Director, writer and performer
José Antonio Portillo
Producer
Unnica Arts
26 – 28 DEC 2025 at 11.00 am and at 1.00 pm | duration: 60 min Family audience from 6 years of age Language: Spanish Technique: object and visual theatre installation
Please arrive well in advance as the auditorium will be closed once the performance has begun.
To collect tickets, our box offices will be open from Monday to Sunday from 2.30 pm to 8.30 pm
José Antonio Portillo
Unnica Arts
Listen with your eyes. See, touch, reflect, experience. The found object becomes a gateway for generating individual, spiritual, and imaginative experiences. A mysterious travelling library, a circular wooden structure, holds unpublished manuscripts, texts, scores, designs, objects, six paper balls salvaged from the bin and cylinders filled with messages made of string and knots. Biblioteca de cuerdas y nudos is not a contemporary art installation. Nor is it a theatrical performance. Or perhaps it is. It’s all of these things. It is a circular wooden structure that houses unpublished manuscripts, cylinders filled with messages made of string and texts rescued from the bin. A silent dialogue unfolds between the viewer’s gaze and the objects that inhabit this narrative space. Over time, events and objects, fragments of life and layers of dust have settled on its shelves. Traces of a time in which most of its protagonists were children. The audience chooses the objects they wish to discover, and their stories are revealed to them.
José Antonio Portillo
Unnica Arts
La Biblioteca de Cuerdas y Nudos has been touring cities across Spain and Europe for 22 years, since its premiere at the Centro Cultural de Belém (Lisbon) in 2002. Internationally, it has been presented in Lisbon, Evora and Viseu (Portugal, 2002–2004); London (SBC Southbank – Royal Festival Hall, 2002); the Genk Cultural Centre and Het Paleis in Antwerp (Belgium, 2005); and the Zona Franca Festival – Teatro delle Briciole in Parma (Italy, 2011).
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In Spain, it has been staged at: Casa del Cordón, Burgos (2011 and 2012); CCCB in Barcelona and Teatre Fortuny, Reus (2013); Corral de Comedias, Alcalá de Henares (2013); Biblioteca José Hierro, Madrid (2015); Alhóndiga, Bilbao (2015 and 2016); Teatre Lliure, Barcelona (2015); Festival Temporada Alta, Girona (2015); Teatro Arbolé, Zaragoza (2015); Teatre El Musical, Valencia (2016); Sala Escalante – IETM and Teatro Principal, Valencia (2017); Festival FETEN, Gijón (2017); International Festival of Vitoria (2017); Teatro Principal, Castellón (2017); Teatro Cánovas, Málaga (2018); Biblioteca Francisco Ayala, Granada (2018); Teatre Principal, Palma (Mallorca, 2018); Teatro Calderón, Valladolid (Festival TEVEO, 2018); EACC, Castellón (2021); Teatro Alameda, Seville (2021); Teatre L’Artesa, El Prat de Llobregat (2022); and Teatros del Canal, Madrid (2021–2022), among others. And of course, it has also been performed in numerous smaller towns across the Valencian Community (including Benicàssim, Benicarló, Vilafranca, Viver, Portell, Sueca, and Vilajoiosa), as well as in other parts of the country (Lerma, Sabadell, Manzanera, and La Rinconada, etc.)