The 2023 edition of the Grec Festival gets under way with two inaugurations where the circus takes centre stage. The first is at the Teatre Grec on 29 June, with the company Gravity & Other Myths and their show ‘The Pulse’, featuring performances by the girls section of the Orfeó Català choir. The second is in Passeig de Gràcia on 2 July, where tight-rope walker Nathan Paulin will be directed by Rachid Ouramdane as he crosses the avenue along a steel cable.

Women feature as authors or directors in 55% of this year’s 88 shows, with a strong presence for theatre (32 shows), followed by 15 concerts, 14 hybrid stage shows, 13 dance shows, 12 circus shows (doubling last year’s figure) and two film shows.

Outstanding names at the Grec Festival 2023

Notable names in this year’s varied programme include the likes of Carlota Subirós, adapting a classic into Catalan, stage legends such as Declan Donnellan, Nick Ormerod, Robert Wilson and Ivo Van Hove, dance monsters ranging from La Veronal to Sasha Waltz and Guests and the Liceu Symphony Orchestra, music greats such as David Lang (with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalonia and the Orfeó Català choir), music for our times with Rufus Wainwright and more. All this, in an edition where visuals play a substantial role: from the stage poetry of Dimitris Papaiannou and the circus of Yoann Bourgeois to the fascinating work of Boris Gibé and the company Les Choses de Rien.

Unique spaces for El Grec Ciutat

The Grec Ciutat programme features some fifty activities, with local stage productions playing a part in an event which this year reaches unique places around the city such as the Dipòsit del Rei Martí, where Aurora Bauzà and Pere Jou will be presenting ‘A Beginning_expanded version’, and the Ateneu Barcelonès, where Òpera de Butxaca are staging ‘Quatre solos soles’. Other venues forming part of the Grec include La Muriel, where Sixto Paz will be staging the high-impact show ‘Bèsties’, La Model, where there’s a chance to see ‘Jo, travesti’, by Roberto G. Alonso, the Fundació Muñoz Ramonet, which is offering ‘Una casa en la montaña’, by Albert Boronat, and the Casa-Museu Verdaguer at the MUHBA Vil·la Joana, where the Pagans company will be offering ‘El valor de res’.

Tickets and vouchers

This year’s festival offers a total of 165,209 tickets: 51,767 for the Grec Festival and 113,442 for the Grec Ciutat programme.

• Standard ticket sales start on 18 April.
• Gift vouchers go on sale as from 1 pm on 13 April.
• Also available are ticket vouchers for 15 euros per show, to attend 4, 5, 6 or 7 functions. These packs can be shared with any person, with no limits on the number of people, exchangeable for any day and any event.
• There are also discounts on prices for young people, Pink Card holders, large families, single-parent families, the over-65s, the unemployed and holders of the Biblioteques de Barcelona card.