage and language can make it feel the most insular, but can also be an advantage: those looking for an immersive experience need look no further.

"What Barcelona longs to be is a city of creativity and innovation, especially if you compare it with other cities in Spain," said Francesc Casadesús Calvo, the director of Mercat de les Flors, what a friend in town called "the temple of dance." "Catalans are not afraid of new ideas, and we love the sparks that provoke innovation."

Mercat de les Flors resembles not so much a temple as an airplane hangar inside a cathedral. The cavernous performance space is housed in a beautiful building constructed for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition and later used as a flower market. The show I attended there was a four-part, 16.50-euro performance by IT Dansa, a company of dancers who come to Barcelona from around the world to study, now celebrating its 100th anniversary.

It was my first contemporary dance performance in years, so the notes I took were an exercise in clichés — "raw emotion," "lithe bodies," that sort of thing. But two pieces stood out: "In Memoriam," by the Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, which featured mesmerizingly violent movements performed by dancers who appeared connected by string; it put Hollywood fight scenes to shame. And "Whim," by Alex Ekman, a Swede, was a raucous and hilarious ensemble free-for-all set to a soundtrack that ranged from Nina Simone's version of "My Baby Just Cares for Me" to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" — not a musical selection I expected to find in Barcelona. Strangely enough for a dance performance, language was a slight barrier: the program was in Catalan.

The regional pride that pervades the city is perfectly understandable in an area with a fervent independence movement, but it can be a hurdle of sorts for tourists. After seeing a chamber choir performance of Catalan Baroque works at the smallest hall in the grand Palau de la Música Catalana (8 euros), I mentioned to a taxi driver in Spanish that I had enjoyed the concert but was sorry I couldn't understand what the director was telling the audience. "You were in the cradle of Catalan culture," he replied. "If he had spoken Spanish, people would have gotten up and left."

Seth Kugel is the Frugal Traveler columnist for the Times Travel section.


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