What is TOPIC?
TOPIC is the International Puppet Centre of Tolosa. It first opened its doors twenty years ago, but Tolosa’s relationship with puppetry dates further back, since already in the year 1982 the city’s Centre for Initiatives (CIT) embarked on the project of creating an international puppet festival, which would receive the name of Titirijai and whose rather logical consequence was TOPIC. It currently offers around a hundred and sixty shows every year, making Tolosa an international referent in the field of puppet theatre.
TOPIC’s 3,600 m2 offer:
- A permanent museum and a space for temporary exhibitions.
- A documentation centre, an archive and a multimedia library, all of them completely digitalised.
- A modern and fully-equipped auditorium with capacity for 250 people.
- A space for production, assembly and rehearsals.
- Spaces for compatible performing arts.
- Spaces for onsite or online workshops and courses.
- A small apartment for artists and researchers.
Thanks to its true vocation, TOPIC has also become a meeting point for puppeteers from all over the world. It is a place to learn, show, research, produce and share experiences, knowledge, reflections and work in an avant-garde space that offers comfort, functionality and high-tech equipment.
Thus, this makes TOPIC a space available for all those who share the objectives of developing, promoting and perfecting the world of puppetry in all its expressions, devising the future but without losing sight of the past and always open to exploring new relationships with other artistic expressions.
As an active member of the International Puppetry Association (UNIMA), TOPIC continually seeks to collaborate with its diverse committees and bodies, both national and international.
Consequently, Tolosa is nowadays an epicentre of puppet theatre, an artistic expression that currently enjoys an increasing acceptance and social significance.
