The International Clown Festival of Cornellà de Llobregat "Memorial Charlie Rivel" is a biennial festival that has been held in Cornellà de Llobregat since 1984 and whose mission is to disseminate the socio-cultural aspect of the performing arts of clowns. It is recognized as one of the most prestigious in Europe and is an international benchmark.
Forty years have already passed since the first edition, in 1984, conceived by Laureà Palmer, who together with Carles Navales and Ignasi Riera, managed to carry out the project, with a spectacular line-up, with artists such as Dimitri, Jango Edwards, Johnny Melville, Tortell Poltrona, Colombaioni brothers, Marcel Gros and so many others!
Thus began what over time has become one of the most important festivals of the genre on a global scale and which now it is our turn to celebrate in the best way we know how, with a festival open to the city and the world, to continue laughing and getting excited with the Clowns and Clowns who have come from all over, with special emphasis on the pioneers of this great Festival.
So, we are celebrating and we want to pay tribute to the ideologists of the FIPC and the clowns who made that first edition possible, which took place from March 20 to 24, 1984, taking advantage of the fact that Cornellà was, that year, the cultural capital of Catalonia.
Health and laughter!
Jordi Juanet “Boni” and Sílvia Compte Bustos
ALAPISTA! Artistic direction of the FIPC
Ignatius Riera
Councilor for Culture of the City Council of Cornellà del Llobregat
1984 – presentation text of the first International Clown Festival of Cornellà, Charlie Rivel Memorial
The question, Reiterada, surprises and worries: And how is it that a 1st Clown Festival is being held in Cornellà del Llobregat? The answer (ironic, paradoxical, provocative) is: it is that Cornellà has become the cultural capital of Catalonia. As with all jokes, there is a touch of variety: the cultural weight of the country will be the result of a series of coordinated and decentralized actions. One of which is this first Clown Festival, at the same time a tribute to Charlie Rivel.
And we say, well aware, that the clown festival is, above all, a "cultural action". Because if culture in bold letters has tried to marginalize the world of clowns, it is time to claim, with our heads held high, that around clowns, the discoveries of the world of plastic arts and all the dramatic arts, the mysteries of music and the magic of gesture are at the forefront.
The best clowns in the world meet —historical events— in Cornellà del Llobregat: the marginals of the entertainment world are concentrated in a peripheral city. Quite a symbol. And, also, a war cry, a mobilizing proposal: "Let yourselves be seduced by this celebration of the absurd that the clown officiates; let yourselves be carried away by the spell of a poor but dynamic city, like Cornellà del Llobregat: reconcile yourselves, in Cornellà and with the clowns and under the suggestive and nostalgic sign of Charlie Rivel, with the imagination”.
