Presentation

The Festival

We are a performing arts festival mainly in the cities of Girona and Salt between the months of October and December, a window open to the world and a meeting point between the Catalan and international scene, a space for the display of theatre proposals and a platform for supporting the creation and production of shows, an impeller of the professional exchange networks. We are a performing arts festival that goes beyond the framework of the festival itself. At Temporada Alta we have been become one of the national and international reference events, and we have earned a place on the map as one of the best European festivals.

The programme

The big names on the international scene share the stage with national and emerging talents. Year after year we try to offer a wide and varied programme, a sample of current trends. We work for plurality, to incorporate genres and proposals of all kinds (circus, dance, live music and cinema) to a programme complemented by a wide range of parallel activities. The interest in attracting and convincing all kinds of people, with different tastes and interests, has turned Temporada Alta into an unmissable event.

International projection

We target a significant part of the programming to shows from around the world. The international vocation is one of the main features of the Festival. Over the years we’ve been building bridges between European theatre and Ibero-American theatre and have exported Temporada Alta to various Ibero-American cities. For us, the Festival is a meeting point between the Catalan and international scene. A space to show international productions and, at the same time, an opportunity to showcase what is done in Catalonia and promote the internationalization of the scene and the Catalan companies.

Motor of creation

We collaborate in the production or co-production of a large part of the shows that we premièred during the Festival. We consider that this line of productions is an indispensable tool for placing Temporada Alta and the Catalan scene at the centre of the European and international scene. We want to stimulate performing arts creation, become a nerve centre of the country’s dramaturgy and increase the international presence of Catalan shows. We weave alliances and complicities with companies and producers, with public and private theatres, national and international. We follow a production line dedicated to contacting international directors such as Kristian Lupa, Guy Cassiers or Claudio Tolcachir with Catalan artistic and technical teams. We collaborate with institutions, festivals and agents around the world. And we have managed to position ourselves as one of the main creative and productive motors in the country.

More than performing arts

We are, they say, the “best autumn festival in the south of Europe”. A specific performing arts festival, although also dedicated to music and cinema, two artistic disciplines that have been gaining presence and relevance in the last years. At Temporada Alta we organise concerts, shows with live music and screenings of great names in national and international cinema. We will never get tired of exploring new contact points between disciplines, trying to open new channels of dialogue and to establish correspondences between the performing arts and the big screen.

The audience, the citizens!

At Temporada Alta we are at the public’s side, close to the audience. We establish a fruitful relationship, making them an agent of the Festival, involving them in other areas of the stage experience, inviting them to participate in the creation of shows or the organization of events, encouraging -They think, comment, debate, talk about the experience, relate to the culture from a more participative position, to open channels of participation beyond the audience. We see the audience as an active part of programming, and not as a simple consumer.

Relationship with the city and the territory

We are a festival deeply rooted in the territory and the cultural fabric of the region of Girona. With the neuralgic centre in Girona and Salt, we have extended, on some occasions, to several towns in the province (Palafrugell, Banyoles, Bescanó, Torroella, Figueres…) and even to Barcelona. Over the last years we have grown territorially and we have multiplied the number of exhibition spaces. We want to exert an irradiating capital, extending the network of cities and institutions linked to Temporada Alta, bringing the theatre to unconventional spaces (museums, monasteries, libraries…) and always trying to bring it as close as possible to neighbourhoods, schools, public spaces, the public… Without ever losing sight, of course, the will to turn the territory into a centre of powerful creative creation and to project it internationally.

Awards and recognitions

At Temporada Alta we have accumulated prizes and recognitions. We want to highlight the Noves Tendències Max Award (2012) and the Butaca Honorífic Prize (2003) for the appreciation of the theatre. Salvador Sunyer, Festival director, was awarded the National Theatre Prize (2008) and the Temporada Alta promotional shorts have received the Grand Laus Prize (L’incendi, 2018; The Pleasure Island, 2017) and the Laus d’Or Prize (Tragèdia, el cant de la cabra, 2015). Temporada Alta has also been awarded the Cactus Prize for the Best Communication Campaign (2017) and, for some years now, the Observatorio de la Cultura de la Fundación Contemporánea regards us among the best cultural events in Spain. And the awards given to shows that have been going through Temporada Alta during all these years of festival are virtually incomparable. To give just one example, the awards to Terra Baixa, L’adversari o Història d’un senglar (o alguna cosa de Ricard)..

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