The UAB awards an honorary doctorate to Josep Maria Flotats
08/06/2017
Dramatist Josep Maria Flotats was awarded an honorary doctorate by the UAB in a ceremony which took place on 27 June at noon at the Rectorat building. The awarding of the doctorate was approved by the UAB Governing Council thanks to a proposal made by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Josep Maria Flotats will be sponsored by Roser Gauchola, lecturer of the Department of French and Romance Languages. The UAB will award Flotats, a well-known dramatist in both Spain and France, his first honorary doctorate in Spain. The event will be transmitted live over the internet.
His professional career began in France when he enrolled in the National School of Dramatic Arts in Strasbourg and later formed part of various theatre companies in Strasbourg and Paris. In 1981, he joined the Comédie-Française and one year later he was chosen a member sociétaire. He left the Comédie-Française to continue working in Madrid and Barcelona, where he became the scenic director of the Royal Theatre and founder and first director of the National Theatre of Catalonia. He also created the theatre company Companyia Flotats and the producer Taller 75, SL.
He has excelled in both acting and directing, as well as in translating, theatre creations and adaptation of works originally meant for other artistic means. Some of his most important works are Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre by Molière, which debuted at the Liceu Opera House in 1983, the translation into Spanish of the play Art by Yasmina Reza and the creation of the performance Ara que els ametllers ja són batuts based on texts by the author Josep Pla. Throughout his career he has also worked on the texts of the most outstanding French authors (Corneille, Racine and Molière), as well as universal authors (Sophocles, Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, etc.).
He has also contributed significantly in educational aspects. As a result of his personal history when growing up, at a time when learning to be an actor was difficult in Spain, he has always tried to include young actors in his productions. This became even more so when he returned to Catalonia and with his company staged plays such as Spring Awakening, Cyrano de Bergerac and Pour un oui ou pour un non. Young actors who are now some of Catalonia's top actors debuted in Flotat's plays.
Josep Maria Flotats, a great disseminator of the French culture in Catalonia and Spain, and vice versa, also has a French passport. He symbolises the perfect synthesis of the three languages and the three cultures, and is a perfect prototype of trilingualism and interculturality. In 2015, he gave the opening speech at the 27th Pedagogical Conference on Teaching French in Spain, organised by many institutions, including the UAB's Department of French and Romance Languages and the Institute of Educational Studies.
The UAB's newest honorary doctorate has received some of the most outstanding cultural awards in France and Spain, such as being named Officer of the National Legion of Honour by the president of the French Republic, Officer of Arts and the Humanities by the French Minister for Culture, the Saint George Cross by the Government of Catalonia and the Medal of Honour for Merit in the Fine Arts by the Spanish Government.
More information:
null