Alessandra García Transforms Málaga's Coastline into Revolutionary Theater

When bureaucracy threatened to sink her vision, Alessandra García turned setbacks into artistic opportunity. The award-winning performer, director, and playwright had spent months developing a theatrical concept featuring actors in the Mediterranean and audiences seated on beach benches along Málaga's coast. Despite securing funding and community support, the required permits never materialized leaving García devastated but not defeated.

"I cried a lot," she later admitted. After three days of grief, she picked up a notebook and reimagined everything. The result will be La Obra del Mar, a groundbreaking "scenic exhibition" set to unfold throughout August 2025 along the Costa del Sol, completely liberated from institutional constraints. "Ruins forge the way," she reflects, transforming bureaucratic rejection into creative freedom.

Produced by García's company Dos Bengalas, a collaboration with Violeta Niebla and supported by the Fundación Teatral Antonio Banderas, La Obra del Mar will appropriate the rituals of beach life to create immersive art directly in public spaces. The project requires no institutional permission, instead embedding performance within the natural rhythms of coastal leisure.

The ordinary will become extraordinary: sunbathing routines, sandy strolls, sunscreen application, and even a child's resistance to their mother's call of "Get out of the water now!" will become integral components of the theatrical landscape. García has invented what she calls the "scenic exhibition" a format that will challenge the boundaries between daily life and staged performance.

August 2025: A Month-Long Coastal Performance

1–10 August | Peinar la Orilla (Combing the Shore)

Each day from 6 AM to 12 PM, García will walk the coastline from Manilva to Nerja, an ambitious journey covering Málaga province's diverse beaches and coastal routes. She will stay with local families along the way, recording intimate conversations about their relationship with the sea. A GoPro-mounted audio device will document this moving portrait of Mediterranean life, creating a sonic map of the coast.

11 August | Hola Es Azul

At precisely 8 PM from Nerja's iconic Balcón de Europa, the public will be invited to wave to the sea for exactly 4.44 minutes. In a poetic gesture of faith and connection, García will simultaneously wave back from Playa de Alhucemas in Morocco. The piece will explore numerology, longing, and the human desire to connect across the waters that both separate and unite cultures.

17 August | Sal del Agua (Get Out of the Water)

In perhaps the most endurance-based performance, García will remain submerged in the Mediterranean from sunrise to sunset at Playa Virginia. While committed to staying in the water, she can move freely using mats, pedal boats, or jet skis. Real-time location updates will appear on her Instagram, creating a digital thread connecting virtual audiences to her aquatic marathon.

19–22 August | Orquesografía

Beginning each day at 9 AM, this audio-guided "collective ritual" will transform routine beach behavior into choreography. Limited to approximately 40 participants per session, beachgoers will build temporary architectures from towels and enact generations of seaside wisdom, including the universal awkwardness of properly placing an umbrella in sand. García has designed it as a Renaissance-style choreographic score adapted for public space.

23 August | Enterrar a MA-PA

At 7 PM on Playamar beach, families will participate in a multigenerational sand-burying ritual. Children will bury mothers, mothers will bury grandparents, creating a living family tree that reflects communal identity and the cyclical nature of generations. The free event will celebrate the playful intimacy of family beach traditions.

27–31 August | Verismo, Primer Movimiento

The month's culminating performances will begin each evening at 9 PM, bringing García's original vision closer to fruition. Audiences will gather on chairs and towels integrated seamlessly into the natural beachscape. Referencing Verismo—the late-19th century artistic movement emphasizing realism and ordinary people's lives, these pieces will blend everyday beach life with theatrical gravitas in direct dialogue with the Mediterranean itself.

1–31 August | La Arena Quema (The Sand Burns)

Running throughout the month, this headphone-based audio-visual experience will be downloadable via Bandcamp for use at Playa de la Misericordia between noon and 8 PM. García and Niebla's soundscape will transform the beach and its elements into a landscape of performing presence. "And the whole beach will be performing for you," the creators promise.

The Artist Behind the Vision

Alessandra García, born in Málaga in 1984, is a creator and performer who graduated in textual interpretation from the ESAD (Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático) de Málaga. Since 2015, she has specialized in theater that breaks conventional boundaries: post-dramatic, participatory, and relational work that challenges audiences' expectations.

Her artistic trajectory gained national recognition when she won the prestigious Ojo Crítico award in 2022. Her production "Mujer en cinta de correr sobre fondo negro" (Woman on Treadmill on Black Background) won the MAX Award for Best New Show, establishing her as one of Spain's most innovative theatrical voices.

La Obra del Mar emerged from García's residency at La Térmica, Málaga's contemporary arts center. The initial concept is set to premiere in summer 2025, with development work having included public workshops and community engagement throughout 2024. The residency program also supports parallel artistic projects exploring public space and performance.

As part of her development process, García has conducted public workshops titled "Zambullá" ("dive in"), inviting participants to explore public space, voice, movement, and theatrical disruption all elements that will inform her beach-based performances.

La Obra del Mar promises to succeed in multiple dimensions: transforming bureaucratic rejection into artistic innovation, creating a new performance format, and demonstrating theater's ability to thrive outside institutional boundaries. García's "scenic exhibition" will prove that meaningful art can emerge from the intersection of creativity and constraint.

The project will offer free entry to all public performances, making high-concept art accessible to beachgoers and families. Audio-guided experiences via Bandcamp and Instagram-connected documentation will create multiple entry points for engagement, from casual observation to deep participation.

Most significantly, García is establishing a sustainable model for site-specific theater that requires no institutional permission while respecting public spaces and community rhythms. Her work will root itself in personal, generational, and performative dialogue with the Mediterranean coast, creating art that feels both experimental and authentic.

García envisions La Obra del Mar as an annual format, beginning in Málaga and expanding to coastlines worldwide. This theater will refuse institutional limitation while celebrating the universal rituals of seaside life all without conventional permission or traditional venues.

By converting beach leisure into ritual, dialogue, and art, La Obra del Mar will challenge fundamental assumptions about where and how theater can exist. García won't just realize her original dream; she will transcend it, creating a new genre that weaves coastlines into living theater.

The Mediterranean will witness something unprecedented in August 2025: the birth of theater that belongs not to institutions but to the sea itself, performed by communities who never knew they were actors until they feel sand between their toes and hear their own voices carried by coastal winds.

La Obra del Mar represents a fundamental shift in theatrical possibility, proof that the most innovative art often emerges not from abundance but from the creative response to limitation. In García's hands, rejection will become revolution, and the coast of Málaga will become a stage that will never again look ordinary.