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Temporada Alta brings together 91 shows and turns Girona into a performing-arts capital this autumn
Girona and Salt will again become one of Europe’s major centres for performing arts this autumn. Temporada Alta will hold its 35th edition from 3 October to 8 December, with 91 shows, 131 performances and 22 world premieres spread across 22 venues and nine municipalities.
The programme will bring together international companies and creators such as Needcompany, Peeping Tom, Romeo Castellucci, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Christiane Jatahy, Guy Cassiers and Valérie Dréville. There will be 16 international productions in total, including four world premieres that reinforce the festival’s role as a place where shows are also created, rather than merely touring productions being presented.
The opening will come from HAS BEEN, the first collaboration between choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and circus and visual-theatre creator Martin Zimmermann. The production, which reflects on the fear of ceasing to be relevant as an artist, can be seen on 4 and 5 October at the Teatre Municipal de Girona.
Among the highlights are also Everything Must Change, by Needcompany, and Le Salon ‘revisited’, by Peeping Tom, both world premieres. Romeo Castellucci will arrive in December with Faust. Fet, no dit, a new approach to the Faust myth that will premiere in Spain at El Canal de Salt.
Catalan creation will carry comparable weight. La Veronal, Mal Pelo, Baró d’Evel, Lluïsa Cunillé, Jordi Casanovas, Victoria Szpunberg, Carlota Gurt and Ramon Madaula are among the names in an edition that combines large productions with smaller works and processes still under construction. Christiane Jatahy will also revive her particular reading of Strindberg with Júlia – 15 anys més tard.
Music will broaden the programme even further, with concerts by Pink Martini alongside Storm Large and by the Cuban Eliades Ochoa, among others. From 19 to 22 November, Semana Big Bang will concentrate part of the contemporary creation and bring together artists, spectators and international programmers around proposals that have the potential to travel beyond Catalunya.
The festival will also move beyond its two historic venues. This edition will extend to nine municipalities, and Maçanet de la Selva joins the map this year, bringing shows to audiences who do not necessarily travel to Girona or Salt. In total, the organisation will put more than 45,000 tickets on sale.
General sales will begin on Thursday 3 September at 9.00 am online, and there will also be in-person sales that morning at the municipal theatres of Girona and Salt. The 1st and 2nd will be reserved for patrons and members of El Club.
Thirty-five editions later, Temporada Alta begins the new season with more than 1.3 million spectators accumulated since its birth. For those who live in Barcelona, the approximately one-hour train journey to Girona once again puts the festival within cultural-break distance: an autumn afternoon can begin in Sants and end in front of one of the great companies of the European stage.