The Formentera Council's heritage office wishes to announce that next week, October 2-6, the island will welcome back the Joan Marí Cardona research seminars for their seventh year. The day-long conferences, or jornades, will run from 8.00pm in the Office of Culture and Heritage's conference room.

“Since 2011, the Jornades d'Estudis Locals have been a way for the Council to promote research related to Formentera's cultural heritage,” explained patrimony secretary Susana Labrador. “This year's mission is the same”.

The following speakers were chosen for this year's programme:

Marina Mayans Marí, chemist, for research on ethnobotany on Formentera.
Benjamí Costa Ribas, head archaeologist at the Museu d'Arqueologia d'Eivissa i Formentera, for his expertise on Formentera's undersea archaeological patrimony in the museum's collection.
Maria José Escandell Torres and Ricard Marlasca Martín, archaeologists, for their work on the Byzantine necropolis dig site at carrer del Metge Vicent Riera in Sant Francesc Xavier.
Francesc Xavier Torres Peters, Eivissa cathedral canon and liturgy and patrimony delegate diocese, for his insight on Formentera-related documentary sources in Eivissa's historical Pabordia archives.
Antoni Marimon Riutort, professor of contemporary history in the Historical Sciences and Theory of the Arts Department at the UIB, for his historical research on Balearic emigration to Latin America.

In this way, the conference program is configured as follows:

Monday 2 Introduction to the ethnobotany of Formentera
Marina Mayans Marí

Tuesday 3 The Formentera heritage preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Eivissa and Formentera Benjamí Costa Ribas 

Wednesday 4 A new Byzantine necropolis on Formentera: burials at sa Tanca Vella                                  Maria José Escandell Torres and Ricard Marlasca Martín

Thursday 5 Documentary testimonies of Formentera in the historical archive of the Eivissa Pabordia
Francesc Xavier Torres Peters

Friday 6 Balearic emigration to Latin America. The case of Formentera
Antoni Marimon Riutort

As in the last year, the Formentera Teaching Centre has included the series of conferences within the educational offer for teaching staff, so that the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Balearic Islands will recognise the credits Those interested in attending the sessions.

The Formentera Council's local heritage office has partnered with the Museo de la Cal, or “Lime Museum,” of Morón de la Frontera, Sevilla, and the island's small and medium-sized business association (PIMEF), to schedule a training course October 16-19 on lime and how to use it to restore historical structures.

The CiF's heritage secretary called it “hands-on learning with a bit of theory thrown in the mix” on the uses and application of lime (calç in Catalan) in historical restorations. The classes are intended especially for professionals with jobs in construction, architecture and restoration.

Instructor Luís Prieto is a craftsman employed by the Museo's training programme. Participants in Prieto's course get 16 hours of instruction afternoons from 4.00pm to 8.00pm. Registration is free and can be done through the PIMEF or the CiF culture and local heritage offices.

“Incorrect production and application of lime mortar is one of the leading problems affecting Formentera's heritage sites. The cultural heritage branch of the Council has pressed for training programmes for field professionals because, ultimately, they are the ones enlisted in efforts to restore structures of noted historical importance,” explained the secretary.

Training residents to use traditional architectural techniques and material is discussed in Formentera's 2017-2019 directive on cultural heritage. It has been in effect since its adoption by the Council in plenary.

L'Illa a Escena, the Formentera Council culture department's autumn music and performing arts programme, is back. There is something for everybody on the cultural catalogue scheduled to hit the Formentera cinema, plus, artists from across the creative spectrum, peddling theatrics, dance and children's shows.

September
As September comes to a close, the acclaimed theatre group es Cubells will be teeing up their latest work, Operació Peix Frit, for island audiences. It is a comedy about some crafty government employees who hatch a scheme to dupe country folk who have won first prize in a Christmas lottery.

The show is on Saturday 30 September at 9.00pm in the cinema.

October
The month of October is youngsters' chance to see Akari, a contemporary dance show from celebrated troupe Date Danza. Light holds the starring role in this production, and two dancers show how adults are reflected in newborn babies as they grow.

The show starts Sunday 1 October at 6.00pm in the cinema.

Another October feature is Periferia Teatro's kids' puppet show, Vola Ploma. In this show about freedom and respect for our true nature as human beings, the lead gets the chance to realise her dream. The audience, for its part, gets to join her in flight.

