Barcelona

A festival is rather like a hilltop, it forms part of a landscape. Barcelona is all about creativity, and this is what we want to be our hallmark vis-à-vis other international festivals. As well as presenting exceptional artistry and creativity, the discovery and dissemination of local artistic talent and networks is what lies at the heart of the project. With the collaboration of the Festival d’Avignon, the programme features a strong female line-up.

The Teatre Grec will once again be the venue for the show that is to open the festival, with Sílvia Pérez Cruz, who’ll be performing Circular, based on her most recent album, Toda la vida, un día. The artist from Girona will be joined on stage by others who’ve played an important part in her career, such as Natalia Lafourcade, Andrés Corchero, Pepe Habichuela, Judit Neddermann and Salvador Sobral. The show is being performed on 26, 27 and 28 June.

Alongside the Teatre Grec, there are other spaces in the district that will also be hosting festival events, such as the Teatre Lliure de Montjuïc, Mercat de les Flors, the Miró Foundation, MNAC, Sala Flyhard, Teatre Condal and Plaça Margarida Xirgu. This year, new festival venues are being added: Montjuïc Castle, Heartbreak Hotel and Periferia Cimarronas.

So, in this edition, what are the shows that you’ll be able to see close to home? Here you have the spaces, shows and activities that will be part of this year’s Grec Festival in Sants-Montjuïc:

TEATRE GREC

Sílvia Pérez Cruz Music
26/06 – 28/06 Sold out
A beautiful voice that soars free, and one that’s been heard many times at the festival. Silvia looks back over a life of artistic partnerships on the stage at the Teatre Grec. Opening show.

Le Misanthrope Theatre
02/07 – 03/07 Sold out
The La Brutal company brings a contemporary version of one of the famous French playwright’s best known works to the stage.

Sonoma Dance
06/07 – 07/07 Sold out
The La Veronal company, who have shown how much they’ve grown as artists at various Grec festivals, will be presenting an extended version of one of their most acclaimed shows.

Pau Vallvé Music
08/07 Sold out
An intimate concert, where the musician will be all alone, although at times it’ll sound as if the stage were full of people. His only performance this summer!

La gran nit de Dagoll Dagom Music
11/07 – 13/07 Sold out
After a career spanning half a century, this legendary Catalan musical theatre company are staging a huge concert that looks back over their past history, one that will be the first of the performances marking the end of the company’s long trajectory.

Canciones de amor, de desamor y de piratas Theatre
15/07 – 16/07
Spanish and Catalan romanticism come together with bel canto in a night devoted to love poetry and music from the first half of the 19th century, with the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico.

Rita Payés Music
17/07 Sold out
One of the young talents to emerge from the Sant Andreu Jazz Band will be making her début as a true star at the Teatre Grec, with songs from her new 2024 album, De camino al camino.

Antònia Font Music
18/07 – 19/07
After their last on-stage tour, the Mallorcan band began to offer intimate concerts in theatres, but they’ll be making an exception with their début at the festival’s most iconic venue.

El Pot Petit with the Black Music Big Band Music
20/07
Music and adventures in a family show that offers so much more than just songs. This is a really ‘animalisitic’ concert that brings two bands together and puts around twenty musicians up on stage.

Barcelona Mestissa Music
22/07
Macaco, Queralt Lahoz, Alizzz with Maria Arnal and a host of other artists highlight Barcelona’s own sound identity, rooted in fusion music.

Baró d’Evel Circus
25/07 – 27/07
First part of a new triptych by the Catalan-French company, a work by and about the group itself, where ceramics provide both the form and the material for building the company.

TEATRE LLIURE IN MONTJUÏC

Billy’s Violence Theatre
28/06
The works that Shakespeare wrote are a catalogue of human passions, which is perhaps why there are so few authors as violent as he. A Needcompany production.

El cap als núvols Theatre
29/06 – 30/06 Sold out
What if we tell an adult story with the toys that have survived from our childhood? Work by Xavier Bobés performed by Marc Guillén.

Billy’s Joy Theatre
29/06
Something smells rotten in Fairyland… The author who rewrote Shakespeare’s violent side now takes a look at his comedies, creating one for the 21st century.

