Alberto Cortés

Alberto Cortés (Màlaga, 1983). He graduated in Stage Direction and Playwriting at the ESAD in Málaga and in Art History at the University of Málaga (UMA). In 2009, he began his stage career with a bastard and peripheral dramaturgy that has continued to evolve over time. Since then, he has consistently collided with various creators and friends who have inspired his path, while generating works in different formats and disciplines in an attempt to sustain hope in the intangible, the spiritual, and the human.

His work has developed over the years through theatre, dance, and performance, as well as through folklore, flamenco, and site-specific practices. He also accompanies the creative processes of other artists through direction and dramaturgy, and leads workshops conceived as encounters in which he shares the research that runs through his practice. At a certain point, his path settled on the idea of understanding the stage as a space of desire and of cultivating a romantic relationship with the spectator.

Latest project in residence

El corazón de Ester (2026) is a piece that reflects on the exhaustion entailed by the performativity of loving. In the 19th century, a strange manuscript signed by a woman named Ester is discovered in the English countryside. The text unfolds, through a series of diaries and love poems, the gradual wearing down of Ester as she gives herself to her lovers and loved ones, until one day she disappears from the village without a trace. The stage work created in the shadow of this narrative functions as a direct confession to the audience, in the form of an intimate ritual of the word. A confession that, as in Saint Augustine, becomes a way of redeeming ourselves together; a confession that turns into devotion and invites us to reconsider the limits of emotional surrender toward the audience and the risks this entails for the performer’s body.

Photography ©Manu Rosaleny

Graner Residency Archive

  • 2026 · Collaboration with Grec Festival · El corazón de Ester
  • 2024 · Collaboration with TNT · Analphabet
  • 2022 · Collaboration with Sâlmon Festival · El Ardor i El camino del ardor
  • 2021 · Collaboration with BooMBeta · El camino del Ardor
  • 2020 · Open call · El Ardor
  • 2019 · Collaboration with Sâlmon Festival · Masacre en Nebraska

Residency videos