The company Mariantònia Oliver wins the Toni Catany Culture Prize for democratizing dance in the Balearic Islands

PalmThe company Mariantònia Oliver has been distinguished with the Toni Catany de Cultura award at the ARA Balears Awards, a recognition of a career of more than thirty-five years that has decisively contributed to growing, understanding, and sharing contemporary dance in the Islands.

The award, named after the Llucmajor photographer Toni Catany, recognizes cultural initiatives capable of strengthening the artistic fabric and projecting it beyond the territory. In this case, the jury wanted to highlight a work that transcends the stage and has made dance a tool for cultural and social transformation.

The figure of Mariantònia Oliver and the company that bears her name have been key to broadening the limits of who can dance and who can feel addressed by this language. Over the years, they have shared creative processes with elderly women, people with disabilities, and young people in vulnerable situations, in addition to bringing dance closer to schools from the earliest educational stages.

The jury also highlighted projects such as EIMA, La Impossible, and the Maria de la Salut Performing Arts Festival, spaces that have consolidated creation, meeting, and cultural participation in the Islands. These projects, along with shows such as Las Muchísimas, Poetes, La Contínua, Bobot, and Pequeña Lula, have contributed to changing the perception of dance: not as a discipline reserved for a minority, but as a human, accessible, and profoundly connected expression of reality.

With this award, ARA Balears recognizes a coherent and committed trajectory that has transformed dance into a way of thinking about community, freedom, and the body through inclusion and respect.