The Festival

1. The Festival as an entrance door

Temporada Alta is intended to enhance the arrival of new productions from abroad or the rest of Spain. This year the Festival will receive 30 shows from outside Catalonia, five from the rest of Spain and 25 from abroad:

THEATRE
This year's international theatre program is, a priori, the most powerful and balanced of all of those that have been given until now (there are a few shows which had not been performed for the first time when the program was closed). As in the last editions of the Festival, it includes new assemblies by directors who have already passed through Temporada Alta and others coming for the first time. Some of the most significant are:

William Kentridge, Woyzeck on the Highveld
Declan Donnellan i Cheek by Jowl. Macbeth
Peter Brook. Love is my sin
Daniel Veronese. He will present two new versions of two classics by Ibsen for the first time in Europe in Temporada Alta, A Dolls' House and Hedda Gabler: The development of the coming civilisation and All great governments have avoided intimate theatre.
Claudio Tolcachir. Tercer cuerpo (la historia de un intento absurdo)
Cristoph Marthaler. Platz Mangel
Slava Polunin. Slava's Snowshow
Krystian Lupa. Les Presidentes
The Watermill Theatre. Hot Mikado.
Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Trilogia della Villeggiatura
Samuel Beckett & Rick Cluchey. Krapp's last tape
(...)

DANCE
In this edition of the Festival, there will be six dance shows, another intensely mixing dance and text theatre, and finally a set-up. On the one hand, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and María Pagés will give a first performance of Dunas, a project joint produced for the Festival. Marta Carrasco will give the first performance in Temporada Alta of the new large show Dies Irae; en el Rèquiem de Mozart. Mal Pelo will present us with the project Swimming horses. Jordi Cortés will first perform V.I.T.R.I.O.L. And finally, Sol Picó will pass through Temporada Alta with an assembly mixing text and dance, El ball.

CIRCUS
This year, circus has one of the star places at the Festival, Slava's Snowshow by Slava Polunin, the theatrical performance with most tickets on sale in Temporada Alta. The festival will also include the first performance in Spain of the joint production from EL CANAL, Le sort du dedans by Blai Mateu and Camille Decourtye. For the family audience, there will be Oniricus, the show by the Ateneu Popular de 9 Barris of Barcelona.

MUSIC
With regard to music, there will be renowned international artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Toumani Diabaté and the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club ®. An independent music cycle is also suggested with separate tickets: Andrés Calamaro, José Gonzalez, Charlie Winston and The Dirty Club. However, this year, above all, a clear stake is being made on the young audience with innovative proposals such as rinôçérôse and Vitalic, leading artists on the international electronic stage, elbicho, with the rock-flamenco fusion, and the Spanish hip-hop group La Excepción, all alongside Catalan musicians: Gerard Quintana, Manel, CaboSanRoque , Electrotoylets and the Orquestra Fireluche.

2. Motor of stage creation

The Temporada Alta Festival this year joint produces or collaborates in the production of 27 shows, some specially commissioned by the Festival. The shows are joint produced both with public theatres, (TNC, Teatre Lliure, Mercat de les Flors) and country (Festival Grec of Barcelona), as well as with private companies and halls (Cia Marta Carrasco, CaboSanoque, Cia Roger Bernat, Cia Jordi Cortés, Cia Pep Bou, Projecte Galilei, Sala La Planeta...)

Among the joint productions this year, we might highlight the latest shows by Pep Bou, with Jorge Wagensberg, by Lluís Homar, Marta Carrasco, or the directors Toni Casares, Joan Ollé, Sergi Belbel, Josep Galindo, Jordi Oriol, Roger Bernat, Albert Mestres...

3. Contemporary creation and young directors

The programming of recent years presented the most interesting youngsters alongside already consolidated artists from Catalonia, and so, this year, amongst many others, the festival will receive Àlex Serrano, Glòria Balanyà with a text by Pau Miró, Jordi Oriol, Carles Fernández, Blai Mateu ... In recent years, the Festival has collaborated with ÀREAtangent by giving it space to present the novíssims novelties. Now that this group considers that its career has come to an end, they wish to bid farewell with an exhibition on the new modern stage and Para theatre formats, with pieces by Marcel.lí Antúnez, Xavi Bobés, Iker Gómez, Raquel Tomàs and Jordi Casanovas.

4. The audience

The audience is decisive for the stage arts and is a basic figure for the Temporada Alta Festival. Up to now, one of the main problems has been that people ended up in the street for many shows. More performances of some assemblies have been programmed (112 in total against 98 last year) and a lot more tickets have been put on sale (because the performances in large arenas have increased) in order to drop the occupation and thus allow everyone who wants, to see the works. As every year, it has been attempted to make a program which gives everyone a good choice and allows them to see a few shows, bearing in mind that there are many different audiences and that our spectators are more and more demanding, but which at the same time enables us to prepare a more difficult program.

5. El Canal Art Centre of Salt-Girona

For the third executive year, the Festival will be working with the Centre along two lines: the first with the intention of helping stage creation by artists from our country to go out and travel abroad (for example, the joint production of Le sort du dedans and The Odyssey), and the other devoted to putting Catalan independent text on the stage and presenting it alongside the large international shows. This year, for example, El jardí dels cincs arbres (The garden of five trees), made with texts by Espriu, will be the show that opens Temporada Alta. Apart from this, we will also be able to see Al Cel (To heaven), by Narcís Comadira and Xavier Albertí, devoted to Jacint Verdaguer, and El quadern gris (The grey book) by Josep Pla.

6. Collaboration with festivals and theatres from outside Catalonia

The future line of working with theatres and festivals from outside Catalonia, which was started last year, has this year been given a considerable drive by INTERREG, help from the E.U. on the Transfrontier Catalan Stage project. In the three coming editions, the Festival will be able to devote more energy to working along with some of the most important actors on the European and international stage. Aside from working with the theatrical institutions of Catalonia, this year, this new collaboration is allowing Temporada Alta to make joint productions with the Madrid Autumn Festival, the Lyons Dance Festival, the Singapore Dance Festival, London's Dance House, Les Visiteurs du Soir, Centre National des Arts de la Rue de France, to name but a few, and above all with the Théâtre de l'Archipel of Perpignan. This theatre opens a stable door to Temporada Alta, which in the coming years will enable the Catalan theatre to have a fluid relationship with the French stage.