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Festivals
The Grand Theatre in Poznań invites you to the second edition of the Early Spring Ballet Festival. The project is guided by the idea to show new perspectives on dance and the directions in which it develops. The festival is a platform for artistic creations by young artists, taking an extremely fresh look at dance, provided with youthful energy and bold in their search for new forms of expression. In addition to choreographic debuts, an important element of the festival will be choreographies by renowned artists. The Early Spring Ballet Festival also refers to the rich festival history of the Poznań Grand Theatre as well as to the city’s tradition in the field of dance – it is in Poznań that great personalities of classical ballet, contemporary dance and choreography were born; they have been inspiring subsequent generations and are recognised authorities in their respective fields.
The festival will open with the Spectrum 03 performance, which will be the choreographic debut of the dancers of the Ballet of the Poznań Grand Theatre. In this project, the Ballet artists not only dance and perform as choreographers, but also prepare a communication strategy, promotional materials, set design, music, costumes, etc. This approach to the performance opens new career paths for them and allows them to discover previously unknown forms of expression, not only on stage. Past editions of the Spectrum showed that dancers’ creative ideas can surprise and delight the audience. The festival programme also features the 4: Pastor / León & Lightfoot / Bondara performance, showing a variety of creations by world-famous artists sharing an authentic understanding of dance as a form of expression and an unusual intuition in saturating choreography with contemporary contexts. There will also be guest performances: Every Minute Motherland / Maciej Kuźmiński Company and Jungle Book Reimagined / Akram Khan Company as well as workshops and meetings with choreographers.
The All Mazurkas of the World Festival, which has been organised in Warsaw for 16 years, is dedicated to Polish traditional rural (folk) music. It is meant to disseminate it and present its relationship with European and world music. It is a great celebration of traditional music, dance and singing, one of the most important events in Poland on this theme. There will be concerts and dance parties with the participation of the best rural bands from Poland and abroad, outstanding musicians of the older generation and their students. Vocal workshops, dance workshops, workshops on playing folk instruments (over 60 hours), the colourful Instruments Market, including demonstrations on how artists from all over Poland work, mini concerts, activities for children. And finally, a red-hot Dance Night – 10 hours of great music, over 25 bands and dance madness until dawn. This year’s title of the festival ‘Szlakiem Domów Tańca’ [Following the Dance Houses] refers both to the concert on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Warsaw Dance House (24 April) and, more broadly, to the entire dance house movement that originated in Hungary in the 1970s. It was created on the initiative of people fascinated by rural music in crudo, that is, in its original version, without stylisations or arrangements. During the title concert (25 April), bands from Hungary, Brittany, Slovakia and Poland will perform, presenting original rural music and dances. The concert will reveal both the richness and diversity of respective melodies and dances and the community we create while dancing to traditional live music.
The All Mazurkas of the World Festival is a musical carnival in the heart of Warsaw, a celebration of traditional music, dance and singing. There will be concerts and dance parties with the participation of the best rural bands, outstanding musicians and their students. There will be workshops, activities for children, demonstrations on how to make folk instruments and meetings with their creators from all over Poland and abroad – over 100 exhibitors. And finally, a Dance Night – 10 hours of great music, over 30 bands and dance madness until dawn.
Get your best dance shoes ready! You are in for fantastic dance workshops and dance parties! We have invited great teachers, such as guests from Slovakia – Alfred Lincke and Antónia Rokošná with the Muzička band!
On April 23, the next edition of the LAACT 25 - Light as a Creative Tool project, conducted at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław since 2020, will begin in Wrocław. The project is part of the Cultural Program of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council. This year's program focuses on post-anthropocentric areas in philosophy and art. The initiative assumes multidimensional co-thinking and cooperation in the conference and workshop part, as well as extensive activities and discussions in the broadly understood accompanying program. This year's edition, co-organized by the National Center for Culture, will last until May 31.
Zbigniew Herbert once said that ‘we are all seekers of paradises lost’. He was not alone in his opinion. People of all cultures and ages had similar intuitions, especially in Europe, manifested in the Greek legend of the Golden Age and in the biblical myth of the Garden of Eden: although we have to live in a fallen world, the consolation is the vague and melancholy memory of the era of happiness and the hope that the old order will someday be restored.
A special role in reviving these intuitions is played by music, the delicate force of which, opening the gates of the enchanted garden, awakens a sweet and painful feeling that the idyllic Arcadia is at our fingertips. At the Katowice Culture Nature Festival, we will hear many such works, both recognised masterpieces (including The Song of the Earth by Gustav Mahler, The Fair Maid of the Mill by Franz Schubert, Schéhérazade by Maurice Ravel or Out of Doors by Béla Bartók) as well as lesser-known compositions, hidden like a forgotten treasure (like the Symphony No. 3 ‘From Spring to Spring’ by Zygmunt Noskowski, which will crown the festival).
