Escenas do cambio 2026 presents a programme shaped by three interconnected currents: the drive of what endures, what is revealed, and what is reinvented. Revelesencia—a term blending revelation, effervescence and essence—is how the festival’s artistic director, Kirenia Martínez, defines a curatorial line that interrelates these three paths through the performing arts.
The theatre, dance and performance art festival of the Cidade da Cultura celebrates its twelfth edition from 7 to 10 May with 11 transnational stage works, bringing together artists and companies from Galicia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Madrid, as well as Germany, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Mexico, Portugal and Lithuania.
The programme is conceived as a transnational dialogue between practices that understand stage creation as a form of care, listening and re-composition of the present—one that embraces ancestral knowledge, territorial memories, affect, non-normative bodies and sensitive ecologies.
The performing arts as a free and cooperative territory
The programme includes eight international co-productions (El Vacío, La Cura, Fear:less, Hecatombe II, Arder Épica, Black Box, Horizontes Errantes, Entrecruzad@as), and three at national level (52-Blau, Este himno llevará la palabra Euforia and La Calidesa). Works involving Galician participation are very much aligned with this trend, as seen in the Galicia–Basque Country–Navarre collaboration of the company iXa, and the Galicia–Portugal connection in the piece premiered by Portuguese artist Hugo Torres, supported by Centro Dramático Galego, Trigo Limpo (PT) and FITEI in Porto.
You can consult the full programme at escenasdocambio.org or by clicking on the image below.
Escenas do cambio 2026 features three world premieres: 52-Blau, by the company iXa, co-produced by Centro Coreográfico Galego; Black Box. Unha saga épica, by Hugo Torres; and the latest creation by La Intrusa, Este himno llevará la palabra euforia, with which the Basque company celebrates its 30th anniversary at the festival.
The festival will also host the first Spanish presentations of international productions such as Fear:less, by German artist Silke Z., and two large-scale Cuban-Colombian dance co-productions: El Vacío and La Cura, directed by Julio César Iglesias Ungo with a cast from the Compañía Colombiana de Danza Contemporánea.
Juliana Reyes in Entrecruzad@s and the stage installation La Calidesa, by Société Mouffette ando COMA14, address contemporary loneliness. Meanwhile, Arder Épica (Cap. 1) by Brazilian artist Reinaldo Ribeiro, Hecatombe II - Movements and rituals for the renovation of the world by Colombian artist of Indigenous origin Martha Hincapié Charry, and Wandering Horizons, the artistic pilgrimage by Laura Aris and Jakob Jautz through the Black Forest and the Camino de Santiago, focus on recovering memories, ancestral knowledge, human and more-than-human traces, and constructing narratives beyond official history.
Expanding audiences and experiences
Deep engagement with audiences continues to be a key focus in this edition of Escenas do cambio through the Comando Dramatúrxico, and is further expanded with two new mediation encounters linked to Arder Épica and Fear:less. Both aim to reach audiences—older people and women of all ages—who do not attend this type of performance, offering accessible entry points into contemporary creation and helping to broaden audiences through diversity and direct, participatory experience.
The festival, organised by the Xunta de Galicia through the Fundación Cidade da Cultura, is supported by the Directorate General of Performing Arts and Music - Ministry of Culture, the Axencia Galega das Industrias Culturais, the Centro Dramático Galego, the Centro Coreográfico Galego, Camões – Centro Cultural Português em Vigo, and the Goethe-Institut.
