DANSE MACABRE AT WORLD CULTURE FESTIVAL
OPEN CALL DANSE MACABRE / MALTA BIENNALE 2026
OPEN CALL | DANSE MACABRE × MALTA BIENNALE 2026
Actors. Performers. Musicians.
Professionals and non-professionals — all welcome.
Italian visual artist Azzurra De Gregorio is inviting you to join a site-specific performance in the iconic Upper Barrakka Gardens, Valletta — as part of Malta Biennale 2026.
Together we’ll reimagine the medieval allegory of death through movement, space, and today’s social realities.
✦ ~7 workshops + on-site rehearsals
✦ Final performance — 28 May 2026, 19:30
✦ Free of charge
✦ Certificate upon request
This is your chance to be part of an international artistic project — no stage too big, no background required.
DEADLINE: 15 APRIL 2026!
Application link open call
DANSE MACABRE / MALTA BIENNALE’26
The second edition of the Malta Biennale will be held from March 11 to May 29, 2026, with acclaimed international curator, Rosa Martinez, at its helm, as artistic director. The theme chosen for the second edition is: Clean | Clear | Cut.
Clean | Clear | Cut
The thematic and conceptual framework of the Malta Biennale 2026 is conceived to evoke a sequence of thoughts and actions that call for an urgent transformation of the world we inhabit. The gap between proclaimed political and aesthetic ideals and the construction of false realities defines the conditions for a new form of global enslavement, where the distribution of wealth, the exploitation of natural resources, and the power to decide who lives and who dies remain concentrated in the hands of a few.
A repetitive Mannerism permeates contemporary artistic practices, while the expansion of the Western artistic canon fails to conceal the inequalities in the production, access, and enjoyment of art. Analysing the effects of the global economy, capital flows, human migrations, and data transmission technologies, reveals a troubling planetary scenario that demands a rethinking of our cultural consumption patterns. The toxic noise of misinformation and the ruthless exercise of power generate effective forms of alienation, making it necessary to:
- Clean: Stop environmental, ethical and aesthetic pollution. Purge, digest, expel.
- Clear: Discern, decipher, elucidate, understand.
- Cut: Break away, radically shift direction, open new paths.
The question of how contemporary art can enhance critical awareness of our past and present, while fostering the experience and enjoyment of beauty, will be at the heart of the second edition of the Malta Biennale in 2026. The limestone quarries and the process of extraction and transformation of this material is engrained in the cultural landscape of the Maltese islands and animates the title of the Biennale.
The selected works and projects will relate to the history and narratives embodied in the heritage locations where they will be presented, enlarging the notion of site-specificity and making them meaningful to diverse audiences.
The Malta Biennale 2026 will address some of the most pressing needs of our time by promoting dialogues between the rich cultural heritage of the Maltese archipelago, contemporary thought and innovative artistic practices and contemporary thought. By intertwining aesthetic narratives and forging critical connections between different cultures, biennials can create transgenerational, transdisciplinary, and multicultural encounters aimed at generating policies for the common good. The Malta Biennale 2026 will be inscribed in that line of action.
FACE AND MASK
Krinzinger Schottenfeld
Face and Mask
Carlos Amorales
with works by Jeroen Kooijmaans , Azzurra de Gregorio , Chiara Zenzani , Rowena Morales , Víctor del Moral , Astrid Svangren , Eric Tlaseca , Issac Olvera.
Opening 27 October , 7 pm
Schottenfeldgasse 45, 1070 Vienna
Face and Mask
Carlos Amorales turns the mask into a mirror of our time. It is not merely an ornament or disguise, but a territory where identity, myth, and power intersect.
This new exhibition reveals how what the mask conceals ends up showing with greater force: the fragility of the human in the face of technology, the tension between the local and the global, between the intimate and the collective. Far from conceiving the face or the mask as an aesthetic or ritual accessory, the artist places them at the center of a reflection that questions identity, representation, and the politics of the image in the digital age.
Since ancient times, the mask has served as a mediator between the self and the other, between the human and the divine, between the visible and the hidden. Amorales takes up this symbolic device and inserts it into a field of current tensions, where the face and mask become a space of social recognition and subjectivity confronted with media saturation, technological control, and the precariousness of cultural narratives in globalization.
