‘A night without a moon’, show by Juan Diego Bottorose as Best theater show in los Max Awards 2022 that were celebrated for the first time at the Teatre Principal in Mahón (Minorca) this Monday. They were the first without the need for a mask, in which there was a clamor to recover the public in theaters. The pandemic first, the fear of inflation due to the war in Ukraine combined with the arrival of good weather have left many functions with half plans or less. As Juan José Solana, president of the SGAE Foundation, organizer of the awards for 25 years, said in his speech: “Theatre and dance have not recovered from the accommodation of entertaining at home. We need that to change, that people Get up out of those cushy seats and get back to the theaters.”
Juan Diego Botto, creator and performer of ‘Una noche sin luna’, a solo work about the death of Federico Garcia Lorca, could not be present to be on a shoot. Her message, however, came through her sister Nur Levi who read the words of the actor when he won the award for best male performer which he dedicated “to all the men and women who, like Federico García Lorca, are still buried in the gutters waiting for justice to be done”. His message received a standing ovation. When the prize was awarded to best theater show, Sergio Peris Mencheta, director of the play, proclaimed: “Long live Lorca, long live Botto and long live the mother who gave birth to them!” Cristina Rota, Botto’s mother, was on stage. “He wrote the work because there were echoes in Lorca’s life in our days,” she said, referring to “the rise of the extreme right that appropriates Spanishness to expel the rest of us, which staged a coup and provoked a war.” . And he remembered “Lorca is the most famous missing person but not the only one”.
Botto recalled “all the men and women like García Lorca who are still buried in the gutters waiting for justice to be done”
‘I sing and the mountain dances‘, an adaptation of the novel by Irene Solà, was the first Catalan show to win the statuette in the shape of a masked apple designed by Joan Brossa. It was for Best Scenic Design, for Alfred Casas and Laura ‘Closca’, that Joan Arqué and Guillem Albà, creators of the staging, picked up the award and went up again after winning the award for Best Direction. “We appreciate the possibility of working with simple things“, they said. “We are clowns even if they give us an award now for a serious show. Thanks to the production company La Perla for the maximum freedom”, said Albà. And Arqué recalled that “without the super team and super interpreters behind us we would not be here”. The show will return to Barcelona in July soon but “we would like to go to Madrid”, they pointed out. Judit Nedderman: “It’s an honor, my first experience in theater. I have learned a lot. Music would not be what it is without the words of Irene Solà and the arrangements of guitarist Amaya Miranda”.
Catalan flavor
Monica Lopez won his first award Best Actress in the Max for ‘What are we talking about while we’re not talking about all this shit’, his first foray into La Calòrica. Overjoyed as well as surprised, she thanked the Barcelona company for “its rigor and laughter” and “for teaching me to work in a different way”. Another prize that went to Catalonia was that of the company ‘Kamchatka’, which came up on stage excited to collect the award for “15 years of collective work” for its work ‘Alter’, currently Best Street Theater Show on tour abroad. The truth is that the Catalan embassy present at the Max made almost the plenary session because Jesus Carmona triumphed in dance (Badalona, 1975). Humble, I did not expect the award Best Dance Show and Best Dancer for ‘Baile de bestias’, a flamenco show, avant-garde and intimate. “I never thought that bringing out the beasts that we all carry inside would give me so much,” he said. “If someone hears a child saying that he wants to dance, support him. I come from the Llefià neighborhood, a neighborhood of workers, people without possibilities in which one day a child said I want to dance and today I am here”. On the other hand, the Basque Lucía Lacarra finally won the award for Best Female Performer for ‘In the still of the night’ at the age of 47, after having been nominated in two consecutive editions previously.
The work of ‘Carrer Robadors‘, another acclaimed adaptation, won the award for Best Adaptation. Julio Manrique thanked “the risk assumed by the producers” and dedicated the award to the novelist Matthias Énard. Of all the finalist Catalan artists, only two left empty: the playwright Joan Yago and the actor Guillem Balart.
The dramatist José Luis Alonso de Santos, Max Honor Award, was applauded with his speech and made people laugh with his irony at a gala where Balearic talent shone, especially that of the versatile Samatha Hudson and the pianist Marco Mezquida. Three women, Alessandra García, Sandra Ferrús and María Velasco González triumphed as Best Breakthrough Show, Best Breakthrough Authorship and Best Playwright. Ferrús dedicated the award to ‘All the women who suffer digital sexist violence, in the streets or in the classrooms’. Her show ‘La panadera’ is about that.
All the awards of the Max Awards
best lighting design
Nicolás Fischtel for ‘Creation’
Best Costume Design
Ana Garay for ‘Rebellion’
Best Stage Space Design
Alfred Casas and Laura Clos ‘Closca’ for ‘Canto jo i la muntanya balla’
best production work
Unahoramenos Productions for ‘Moria’
Best Male Dance Performer
Jesús Carmina for ‘Beast Dance’
Best Female Dance Performer
Lucía Lacarra por ‘In the still of the night’
best Actor
Juan Diego Botto for ‘A Moonless Night’
Best actress
Mònica López for ‘What are we talking about while we’re not talking about all this shit’
Best stage direction
Guillem Albà and Joan Arqué for ‘I sing and the mountain dances’
best street show
‘Alter’, by Compañía Kamchatka
Best show for children, youth or family audiences
‘Cris, brave little girl’, by El Espejo Negro and Teatro del Soho Caixabank
Best Musical or Lyrical Opera Show
‘Company’, from Soho Caixabank
Best Breakthrough Show
‘Woman on a treadmill on a black background’, by Alessandra García
best dance show
‘Dance of beasts’ by Jesús Carmona Dance Company
best theater show
‘A moonless night’
Max award added: social character
Fallen from the sky
Max Honor Award
Jose Luis Alonso de Santos
best music composition
Judit Neddermann for ‘I Sing and the Mountain Dances’
best choreography
Iratxe Ana and Igor Bacovich for ‘CreAción’
Best Theatrical Adaptation or Version
Julio Manrique, Marc Artigau and Sergi Pompermayer for ‘Carrer Robadors’
Best Breakthrough Authorship
Sandra Ferrús for ‘La panadera’
Best playwright
María Velasco González for ‘I cut down the men on the face of the earth’