The show opens Saturday 28 October at 5.30pm in the cinema. Akari and Vola Ploma are part of the Spanish cultural ministry's programme Platea to promote partnerships between professional dance, theatre and circus groups, enrich the performing arts and act as a source of culture.

November
Hilos comes to town in November. Crowned with the 2011 National Award for Children's Performing Arts and five-time winner of the European Children's Performing Arts Fair, Rosa Díaz weaves a tale of love between a mother and her newborn, of the passage of time and of the ties that bind us to life. Hilos is part of the Ministry of Culture's Platea programme.

Hilos is scheduled to open Saturday 11 November at 9.00pm in the cinema.

This year, Formentera celebrates International Children's Day with a show for the whole family that is loaded with physical theatre, puppets and music. Codi Postal 00 traces the letters and parcels whose humdrum qualities metamorphose into something tender-hearted. It is part of Sa Xerxa and Platea's programme of family-friendly productions, now in its eleventh year.

Codi Postal 00 is presented by Engruna Teatre and opens Saturday 25 November at 6.00pm in the cinema.

December
Produccions de Ferro's Peccatum is part of TalentIB, an initiative of Institut d'Estudis Baleàrics. With Toni Gomila taking on joint duties as writer and actor, the show settles into la Mola's Casa del Poble on 10 December.

The show is a pastiche of our most popular folk tales, culled and served up with ribald aplomb by Mossèn Alcover. Gomila and Catalina Florit employ some of popular culture's most common orally-transmissible vices, sins, vulgarities and smut in interpreting the piece.

This adults-only show begins its two-day run at la Mola's Casa del Poble on Thursday 30 November at 8.30pm.

For younger crowds, Produccions de Ferro also presents Viatge a la font de xocolata. This show, whose title signifies “Journey to the chocolate fountain,” combines acting, puppets, masks and other visual devices to tell a universal tale of affirming, optimistic and constructive learning that is also packed with emotion.

The show comes to the cinema on 28 December at 5.30pm.

Promoting culture
L'Illa a Escena gets support from Institut d'Estudis Baleàrics' TalentIB and Platea, a Ministry of Culture programme to foment culture.

According to an announcement from the Formentera Council's heritage office, a project titled “Formentera's changing Catalan: a look at language as spoken by young people,” headed up by Dr Francesc Josep Torres Tamarit, Maria del Mar Joan i Marí and Dr Rob Jelier, has been awarded the Formentera Council's research grant for 2016.

Of fifteen applications received, thirteen met the requirements for entry. The projects were then reviewed by a committee based on scientific interest, coherence, methodology and the researchers' professional credentials. As heritage secretary Susana Labrador reported, “One project remained at the end of our review: Aproximació al català de Formentera”.

Roughly translated as “A study of locally-spoken Catalan,” the project will explore intergenerational variations in language. Labrador says the study's practitioners have set their sights on another milestone too: a web-based collection of their related data, accessible to anyone. In addition to responses taken from language questionnaires (including information about verbal morphology and Catalan's so-called “weak pronouns”), the data would also encompass childhood anecdotes recounted by respondents. Councillor Labrador described the study's potential audience as diverse, enfolding “the general public, linguists, dialect specialists, professors and even social sciences researchers”.

One of the study's pillars, a reflection on the sort of Catalan taught in Formentera schools, will include a proposal emphasising spoken Catalan in the instructional approach to weak pronouns. Researchers will study the need to teach the grammar of a language as it is actually used by its speakers. Traditionally, the brand of Catalan spoken on Formentera differs from the mainstream written form, and, the researchers say, the local blend of the language is currently undergoing a metamorphosis.

More grant money
Labrador reported on the 9 September launch of a new call for applications, the conditions of which were recently published on the Official Bulletin of the Balearic Islands (BOIB for its initials in Catalan). The Formentera Council's 2017 grant will provide €6,000 to whichever individual or group study holds up to competitive review.

As in the previous two years, applicants' areas of specialisation can include the arts, humanities and social sciences. Researchers will have twenty business days to present applications.

Projects must have a title, description, theoretical plan, research methodology, objectives, detailed plan for work and cost estimates.