The dialogue established with the iconic figure of El Santo, the Silver-Masked Man, is fundamental. By recovering this symbol of Mexican identity, Carlos not only refers to a popular icon, but also exposes the fragility of collective identities in the face of global discourse. The wrestling mask, which in its original context protects while simultaneously constructing a myth, here becomes a metaphor for a lost search for identity, an attempt to cling to cultural signs in the face of homogenization.
The critique is enriched by the reference to Roland Barthes: myth as a mask that conceals ideologies. In this sense, Amorales’ work not only plays with visual surface, but also reveals how the images we consume and produce in the digital age reproduce naturalized falsehoods, legitimizing structures of power. The mask, in his proposal, ceases to be a simple object and becomes a mechanism for critical reading of the contemporary.
Taken as a whole, Face and Mask transcends the formalism of portraiture or visual object. His drawings and audiovisuals function as critical essays that invite viewers to rethink not only the function of the mask, but also the nature of identity in a present shaped by screens, algorithms, and globalized narratives. Carlos manages to turn the unsettling quality of the mask—its capacity to simultaneously conceal and reveal—into fertile ground for questioning the tensions between art, technology, and ideology.
In the exhibition Face and Mask, eight artists from different latitudes engage in dialogue with the work of Carlos Amorales, taking the mask as their starting point. From diverse disciplines—installation, performance, visual arts, painting, and sculpture—each proposal turns the mask into a territory of meanings in constant transformation: identity and anonymity, ritual and resistance, concealment and revelation. This collective space not only broadens the reading of Amorales’ work, but also invites the public to discover how the mask, beyond its form, remains a living symbol that connects cultures, memories, and contemporary sensibilities.
The title of this exhibition is inspired by a work of Hans Belting, whose reflections have decisively shaped the contemporary studies on images.
Oscarito Sanchez
Prague Quadrennial’s Symposium
We invite you to Prague Quadrennial’s symposium on Technologies in theatre, performance, and exhibition design. Together with almost a hundred speakers from 30 countries across six continents, we will be exploring the multi-dimensional dynamic of technologies in theatre, performance, and exhibition design.
SYMPOSIUM: ‘TECHNOLOGIES’
Technologies in theatre, performance, and exhibition design
Whether old or new, high or low, digital or analogue, technologies, or different tools, instruments, devices, equipment, machines, and machinery, are potential and potent resources in the scenographic process. The recent technological developments that require more specialized knowledge and expertise have brought on the need and the opportunity for scenographers and designers to collaborate with scientists, engineers, and industry partners. While pushing the boundaries of what is possible in performance, employing these most advanced technologies is conditioned by access, stemming from material, institutional, and political conditions in which we produce art. Moreover, our ideas of technologies are often reduced to Western notions of progress and innovation.
Together with more than 80 speakers from 30 countries across six continents – performance designers, scenographers, makers, artists, and researchers who work with and on technologies – we will be exploring the multi-dimensional dynamic of technologies in theatre, performance, and exhibition design.
Vir – OPERA HACKATON
Visual Artist: Azzurra De Gregorio
Libretto: Pier Lorenzo Pisano
Composer: Ljubomir Nicolic
Director: Máté Czakó
Concept: Mate Czako, Ljubomir Nikolic, Pier Lorenzo Pisano
Artists: Francesco Venturi, Bojan Milinkovic, Alice Norma Lombardi, Patryk Tiktak Matela, Azzurra De Gregorio, Mate Czako, Pier Lorenzo Pisano, Ljubomir Nikolic, Thea Soti, Balázs Várnai, Marko Dulic.
VIR is an opera hackathon, which is based on the concept of open work with parts containing verbal instructions, sheet music – classical music notes and graphic symbols. The improvisational parts will be carried out within the “already prepared” sound-painting live composing language. In addition the artists use specially reconstructed or newly created instruments made for this occasion.
Stages of VIR:
-> 12 July, 20:00 – Lepenski Vir, Serbia
-> 14 July, 20:00 – Dorcol Platz, Belgrade
-> 18 July, 18:00 – Museo Sigismondo Castromediano, Lecce
-> 22-23 July, 18.30 – Valley of Arts Festival,Kapolcs, Hungary
FIRST EUROPE PROJECT behind VIR aims to promote and celebrate Europe’s archaeological heritage, with a special focus on the fascinating site of Lepenski Vir in Serbia, which formed one of the oldest settlements in Europe, hence the name of our project: FIRST EUROPE.
