The Festival Z 2026 program is here!
Tickets now on sale

SLOWLY, BUT IN MOTION

The festival will kick off on Wednesday, July 8th at 6:30 PM, at Plaça de l’U d’octubre in Girona, with Âcid, by the collective Sound de Secà. Amidst percussion, funky, and hip-hop rhythms, extravagant and colourful characters will take us on a route through the city streets, igniting energy and the desire to move wherever they go. Their journey will end at Plaça dels Jurats, where, at 8:00 PM, Bewis de la Rosa will offer us a good dose of <Rap Rural>, a vibrant proposal combining live music with elements of dance, physical theatre, and audiovisuals to talk about home and rurality.

Other festival proposals also use movement and music to speak of what perhaps cannot be said with words alone. This is the case with AARGH!, by the collective Mispronounced, which through humour and dance-theatre explores the scream as a point of tension between conformity and radical freedom. Setting a different tone, but also placing the body at the centre, I felt a funeral in my brain, by Sira Aymerich i Besalú (Lanormal), combines a 2-meter tall pine trunk with a 60 cm diameter, a melodica, a wooden puppet, and a woman’s body to create a dialogue between life and death.

SLOWLY, AND IN GOOD COMPANY

The idea of networking and building community is one of the key pillars of Festival Z, and especially of this year’s edition. We live in a fast-paced world, yes, but one that also tends toward atomization and individualism. This world is perfectly portrayed, with a raw, personal, and post-humorous gaze, by the writer and stage creator Eduard Olesti, who is joined by a handful of good friends to bring us Shrek, Kebabs i la Caiguda de Iugoslàvia, a PowerPoint-performance about the end of language.

The communication crisis in a world of darkness is also addressed in Punt i Ratlla, a theatre, clown, and physical proposal still in the creation phase by Eric Remedios Vicente and Mercè Badia Pàmies. A show that speaks to us about the need for the other, as does Ramat, by Oasi Teatre, a proposal blending physical theatre, contemporary circus, and visual poetry about a shepherd who has lost his herd, challenging us on the need to belong to a collective.

SLOWLY, AND REMEMBERING WHERE WE COME FROM

Memory is one of the themes that will also carry weight within this year’s Festival Z. Oniria Teatro will bring us Vaga y Maleanta, a cabaret based on real stories and testimonies from older people in the LGTBIQ+ community, with drag artist Kiki Morgan as the master of ceremonies. A documentary variety show with original music, packed with improvisation and dark humour.

Likewise, Dolça Alcanyís and Laia Picas appeal to citizens’ memories with De l’embolic al rastre, an itinerant community mediation proposal, in the creation phase, that tours the public space as a collective body, developed with local residents. From a more festive and musical perspective, Abans que em mori (working title), by Judit M. Gené turns the stage into a town festival street party, using songs from the popular imagination and real testimonies from the elderly, to talk while dancing about memory, old age, and bonds. The proposal will be accompanied by a popular paella that will close the festival in the best possible way!

SLOWLY, BUT LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

As is customary at the festival, Thursday morning will feature the event Futurs escènics imminents!, which each year presents several projects in the pre-production phase—embryonic ideas that, with the support of attending professionals and audience feedback, will one day become finished shows (or whatever!). The proposals to be presented this year are La Caiguda i l’Ascens d’Erika Larroy, by Èric Pons; Lyrics for a friend, by Paula Ramis and Magalí Camps; El viatge, by Colette Casas; f00l, by the collective antramaliada; DESENCANTS (working title), by Abril Pérez Mitchell; Cap Casa, by Ratafria Circ; Els meus arbres, by La Mà Esquerra; Topografia d’arrelament, by Georgina Hurtado (La Ventura); Els llocs, by ACUR (Jana Sandiumenge and Helena Gascón), and Cos de fusta (working title), by Elaine Grayling.