The most outstanding soloists (Joshua Bell, Ian Bostridge, Joyce DiDonato, Adam Ben Ezra, Sasha Cooke, Seong-Jin Cho, Michael Spyres), ensembles (Academia di Santa Cecilia, Il Pomo d’Oro, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra) and conductors (Marin Alsop, Francesco Corti, Carolyn Kuan, Daniel Harding) will perform.
The Intergenerational Festival of Children’s Literature – Fathers and Children is the largest literary event for children in Poland. For six years, it has been introducing the youngest to the fascinating world of books through inspiring events taking place outside libraries and bookstores, including in unusual places related to the plot. The audience meets, among others, in forests, botanical gardens, in nooks and crannies of castles, on board of ships and vessels, in astronomical observatories, art galleries, museums and even in the premises of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. These are not only meetings with authors or art workshops, but also interactive exhibitions, family games, happenings and tournaments.
The initiative, addressed to the whole family, proves that books can connect generations and that time inspired by literature can be a great adventure. A special feature of the festival is its intertextual nature, which fuels the mood of curiosity and creates lasting memories. Together with the best authors, illustrators and animators, the festival presents carefully selected plots and important ideas responding to the questions and challenges of modern times in a surprising form, attractive not only to children, but also to their caregivers.
Organised since 1985, the festival is one of the main events of the Białystok Cultural Centre and the oldest and largest event of this kind in the region. It is a theatre-based initiative, but it is also enriched by other, numerous genres: visual arts, music, film and meetings with artists. The festival is aimed at people who value bold and innovative art projects, ready to meet artists with a clear vision, arguing with the surrounding reality by using form, words, sounds and infinite imagination. For over three decades, the festival has hosted a great number of artists from Poland and around the world.
The Łódź Design Festival was established in 2007 as a review of the achievements of Polish design. From the very beginning, it presents design in its various forms – from industrial design, through graphic design, architecture, arts and crafts, to the creation of services and interactions. Today, the event focuses on asking questions, interpreting various phenomena and critical discussion. It presents innovations and projects that have a great impact on our environment. The Łódź Design Festival is an event addressed to designers, architects, representatives of creative professions as well as everyone interested in culture and design. It is a great place to look for inspiration. The strongest points of the programme are always thematic exhibitions, including those focused on urban themes, which are also discussed in the Archiblok section, meetings with experts in the field of design and architecture, discussions and lectures as well as workshops for adults and children.
The festival is accompanied by two events – the ‘make me!’ competition for young designers and the ‘must have’ poll.
The ‘make me!’ international design competition is one of the most innovative events in the field of design in Europe and a key element of the Łódź Design Festival. The most important goal of ‘make me!’ is to forecast upcoming trends, bold ideas and support young designers who are ready to launch their careers.
Dedicated to all those whose design process is triggered by observing a need or a problem.
‘must have’ is a poll organised by the Łódź Design Festival since 2011 to recognise the best Polish implementations from Polish designers and manufacturers. It is a free quality label that Polish companies can use in Poland and abroad. It was created to disseminate good Polish design and thus promote Polish business and designers. ‘must have’ is a unique consumer recommendation and an event with the greatest media coverage in Polish design.
For the 19th time, the Łódź Design Festival will become a space for dialogue between the individual, subjective perspective of the creators and a broad view of global and local problems. The festival’s goal is not only to present the aesthetic and functional aspects of design, but also to explore its social, cultural and environmental contexts.
In the face of dynamic changes in everyday reality – from technological challenges, through various ecological challenges, to changes in human relations – the ŁDF tries to set the field for discussion and search for answers to the various challenges of today.
The Krakow Film Festival is one of the oldest events in the world devoted to documentaries, animated films and short films. Its core consists of three equivalent competitions: international documentary competition, short film competition and national competition. During the 8 festival days, the audience has the opportunity to watch about 250 films from Poland and around the world. They are presented in competition series and in special screenings. The festival is accompanied by exhibitions, concerts, outdoor shows and meetings with artists. Every year, the event is visited by about 900 Polish and international guests: directors, producers, festival programmers and numerous Krakow audiences.
We will see you already by the end of May at the 18th Krakow Film Music Festival! Traditionally, we will start with the Lusławice composers’ workshops, which are addressed to the participants of the FMF Young Talent Award competition. Then we will return to Krakow to, among other things, listen to a selection of the best soundtracks of recent years and take part in a large simultaneous concert. There will also be events for the youngest audience on the occasion of Children’s Day.
In addition, as every year, the FMF Audiovisual Forum will be held – a series of meetings with experts from the music and film industries. We will also organise the FMF Festival Town offering various activities for the whole family.
