There was a farewell party. The Calderón Theater in Valladolid hosted the 11th Ceremony for awarding gold medals and distinctions of honor, a recognition of the institution “to people or entities with a remarkable professional career in the field of … the performing arts, which have contributed to giving visibility, promoting and expanding the profession based on its daily practice.
The gala was the last event chaired by Cayetana Guillén Cuervoat the head of the institution since January 2022, at the end of his mandate and that of its board of directors according to the statutes of the Academy, which limit it to four. So it’s no surprise that the actress was on the verge of breaking down during her emotional final speech, in which she had words of gratitude and praise for her board members and for the workers of the Academy itself. “I represented you,” he said, “with pride, with enthusiasm, with love, with respect, with vocation and with the deep conviction that the tools that the performing arts bring to the world are fundamental. They help us to evolve, to reflect, to understand, to question and to develop positive skills that make us more capable, more free and, ultimately, better people, which really matters. More complete human beings. Protecting the artistic fact that is born and beats on stage and its value deep has been for this Board of Directors a sacred and very beautiful mission which unites us forever. A magical bond which gives meaning to our lives.
The Academy was born a little over eleven years ago with the fundamental objective of “valorizing, defending and dignifying the performing arts of our country, by promoting their national and international promotion, as well as by encouraging their progress, development and improvement”; Currently, the Academy – organizer of the Talía Awards, its most visible achievement – has almost a thousand members.
Present at the gala were Jordi Martí, Secretary of State for Culture; Javier Monsalve, brand new Director General of Performing Arts and Music; Jesús Julio Carnero, mayor of Valladolid, among other authorities. With Fernando Cayo as master of ceremonies, the Teatro y Artes de Calle de Valladolid (TAC) festival, the Cádiz puppet theater group La Tía Norica, Circo Raluy Legacy, the Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires, the Colombian project Comuna 13, the Dansa Valencia festival, the Teatros del Canal de Madrid – which will host the next edition of the Talía awards – and the Catalan company La Cubana received the medal gold.
For his part, José María Viteri, director for many years of the Calderón Theater in Valladolid, was distinguished as an honorary academic; José Carlos Martínez, former director of the National Dance Company and current director of the Paris Opera Ballet; Daniel Martínez Obregón, president of the production company Focus; Rosalba Rolón, actress and director of Puerto Rican origin, founder and current artistic director of the Pregones Theater Company, in New York; the actresses Petra Martínez – for her it was the biggest ovation of the evening – and Belén Rueda and the actor Carlos Hipólito.
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On January 12, 2026, elections to the Academy’s board of directors will take place. Three candidates presented themselves, the heads of the list of whom sat together in the Calderón: Magüi Mira, Roberto Álvarez and Manuel Moya.
The candidacy chaired by Magüi Mira Its two main objectives are “to recover the essence of the founding objectives of the Academy and to reorient academic life to rediscover enthusiasm for a common project which restores importance to academics”; and secondly “recover the feeling of belonging to the Academy as a space for meeting, dialogue and unity of professionals in the performing arts, through academic life, understood as an experience between its members”. The candidacy includes names such as Anabel Alonso, Antonio Onetti, Carlos Álvarez, Carme Portaceli, Denis Rafter, Igor Yebra, Jorge Blass, Juana Escabias, Juanjo Llorens or Rosángeles Valls.
The actor Roberto Alvarez He leads a candidacy that includes Carolina África, José Luis Arellano, Nicolás Fischtel, José Luis García Pérez, Astrid Jones, Lucía Lacarra, Chusa Martín and Josep Maria Pou. Its objectives, an inclusive and decentralized Academy, which addresses not only major themes and productions, but also the diversity of the performing arts sector throughout Spain; look beyond the big numbers, prioritizing the essence of the performing arts; foster an institution that listens as much as it speaks, where the performing arts are not only celebrated, but thought about, cared for and defended; and build the future of the sector through collaboration and emotional ties between professionals.
The third list is headed by another actor, Manuel Moya. At his side, Alberto Amarilla, Alicia Cabrera, Ana Morales, Carla Nyman, Cristian Martín Cano, Conchita Piña and Inés Narváez. On the program, nine challenges: “promote the real participation of academics, strengthen the functionality and efficiency of the internal structure, update the institutional image and its link with artistic reality, reduce the distance between the Board of Directors and the artistic community, adapt to new practices and stage languages, guarantee full representation and effective diversity, promote true decentralization and coherent international relations, modernize digital tools and management systems and create real spaces for meeting and collaboration”.
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