Cosas que se olvidan fácilmente Theatre
29/06 – 07/07 Sold out
Work by Xavier Bobés performed by Francesco Sinopoli.

Billy’s Violence / Billy’s Joy (double programme) Theatre
30/06 Sold out
One production that explores the passions and violence in Shakespeare’s plays, and another that delves deeper into his comedies. Both are being performed together.

The Second Woman Theatre
06/07 – 07/07
An outstanding actress and an outstanding setting, but repeated a hundred times with a hundred different partenaires over the course of a 24-hour day. Uninterrupted performance. Work by Nat Randall & Anna Breckon, performed by María Hervás.

Tumbalafusta Theatre
06/07 – 07/07
A family theatre production that’s to be staged at Barcelona’s Grec Festival for the first time that brings together an innovative company and two exceptional scenic designers. Age 5 and over.

La calidesa Hybrid theatre
09/07 – 11/07
Six stories told personally, in a whisper, will talk about absence, friendship and other matters. By Marta Barceló.

Los días afuera Theatre
13/07 – 14/07
A group of cis women and trans people who were detained in different prisons in Argentina reconstruct scenes from their past lives, and imagine their future lives in a musical documentary in which they themselves sing, dance and act. Work by Lola Arias.

Extinction Rave Theatre
14/07 – 15/07
A festival or a ritual? In this rave, you’ll see images, hear sounds and look on a world on the brink of collapse through ecofeminist eyes. Work by the Mis Bragas Foundation.

DÄMON. El funeral de Bergman Theatre
19/07 – 21/07
Creator of uncompromising shows that make no concessions to the audience, this time Angélica Liddell brings the burial of a famous film-maker to the stage.

La luz de un lago Hybrid theatre
19/07 – 22/07 Sold out
Transcending the plastic and visual spheres, this production uses sound to explore the possibilities of theatrical and poetic imagery. Work by El Conde de Torrefiel.

Hamlet. En els plecs del temps Theatre
24/07 – 25/07
Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy, who’s known for her new takes on the classics, turns Hamlet into a woman and gives her a camera to rework a story that’s been told a thousand times.

MERCAT DE LES FLORS

Le Pas Grand Chose Circus
30/06 – 02/07 Sold out
Would you destroy the world to create your own new one? Welcome to a show that has a lot to do with pataphysics. Written and performed by: Johann Le Guillerm.

GN|MC (Guy Nader | Maria Campos) Dance
03/07 – 05/07
Inspired by the notion of order and disorder, this internationally experienced Barcelona-based dance company focuses on the functioning of the systems within organic beings, viewed as a microcosm.

La Innombrable. Una tragèdia mediterrània Circus
03/07 – 04/07 Sold out
Seven circus artists and a live singer take on the challenge of fusing the plot of one of Shakespeare’s darkest dramas with contemporary circus and clown techniques.

Patricia Caballero Dance
06/07 – 07/07
Ágape. God and flesh marry in this creation. It celebrates an irresistible love between the pathetic and the miraculous. Vice and virtue are the guests of honour.

William Forsythe / Rauf RubberLegz Yasit Dance
08/07 – 10/07
Dance is a universal language. One of today’s leading movement investigators and his accomplices speak dance fluently, using an evocative, austere and precise vocabulary.

Un cos sense talent Hybrid theatre
08/07 – 09/07
The Monte Isla company incorporate the human figure into their productions, analysing an image of humanity as a series of precarious bodies that hold an extraneous virtue in their hands, the tool they use to confront the hostility of the world.

Oguri and Andrés Corchero Dance
11/07 – 13/07
Two complicit choreographers and friends who met in Japan a long time ago reveal the connections between dance and writing, in a piece inspired by Ray Bradbury’s universe.

Lapis Lazuli Hybrid theatre
13/07 – 14/07
Creator Euripides Laskaridis, whose work seeks to subvert the established relationships between audience, creators and performers, builds a dazzling and mysterious new world on stage.

Alice Ripoll Dance
aCORdo 14/07
A work that reflects the barriers that separate social groups, brought to the attention of the world by a particularly committed Brazilian choreographer.
Zona Franca 15/07 – 16/07
A journey through urban Brazil, a stroll through a country reborn from the ashes… Urban and folk dances commingle in a choreography that invites audiences to be swept away.

