The latest 'craze' of Alessandra García: making a theatrical August on the beaches of Málaga

She was told that what she wanted to do, and had been working on for months, "was impossible." In her mind, she had envisioned a groundbreaking event on the beach, with the audience in stands on the sand and the actors in the sea. She had the proposal and even the funding, but bureaucracy and the need for permits that would never come thwarted her plans. She cried "a lot," she admits. But three days later, "like Jesus Christ," she sat down with a notebook and rebuilt her proposal. The result is 'The Sea Play,' a new concept she calls "scenic exhibition," where the action takes place over a month in different formats. "Ruins pave your way," says now with a smile Alessandra García, performer, director, playwright, and cultural manager with a Max Award for breakthrough show.

The Schedule

• From August 1 to 10 'Combing the Shore'. Alessandra García will walk from 06:00 to 12:00, from Manilva to Nerja.

• August 11 'Hello is Blue'. 20:00. Balcón de Europa, Nerja. A free happening where attendees are invited to wave at the sea for 4.44 minutes. The performer will be directly opposite, on a beach in Alhucemas.

• August 17 'Get Out of the Water'. In this performance, Alessandra García pushes her limits and will be in the water from sunrise to sunset. Starting from Virginia Beach. She will share her location via IG.

• From August 19 to 22 'Orquesography'. 09:00. The daily choreography of going to the beach becomes a collective ritual guided by a voice.

• August 23 'Bury MA-PA'. 19:00. Playamar. Different generations of a family will participate in the classic game of burying someone in the sand.

• From August 27 to 31 'Verismo, First Movement'. 21:00. A declaration from the beachgoer to the Mediterranean Sea.

• From August 1 to 31 Scenic device 'The Sand Burns'. Playa de la Misericordia, from 12:00 to 20:00. A sonic and scenic experience where the bodies inhabiting the beach become the protagonists. Available for download on Bandcamp.

• More information On the website of La obra del mar

If regulations prevent her from bringing theater on a large scale to that place, she turns to her alternative and street origins, to who she is and what she does. "And I'm going to appropriate the recreational rules of the beach, and from them, I blend with the environment and do what I want, because they don't need to give me permission for that," she argues. With production by Dos Bengalas (her and Violeta Niebla) and the Antonio Banderas Theater Foundation, Alessandra García gathers all the rituals surrounding the act of going to the beach and transforms them into a theatrical action outside of all convention. Taking all the gear to spend the entire day in the sun, taking a stroll on the sand, applying sunscreen to not end up 'red' and not wanting to leave the water until sunset becomes art.

Alessandra will make her own August. "If I connect with my working self, with my family and my city, 'the August' takes on new meaning on the Coast where it feeds many people. And I can do the same: I want it to feed me all year round." Her goal is for projects linked to 'The Sea Play' to emerge, from a documentary to an exhibition, which she will work on in the following months. The first is 'Combing the Shore', literally, a ten-day performance in which she crosses the Coast on foot from Manilva to Nerja. From August 1 to 10, she will walk from before dawn until noon, stopping at the home of a local family. There, she will discuss their relationship with the sea. A GoPro camera on her forehead and audiovisual support will document her journey through the different 'Málagas'.

Her journey ends at the Balcón de Europa in Nerja. From there, she will go to Motril where she will take a ferry to Alhucemas (Morocco) and start the next action: 'Hello is Blue'. She crosses the sea, which in her proposal symbolizes the auditorium, to connect with a personal concern, with her eternal dilemma of whether to leave Málaga to succeed and see what lies beyond the horizon. In Morocco, on a beach facing the coast of Nerja, she will perform a "faith performance": on August 11 at 20:00 hours, she will wave for 4.44 minutes—which signifies communication and deep connections in numerology—trusting that someone will do the same on the other side.

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Back home, she will take to the extreme the attitude of ignoring a mother's cry of "Get out of the water now!" On August 17, from dawn until sunset, Alessandra García will not leave the water. "Which does not mean that I cannot ride on vehicles, like floats, pedal boats, jet skis...," she clarifies. Virginia Beach will be the starting point.

The last performance brings her back to the sand. At Playamar, Alessandra García gathers families for an intergenerational action that claims the beach as one of the few places where families coexist "without the capitalist act being involved" (like shopping, eating in a restaurant, traveling). In 'Bury MA-PA', on August 23 at 19:00 hours, they will play a classic summer game: burying someone in the sand, in this case, whoever precedes them in the family tree (children to their mothers, mothers to grandmothers).

And that concludes the performances, all free. Now come the experiences. Throughout August, the scenic device 'The Sand Burns' will be active, available for download on Bandcamp. It is recommended to activate it on Playa de la Misericordia from noon to eight in the evening: through headphones and a mobile phone, the user will be immersed in the sonic universe and the words of Violeta Niebla and Alessandra García. "And the entire beach will be performing for you," she explains.

Throughout August, the scenic device 'The Sand Burns', a sonic experience designed for Playa de la Misericordia, will be active

Also with headphones, 'Orquesography' is experienced: as if it were a Renaissance choreographic score, 40 people per session will participate in an exclusive beach ritual. From August 19 to 22, at 9 in the morning at a location to be determined, they will create an ephemeral architecture of towels on the sand and unfold all the popular wisdom about how to spend a day at the beach "that has been passed down from generation to generation." Additionally, they will witness how a 'stranger' composes a choreography when unable to plant an umbrella. "It's an excuse to open the field of scenic vision to occupy public spaces and to blend in with reality," she explains.

The conclusion of all this "madness" will come from August 27 to 31, with a staging that approaches what she had in mind at the beginning. It will take place on the beach, with the audience seated in chairs and on towels integrated into the usual beach landscape. She titles it 'Verismo, First Movement', referring to that artistic movement from the late 19th century that realistically and crudely depicted the everyday life of ordinary people and changed the plots of operas of the time. A combination of working-class world and grandiloquence that identifies her. "With this, I ask the sea for permission to do this for the rest of my life, to help me kill what hurts and embrace what comes," she concludes. She promises to repeat every August, first in Málaga and then, on any coast in the world.