Temporada Alta’s 35th edition runs from 3 October to 8 December, with 91 shows in Girona and Salt over ten weeks. The programme includes 16 international productions and reaches other municipalities in the province. Early sales have already prompted extra performances, while the festival’s central task remains maintaining its direct relationship with Girona.
Several productions have sold out, and extra performances have been added to 12 shows. RTVE and El País reported the early demand. The programme features Needcompany, Peeping Tom, Romeo Castellucci, Guy Cassiers and Larbi Cherkaoui. Festival announcements say the 2026 programme includes 22 world premieres, 21 co-productions and artists from 11 countries, as reported by Cinemagavia and Europa Press.
The official opening follows Saturday’s prologue of Dysphoria by María Goiricelaya and Histrión Teatro. The first major international performance is Has been at the Teatro Municipal de Girona. Cherkaoui and Martin Zimmermann created the work around ageing and the fear of losing artistic relevance.
Has been has no spoken text. Dance, circus, theatre and live music share the stage. Narcís Puig calls it a tragicomedy, full of humour and tenderness. La Vanguardia and ARA identify ageing and the fear of losing artistic relevance as its basic concerns.
Puig sees no need for a high-pressure inauguration. For him, the event begins with the first performance and the audience. He does not want a ceremony designed to attract political or civic attention. He recognises the differences between Temporada Alta and Barcelona’s Grec festival, while saying the two organisations remain close.
Europa Press also reports that the 2026 programme includes Grans Bardisses, a new work by Llatzer Garcia, and another edition of the Torneo de Dramaturgia Catalana.
The figures chart Temporada Alta’s growth. Since its launch, the festival has presented 2,253 shows and welcomed 1,302,620 spectators. Puig credits that record above all to the trust built with Girona. The festival began in 1992 with four shows and grew step by step, keeping its programme connected to its audience.
Growth beyond Barcelona is one of the festival’s defining features. Puig calls Temporada Alta a positive anomaly in a cultural system that often concentrates major events in the Catalan capital. Girona offers a smaller setting where artists and audiences can meet more directly, and the festival has become part of the city’s daily rhythm. Puig believes its ideal size is close to one hundred shows.
The organisation has avoided abrupt changes in leadership or identity. Salvador Sunyer directed Temporada Alta for 33 years and remains involved through the Fundació Ciutat Invisible. Puig has worked at the festival for 17 years, spending years as Sunyer’s deputy and travelling to international performances. The current transition has been deliberately continuous.
That continuity shows in the programme. Cassiers and Christiane Jatahy return to a festival that has followed artists over time, as it did earlier with Peter Brook. Puig also points to Cherkaoui, Castellucci’s Fausto, Tolcachir’s The forest with Cristiana Morganti, Peeping Tom’s revised Le salón and Needcompany’s new phase after Jan Lauwers.
The local selection includes Pablo Messiez’s La forma humana, Mal Pelo’s new family production about Bach, Blai Mateu’s LAB: a la recerca de ‘qui soc?’ with his father Tortell Poltrona, Verborrea with Javier Cámara and Massacre by Agnes Mateus. An earlier Catalan report focused on rain alerts in the region. Temporada Alta’s story is different: its regional reach comes through theatre and the audience it has built around it.
The festival expanded without abandoning its base. As artists and its international programme changed, it moved from text theatre and contemporary dance toward political theatre, documentary work and hybrid forms.
Temporada Alta’s strongest asset is not the size of its 35th edition but the method behind it: gradual growth, a stable audience and Girona at the centre. The festival built its own cultural presence elsewhere instead of imitating Barcelona.