Betty Tchomanga Dance
17/07 – 18/07
Repetitive movement and rhythm underpin this show about a mythological creature choreographed, imagined and performed by an artist who explores transgression.

Hofesh Shechter Company – Shechter II Dance
19/07 – 21/07 Sold out
For Shechter, beauty and complexity are inseparable from the history, culture and people of England. How can these contradictions be explained? Perhaps with the language of dance.

Poeta en Nueva York Hybrid theatre
20/07 Sold out
In this work, Federico García Lorca’s collection of poems written in the USA in the 1930s is brought to the stage, placing actors, dancers, musicians and puppets on the same level.

Ester Guntín Dance
23/07 – 24/07
Winner of the Institut del Teatre 2023 Dance Prize, this show is inspired by tarantism, a medieval ritual rooted in a choreographic, musical and iconographic practice that originated in southern Italy.

Kor’sia Dance
24/07 – 25/07
Perhaps there is indeed an alternative to a future dominated by the opposition between humanity and nature. This dance collective draws inspiration from Petrarch to bring a message of change to the stage.

JOAN MIRÓ FOUNDATION

Ákri Circus
12/07 – 13/07
Solo show by circus artist Manel Rosés, who takes his name from one of the two Greek words that ‘acrobatics’ originates from.

MNAC

Moloko Vellocet Hybrid theatre
07/07 – 14/07
One of today’s most accomplished performance artists turns the Sala Oval into a dance floor, recreating the famous club frequented by the main characters in A Clockwork Orange.

SALA FLYHARD

Em dic Josep Theatre
10/07 – 03/08
Playwright Marc de la Varga uses a theatrical and musical documentary format to immerse us in the mysteries of artistic creation, and the human mind and its disorders.

TEATRE CONDAL

Macho grita Theatre / Music
26/06 – 07/07
With music in a comical tone. This is how well-known actor and author Alberto San Juan chronicles his own ignorance of the history of Spain.

Artemis Theatre / Music
10/07 – 24/07
A musical monologue like you’ve never seen before, written, composed and performed by actress Mireia Morera alone, with live music.

MONTJUÏC CASTLE

Sala Montjuïc Film + Music
La casa en flames + Magalí Datzira 28/06
The Holdovers + The Swing Cats 12/07
Past Lives + Alosa 17/07
Love & Revolution + Evripidis and his Tragedies 29/07

HEARTBREAK HOTEL

Sis hectàrees d’oliveres Theatre
02/07 – 28/07
The show that won the 2023 edition of the Quim Masó award turns a personal phobia into a universal conflict. So, what are you afraid of? Work by Aina Tur.

PERIFERIA CIMARRONAS

Els homes de carbó Theatre
03/07 Free admission with prior reservation
Migrations and displacements are the theme of this show by Ghanaian creator Serge Attukwei Clottey, who’s not only transforming the façade of a famous building and guiding an artistic walk through the city with a colonial theme, but also offering a performance.

PLAÇA DE MARGARIDA XIRGU

Sol Picó Dance
28/06 – 29/06 Sold out
The Fight of the Century. Who’s can down Sol Picó? Making a dancer fall. That’s the goal of a project that’s a combination of dance, movement, and food festival.

Carena Circus
04/07 – 06/07 Free admission
Circus, dance and street theatre come together in the shows created by performer La Corcoles. A real surprise you should definitely come along and discover!

Xirgu en Família [Xirgu with the Family]
05/07 – 20/07 Free admission
A sound installation where poetry takes centre stage, a technical and spiritual journey, a game to find out what stories have to tell us… You can experience it all in these activities for children at the festival’s main square.

Les Aventures Extraordinàries de la Fiona Pereshtròikovitx Music / Theatre
11/07 Free admission
In this Olympic year, a young group of performers presents a musical comedy in five acts plus a finale about an athlete who ran away at Barcelona ‘92.

Love for free
12/07 – 13/07 Free admission
This work of art/sociological experiment will have you reflecting on the concept of love and human relationships.

Opia Theatre
18/07 – 20/07 Free admission
Living in the street, being present, seeing and being seen. This is what Ferran Orobitg’s new artistic project is all about.