Partners of the project:
Y csoport
ECCOM – Idee per la Cultura
Lepenski Vir
First Europe project is co-funded by the Creative Europe project of the EU.
ATTRAVERSO LA TENDENZA festival di arti visive e performative
Arts festival on and around the canals
REIEFESTIVAL
Fourteen national and international makers and artists created shows in keeping with Bruges’ status as a World Heritage site. Each maker tackled the theme of “Faith” in order to make their own personal interpretation. From 18 to 20 August, you will discover how their ideas have been transformed into theatre, dance, art performances, music and more at various locations along the Bruges canals.
P.G.R. (PRO GRATIA RECEPTA)
WORKSHOP Azzurra De Gregorio
During this participatory project, Azzurra De Gregorio explores the magic and rituals behind faith as well as the role of ex-votos together with the public. Participants make their own ex-votos, with inspiration drawn from different countries and historical periods, and experience new forms of hybrid and shared rituals.
With the support of Erfgoedcel Brugge, CC Brugge and Musea Brugge
P.G.R. (PRO GRATIA RECEPTA)
PROCESSION Azzurra De Gregorio
P.G.R. is for all visitors to the Reiefestival who would like to thank someone or something for granting their wishes. The ex-votos made during the workshop will be offered to a mysterious figure during a boat procession, who will then perform a ritual on the water.
With the support of Erfgoedcel Brugge, CC Brugge and Musea Brugge
MY PARTICIPATION @ DANSATHON 2021
DANCE + HACKATHON = DANSATHON
DANSATHON is a 3 days connected, collaborative, European event to imagine the future of dance.
At the crossroads between dance and new technologies to imagine new artistic forms, new stages, new experiences and new ways to engage. Combining the best of these two worlds to imagine the dance of tomorrow, enhance cultural life and social interactions. These are the aim of the DANSATHON project.
Initiated by BNP Paribas Foundation, the Dansathon is co-organised and developed in partnership with three major Dance Institutions :
- La Maison de la Danse de Lyon (France)
- Sadler’s Wells (UK)
- Théâtre de Liège (Belgium)
Mix dance and technology to imagine new forms of art, new stages, new experiences and interactions.Combine the best of two worlds to imagine the future of dance, enrich cultural life and increase social interaction. This is our aspiration with the DANSATHON.
Dance is a language which can create a shared sense of belonging, of endeavour, of experience. The Dansathon proposes to explore how this can be retained while embracing the opportunities of new technologies.
Today, dance exists in theatres, in the city, on the web. Theatres are important actors of the city and play a major role in people’s social and cultural life. In the digital era, they search for new paths to connect with their community and talk to new audience.
Mixing dance and technology, can we create new artistic forms? What kind of performance can we imagine? What kind of new experience? How can we make dance more viral and accessible?
How can digital dance cross boundaries, social, physical, cultural? How can theatres better contribute to a rich and harmonious urban life?
How can we multiply positive collective experience? What would be a digital dancing society?
This 2nd edition, if the global health situation allows, will take place between 19-21 November 2021 in the Média Rives Studios of Radio-Télévision belge francophone.
POIETIKA ART FESTIVAL
MACCHINE UMANE
workshop a cura di
AZZURRA DE GREGORIO
Artist network About the Future Festival
ORE 17,00
SPAZIO 1 PALAZZO GIL
“Non c’è nessun luogo che non ne contenga un altro, così come non c’è nessun confine che non offra un varco.”
Poietika torna con la sua sesta edizione, dedicata al tema del “Confine” non limite, ma margine di contatto e di condivisione.
Un’edizione che guarda a un nuovo inizio, dopo un anno di assenza, ma anche alle problematiche del mondo contemporaneo quali Afganistan, diritti dell’uomo.
Appuntamento dal 13 ottobre, prevendita e prenotazioni dal 4 su
Poietika è organizzato da Fondazione Molise Cultura e cofinanziato da Regione Molise Visit Molise Patto per lo Sviluppo del Molise e patrocinato dal Comune di Campobasso e Unimol
