The National Culture Awards were redesigned in 2020. They went from being a dozen awards divided into categories to five. This eliminated the constraint of awarding prizes by artistic discipline or cultural field. Since 2020, the National Culture Award has been awarded to musicians such as Maria del Mar Bonet, Juan Manuel Serrat, Mayte Martín, and Raquel García-Tomás, as well as the Cantut project of oral tradition songs; festivals such as Eufònic and Dansàneu; writers Narcís Comadira and Rosa Fabregat; playwright Jordi Casanovas; and translator Dolors Udina; editor Maria Carme Dalmau; the Catalan National Endowment for Cultural Development (PEN); filmmaker Carla Simón; actress Vicenta Ndongo; the Tricicle theater company; the Nilak performance space; choreographer Núria Guiu; and circus director Alba Sarraute. painter Joan-Pere Viladecans, illustrator Conrad Roset, photographer Maria Contreras, and electronic artist Mónica Rikić; the Farrera Art and Nature Center; and the Xamfrà project for social inclusion through music and performing arts.
Castellers, art, music, dance, and theater at the National Culture Awards
The highest award from the CoNCA is received by the Castellers de Vilfranca, Dagoll Dagom, Mari Chordà, Marcos Morau and Tarta Relena
BarcelonaA human tower group, a visual artist, a theater company, a choreographer, and a musical duo are the winners of the 2025 National Culture Awards, the awards granted by the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CoNCA) since 2009. The winners are the Castellers de Vilafranca, Mari Chordà, Dagoll Dagom, Marcos Morau, and Tarta Relena, as announced this Friday at an event held at the Circ Cric in Sant Esteve de Palautordera. Each award is worth 20,000 euros.
The 5 National Culture Awards 2025
Castellers of Vilafranca
The owners of the heights
They received the National Culture Award for being "one of the benchmarks of Catalan popular culture worldwide." In addition to the landmarks of the human towers, the CoNCA also highlights "the social and educational work that promotes values such as solidarity, teamwork, inclusion, and a sense of belonging to the region." The Castellers de Vilafranca group, founded in 1948, brings together a thousand people dressed in the iconic green shirt that receives so much admiration when they perform in the square. Its headquarters are located in Cal Figarot, a nerve center where they consider challenges such as the extra-large human towers that have led them to win the Tarragona Human Tower Competition thirteen times. They are heirs to a tradition "that knows no limits." Since the National Culture Awards were reformulated in 2020—since then, only five awards have been granted—this is the first time that a human tower group has won one.
Mari Chordà
Rebellious and committed art
"An iconic figure for art and for the feminist struggle," Antoni Ribas told ARA about Mari Chordà (Ampuesta, 1942). It was following the exhibition Mari Chordà... and many other things that the MACBA dedicated to her in 2024. That exhibition synthesized what the jury of the National Culture Awards considers the artist's great values: "The coherence and quality of the combination of her artistic contribution, fundamentally through painting but also through poetry, with her civic and cultural commitment as a promoter of sociocultural projects." Mari Chordà is combative by nature. She was already so in 1968, when she participated in projects such as Lo Llar de Amposta, and she is now with the same intensity. "There is still a lot of rebellion among women because it is necessary, if not, look at how many women are murdered!" she exclaimed at the MACBA. The award recognizes both poetic work, with outstanding collections of poems such as ...and many other things (1976), Body and Water Notebook (1978), Unfaithful locomotive for the past (1988) and Not as a sound (2022), a pictorial work characterized by abstractions that are often evocative of the female body, sexuality, and pleasure. Mari Chordà's work is featured at the Macba and the Museo Reina Sofía, and she has also exhibited at the Musaco in León and the Tate Modern in London, as well as in Amposta, Tortosa, and Tarragona.
