Benidorm chooses to be the Valencian Cultural Capital of 2024. It is not the category that readers would associate right away with the tourist city, whose power of attraction is undeniable, but related above all to the goodness of its climate, the extension and quality of its beaches, including its varied offer of leisure and entertainment.
But in an effort to add qualities to its catalog of virtues and determined to forever bury the clichés that have accompanied it since the 1960s boom, the town council has officially presented its candidacy for this recognition in the category of municipalities with more of 5,000 inhabitants.
According to sources from the consistory, it does so with a “transversal” project in which the Departments of Historical and Cultural Heritage, Culture, Festivals and Events have participated, which aims to assert the conception of Benidorm as ‘An open-air museum’.
The mayor, Toni Pérez, explains that “it is a very powerful project and in which we meet one by one the requirements set by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports for this contest.” According to the call, with this capital status they want to recognize those municipalities “that have made a firm commitment to culture.”
“And that is precisely -says the mayor- what has encouraged us to present our candidacy, because in recent years Benidorm has made a firm commitment to cultural matters, maintaining and improving activities that already had a more or less long history in the city ; generating and fostering new projects that have already become essential appointments; and promoting urban spaces available to cultureâ€.
Toni Pérez assures that in Benidorm festivals “of all artistic disciplines” are held throughout the year and, to prove it, the dossier presented to the Generalitat has already provided the programming of a hundred activities planned for 2024. “Enough a global look and perspective to see that Benidorm has exponentially multiplied its cultural offer and has done so by covering practically all cultural and artistic disciplines and bringing them closer to the publicâ€, affirms Pérez.
In the musical field, Benidorm has been celebrating the Low Festival for years and more recently the Benidorm Fest, but its candidacy incorporates other less media proposals, such as Música a l’Hort, the Organ Festival or the International Music Course.
Pérez argues that “from the City Council, public and urban spaces have been understood as a support for the different disciplines, making Benidorm a great open-air museum and an environment in which artists express themselves and where culture coexists with its own activity of the city. And he considers that this aspect “is the hallmark of our project and almost in all probability the element that will differentiate our candidacy.”
In other artistic disciplines, the municipality celebrates a film festival (Skyline Benidorm Film Festival); one of dance in the street (Les Ones); and another for performing arts (the Amateur Theater Show); one for literature (International Poetry Festival); and includes in its candidacy samples of monumental art in the open air, such as the exhibition in the Plaza de Santa Ana, next to the Castell, of the sculptures by Jaume Plensa, or those of the Belgian artist Arne Quinze installed on the Paseo de Poniente, in addition to the photographic and illustration exhibitions programmed in seven Espais d’Art Urbà .
With regard to historical heritage, the City Council highlights the archaeological site of Tossal de la Cala, the towers of Morales and Les Caletes, El Castell and l’Hort de Colón; and the representation of local history and traditions with the recreation of the discovery of the patron saint or the granting of the Charter of Poblament.
In the project, adjusting to the bases of the call, a list of all the public and private cultural spaces of the city has been included, among which the new Espai d’Art ‘La Casilla’ and the Aula del Mar, which will be operational in 2024.
