 |
Albert Boadella | |
|---|---|
 Boadella in 2019 | |
| Born | July 29, 1943 |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Alma mater | University of Barcelona |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, playwright |
| Notable work | La Torna , Ubú President, ¡Viva Tabarnia! |
| Awards |
|
Albert Boadella Oncins (born 30 July 1943, in Barcelona) is a Spanish actor and playwright. He was one of the founding members of the Els Joglars theatre company, and its director from 1962 to 2012.
Boadella studied dramatic art at the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona, at the Centre Dramatique de l'Est (Strasbourg) and corporal expression in Paris. As a student, he was part of Italo Riccardi's mime artist company.
In 1962, when he was only 19 years old, Boadella founded the theater company Els Joglars in Barcelona. The company was founded as a partnership with his colleagues Carlota Soldevila and Anton Font. Boadella would go on to develop his entire career as an actor, director and playwright under Els Joglars, writing more than thirty plays. His works tended to have a strong critical and satirical charge, especially in relation to perceived established powers, most frequently the Catholic Church. The critical tendencies of Boadella's works have led to controversies and conflicts with political authorities of different sign.
On 2 December 1977, after the release of La Torna , a satire of the life and execution of Heinz Chez , Boadella was imprisoned and subjected to a court-martial for the alleged offense of insulting the Army. The day before the hearing, he staged a spectacular escape from prison and took refuge in France.
Returning to Spain in the 1980s, he continued to create controversy with works such as Teledeum and Ubú president, which presented strong criticisms of Jordi Pujol and Salvador Dalí.
Apart from his theatrical curriculum, he has created and directed several television programs for different networks, and is the author of the books El Rapto de Talía [lower-alpha 1] (DeBolsillo, 2000) and the memoir Memorias de un bufón [lower-alpha 2] (Espasa Calpe, 2001).
In 2003, he wrote the screenplay for and directed the film ¡Buen viaje, Excelencia! , a caricature of the last months of general Francisco Franco.
A great fan of bullfighting, and a public defender of the art of cúchares, Boadella has frequently placed the emotion of the bullfighting ritual above the rest of the arts. [1] In December 2006, he premiered a work in Madrid in the format of a medieval debate entitled Controversy of the bull and the bullfighter, where reasons for and against the tradition alternate. His support for bullfighting has earned him the admiration of important figures in bullfighting, including José Tomás and Enrique Ponce, as well as criticism from anti-bullfighting sectors. [2] In his memoirs, Boadella rebuffs the criticism of the latter groups:
No one has insulted me with more pleasure, viciousness and fanaticism than those who practice anti-bullfighting with their beatific antiviolent mask. But [...] the more pressure they deploy, the same as the Christians of Ancient Rome, more vigor and sense will acquire the bullfighting. Some popes and even powerful monarchs tried to finish with the bulls. The result is clear: there is a growing number of farms and it is better bullfought.
— Albert Boadella, Adiós Cataluña, 2007, p. 280
In September 2007, his memoir Adiós Cataluña. Crónicas de amor y de guerra [lower-alpha 3] won the 24th Premio Espasa de Ensayo awards. [3] At the presentation of the book, he explained that his goodbye to Catalonia was not metaphorical, but real: he announced that he would not work again in Catalonia before the end of the boycott suffered by his works in the region. [4]
Since 2009, he has been the artistic director of the Teatros del Canal, following an offer from the President of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre. [5]
On 11 September 2012, he announced that the management of the company Els Joglars would be transferred to Ramon Fontserè . The announcement was made during the presentation of the 2012-13 season of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico , with which Els Joglars has produced Miguel de Cervantes' play The Dialogue of the Dogs. [lower-alpha 4] [6] [7] [8]
In December 2012, he was awarded the Alfonso Ussía awards in the category of Person of the Year, together with Arturo Fernández. [9]
In 2017, he received the 20th Pepe Isbert National Theater Awards, granted by Amigos de los Teatros Históricos de España, [lower-alpha 5] and the 13th Joaquín Vidal national university awards in bullfighting, awarded by the Círculo Taurino Universitario Don Luis Mazzantini.
Albert Boadella in his youth was close to Catalanist positions and, in general, to the Catalan anti-Francoist left, of which he was a cultural icon due to his actions in supporting the Nova Cançó . After the restoration of the Generalitat de Catalunya, and after the production of Operació Ubú (which parodied Jordi Pujol and confronted him with the governing nationalism), he became closer to the Socialists' Party of Catalonia, then in the opposition. Boadella confesses in his memoirs that these later actions were more to seek refuge from the boycotts of his works than by his own convictions.
Throughout his long career, carrying with him the common ideals of the defense of freedom and criticism of dogmatism, he has made furious criticisms of institutional power, ranging from Jordi Pujol, Francisco Franco, some bishops and the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya. This has led to hatred towards him from the Spanish far-right, the Catalan independence movement, and some sectors of Catholicism. He has used his works to make scathing parodies of cultural figures such as Salvador Dalí, but also to show a fond admiration for others like Josep Pla, as in his La increíble historia del Dr. Floït & Mr. Pla [lower-alpha 6] (1997).