Dagoll Dagom
50 years connecting with the public
The celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Dagoll Dagom company culminates with the National Culture Award. It comes after the last triumphant season of the musical Sea and sky, the umpteenth proof, as CoNCA says, of "the connection with the audience, one of the distinctive features" of the company directed by Joan Lluís Bozzo, Anna Rosa Cisquella and Miquel Periel. Dagoll Dagom's legacy is certainly spectacular: thirty shows and five television series that are part of the Catalan cultural imagination. The success ofAntaviana (1978) was fundamental in making everything that would come later a reality. For example, the delicious Saint John's Eve (1981) with music by Jaume Sisa; The Mikado (1986), adaptation of the operetta by Gilbert & Sullivan, which was also adapted into Catalan The pirates (1997); the memorable cabaret Night Flower (1992), with text by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and music by Albert Guinovart... Obviously, Sea and sky, also with a score by Guinovart to highlight Guimerà's voice. And such popular television series as Oh! Europe (1993) and The memory of snails (1999), one of the best Catalan television productions. "I hope I've revealed something to people that made them a little bit crazy," said Bozzo, reviewing Dagoll Dagom before the premiere. The joy that happens (2023), the company's latest musical. "And that they had a good time with us. Having fun seems like a minor thing, but it's incredibly important," Cisquella added, summing up the essence of Dagoll Dagom.
Marcos Morau
The choreographer of the decade (at least)
Marcos Morau (Ontinyent, 1982), choreographer and director of the Barcelona-based company La Veronal, "is the most important name in contemporary dance in Spain and one of the most sought-after and prestigious artists on the European scene." In short, This is what Laura Serra said in the ARA in 2023. Morau, who in 2021 had already led La Veronal to be The first Catalan company to perform at the Palau dels Papes at the Avignon Festival, had just been appointed resident choreographer of the Staatsballet Berlin... and La Veronal, the company founded two decades ago, had three shows touring the world at the same time: Sonoma, Passionflower and Opening night. In the following two years he continued to expand his impressive resume. In 2024 he released Dressador at the Liceo with the National Ballet of Spain, and Totentanz. Morgen ist die Frage in Milan, and this 2025 has brought at the Venice Biennale Death and Spring, the show inspired by the work of Mercè Rodoreda with which also has inaugurated the season of the National TheaterThe National Association of Dance Choreographers (CoNCA) has awarded him the National Culture Award for "his contribution to the language of choreography and movement, which draws on abstraction to achieve uniqueness and excellence." Or to put it another way, Marcos Morau and La Veronal have developed their own unique style, completely identifiable and highly influential among new generations of choreographers and dancers. "Although I suffer and anguish, I am happy because I can experience other worlds, I can experience other realities that this life doesn't offer me," says Morau about dance.
Relena Cake
The miracle of the voices that rock the Mediterranean
National Culture Award for "a unique musical proposal that explores different styles of vocal music, with the Mediterranean as a reference, rooted in tradition and unafraid to introduce new musical and performing languages," as stated by the CoNCA. However, even the most enthusiastic praise fails to do justice to everything experienced at a Tarta Relena concert. Barcelona natives Helena Ros and Marta Torrella, both born in 1994, emerged under the cover of activism underground from The Indian Runners label and the songs from the album Ora pro nobis (2019). A performance in the chapel of the Rape of Manresa, within the Mediterranean Fair, spread the gospel about these sibyls from outer space who shuffle diverse traditions from the present and combine solemnity, vindication and humor, and who fill L'Auditori as soon as they play at Sónar or, on the street, at the Adoberies Festival in Vic. The second miracle was Fiat Lux (2021) and the song Suicide and singing. Open to high-voltage artistic collaborations with Maria Arnal, with the Transmegacobla dels Za!, or the one they will perform on October 16th with guitarist Giorgos Manolakis at the Paral·lel 62 venue in Barcelona as part of the Clàssics Festival. They were also one of the three pillars of the show. 4132314, along with Cocanha and Los Sara Fontán, City of Barcelona Award 2023, the same award that Tarta Relena received in 2024 for the album It is a question, which premiered at the Mediterranean Fair in ManresaThe key to all this? "It's about genuinely resonating with what we do, because we're not actresses and it's hard for us to pretend we connect with what we do; therefore, we must connect with it to do it," they say.