Boadella is belligerently opposed to the "Catalanist drift" to nationalism that he attributes to the Socialists' Party of Catalonia as a result of the Pact of Tinell and the policies of Catalan socialism under Pasqual Maragall's leadership. He was one of the intellectual promoters of the civic platform Ciutadans de Catalunya, from which emerged the Ciudadanos party. In the second congress of this party he was part of the opposition to Albert Rivera; after Rivera's victory, Boadella has distanced himself from the party. He would later transfer his support to the new party Union, Progress and Democracy, with approaches analogous to the original association of Ciutadans de Catalunya. In recent years, he has publicly supported efforts from the Ciudadanos party.
On 16 January 2018, he was introduced as "President-in-exile" of Tabarnia, a satirical anti-independence movement in Catalonia trying to separate the provinces of Tarragona and Barcelona from the rest of Catalonia in order to create a hypothetical 18th autonomous community.
Josep Bargalló i Valls is a Spanish teacher and politician from Catalonia and the current Minister of Education of Catalonia.
Vicent Partal is a Spanish journalist and director of VilaWeb. He has also worked in El Temps, Diari de Barcelona, TVE, Catalunya Ràdio, El Punt, and La Vanguardia, among others. He is considered an Internet pioneer.
Martí de Riquer i Morera, 8th Count of Casa Dávalos was a Spanish literary historian and Romance philologist, a recognised international authority in the field. His writing career lasted from 1934 to 2004. He was also a nobleman and Grandee of Spain.
José Rubianes Alegret, better known as Pepe Rubianes was a Galician actor and theater director, born in Galicia and brought up in Catalonia, specializing in mime, imitation and monologues. He was known for his irony, his sharp sense of humor and verbal torrents sprinkled with swear words, and rigorously dressing in black clothes when acting in dramatic scenes. He defined himself as a "Galician-Catalan actor: Galician because I was born in Galicia although I hardly ever lived there, and Catalan because I have always lived in Catalonia although I was never born here."
Oriol Bohigas i Guardiola was a Spanish architect and urban planner, known for his work in the modernization of Barcelona.
Left Movement of Catalonia is a social-democratic, pro-independence political party in Catalonia. The party was founded in November 2014 from the merger of New Catalan Left (NECat) and Catalonia Movement, which had both been formed by dissident members of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC) who were dissatisfied with what they saw as the party's lack of support for the independence movement. Its founders included Marina Geli and Ernest Maragall (NECat), but both have ever since left for other parties—Geli joined the Together for Catalonia alliance ahead of the 2017 Catalan regional election, whereas Maragall defected to Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) in 2018.
The 2017 Catalan regional election was held on Thursday 21 December 2017 to elect the 12th Parliament of the autonomous community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election. The election was called by Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy after the invocation of Article 155 of the 1978 Spanish Constitution to enforce direct rule in Catalonia and the subsequent dismissal of the Catalan government under President Carles Puigdemont. The three pro-Catalan independence parties won a slim majority of parliamentary seats, claiming 70 out of 135, but fell short of a majority in the popular vote by securing 47.6% of the share.
The 2021 Catalan regional election was held on Sunday, 14 February 2021, to elect the 13th/14th Parliament of the autonomous community of Catalonia. All 135 seats in the Parliament were up for election.
Joaquim Torra i Pla, known as Quim Torra, is a Catalan lawyer and journalist from Spain. He served as President of the Government of Catalonia from 17 May 2018 to 28 September 2020, when the Supreme Court of Spain confirmed a court ruling by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia condemning him for disobeying the Central Electoral Board during the April 2019 general election, leading to his disqualification from office.
María de los Llanos de Luna Tobarra, is a Spanish politician and lawyer, who has been Delegate of the Spanish Government in Catalonia between 2011 and 2016.
José Alsina Calvés, is an activist for Spanish Nationalism. Former president of far-right organisation Somatemps and director of the magazine Nihil Obstat. He also was one of the founders of Catalan Civil Society.
Sol Picó Monllor is a Spanish dancer and choreographer. She has studied Spanish dance, ballet, and contemporary dance, and combines different techniques and languages in her productions in a groundbreaking way. In 1993 she created the Sol Picó Company, with which she has become one of the most heterodox choreographers and dancers of the Spanish contemporary scene. She has received numerous awards, including 10 Premios Max, the National Dance Award of Catalonia (2004), the City of Barcelona Dance Award (2015) and the National Dance Award of Spain (2016).
Jordi Amat Fusté is a Spanish essayist, philologist, editor and cultural critic, expert in the 20th-century intellectual history of Catalonia and the rest of Spain. He writes in both the Catalan and Spanish languages.
Joan Planellas i Barnosell is a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been serving as the archbishop of Tarragona since his installation on 4 May 2019. He previously served as a canon on the Girona Cathedral. He was also given the Missionary of Mercy title, that is a group of priests that were designated by the Pope to forgive serious sins normally only reserved to the Holy See. Barnosell became a priest in 28 March 1982.
Manuel Cruz Rodríguez is a Spanish philosopher and politician who served as the 60th President of the Senate from May to December 2019. Prior to this, between 2016 and 2019, Cruz served as member of the Congress of Deputies in representation of Barcelona. He is a member of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia.
Destino was a Spanish weekly magazine published in Spain between 1937 and 1980, initially in Burgos and from 1939 in Barcelona.
Francesc Burrull was a Spanish jazz musician and composer. In 2017, he was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi.
Oriol Pla Solina is a Spanish actor from Catalonia.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