The CODES Festival of Traditional and Avant-garde Music, the first edition of which took place in 2009, has a reputation of a highly creative initiative. Its formula involves searching for common issues and determining similarities between distant cultural phenomena both in space, time and in various genres of music and art.
The idea of the CODES is to vividly combine the tradition of archaic music with modern explorations and to intertwine them. During the Festival, the magical function of archaic music meets the aesthetic utopias of modern music. Early music gains unexpected contemporary contexts, while avant-garde experimenters listen to the voices of the past. The juxtaposition of traditional and contemporary aesthetics contributes to a new quality, as the magical function of archaic music meets the aesthetic function of modern music. Next to each other, we can see that they are actually close to each other and interconnected.
The CODES Festival of Traditional and Avant-garde Music brings together outstanding contemporary music composers, excellent instrumentalists, radical representatives of avant-garde jazz, traditional musicians and artists reconstructing archaic music traditions. During the event, global celebrities meet with creative youth and elderly rural musicians to jointly seek new musical meanings, take artistic risks and participate in the discovery of new continents of sounds.
The 38th edition of the International Theatre Festival WALIZKA will take place at the Puppet and Actor Theatre in Łomża. Each subsequent edition of this important international event allows for the flow of artistic ideas and exchange of experiences. It is also a space with a unique atmosphere. The festival is both a competition and a review of the most interesting theatrical performances by outstanding artists and renowned theatres from around the world, and the programme is always carefully selected and verified. So far, about 350 theatres from 50 countries have taken part in the festival, such as the United States, New Zealand, China, Argentina, Japan, Iran, Spain, Israel, Canada, the Netherlands, Singapore, Serbia, Germany and many others.
An integral part of the review is the open-air interdisciplinary section entitled ‘My City’, where you can see interesting events that are not part of the competition. The open formula of the festival, the richness of forms, phenomena and various events make the festival not only a meaningful and fascinating event for puppeteers, but also for the city’s inhabitants.
The International Theatre Festival Kontakt is the oldest international theatre festival in Poland. It has been organised by the Wilam Horzyca Theatre since 1991. It was established by Krystyna Meissner, for which she received a Polityka Passport Award. The previous editions have been attended by theatres from over 30 countries.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Kontakt Festival became an intermediary of multinational, often difficult agreements in the new reality. From the very beginning, the festival’s underlying assumption has been to bring the East and the West together.
We can’t wait to welcome you at the Wilam Horzyca Theatre in Toruń!
Pyrkon is one of the largest fan conventions in Europe, where lovers of games, films, comics or literature will have the impression that they have found their piece of heaven. It is 52 hours of uninterrupted fun, time spent on presentations selected from over one and a half thousand programme points, playing games, visiting exhibitions and fantasy villages and meeting fantasy creators from all over the world! It is also shopping at the exhibition, where over 300 exhibitors will be selling not only gadgets from both famous and lesser known universes, but also unique, handicraft items. Above all, however, it is a Fantastic Meeting Place with a magical atmosphere that you can only feel here and only three days a year!
In 2024, over 58,000 people chose Pyrkon. This year, it is your chance to find out why it is so unique!
The Malta Festival is one of the most important cultural events in Central and Eastern Europe. For over three decades, it has been shaping the space of dialogue between different fields of art, cultures and ideas. The festival is a multidisciplinary platform where theatre, dance, music, visual arts, film and performative forms meet, creating a unique programme open to experiments.
A key element of Malta is its social and inclusive nature. The festival is not limited to closed stages – it goes out into the streets, squares and public spaces, engaging a wide audience and transforming the city into a dynamic artistic scene. The Malta Festival is also a space for reflection on contemporary challenges – from ecological to social and political issues – often in a global context.
Moreover, Malta consistently focuses on diversity and promotes values such as community, equality, intercultural dialogue and freedom of expression. Consequently, not only is the event artistically impressive, but it also inspires change and commitment.
A concert inaugurating the first edition of the Music Week Poland, a conference and showcase festival devoted to contemporary Polish and European music. The concert will be hosted by Kapela Ze Wsi Warszawa, one of the most important and appreciated Polish bands in the world, whose oeuvre interprets folk tradition in an extremely erudite and modern way while respecting its values.
Among the guests of Kapela Ze Wsi Warszawa, who will appear on stage at the Polish History Museum, there will be the punk rock legend Dezerter, representatives of young Polish jazz, that is, Błoto, folk-punk R.U.T.A., the outstanding composer and music researcher Raphael Rogiński, one of the most important metal bands Furia and Zamilska, a star of the electronic music scene.
The concert will be divided into acts, separated by several-minute projections on a screen behind the stage. The concert’s repertoire will include both Kapela’s and their guests’ compositions – performed both together and separately.
The aim of the concert will be to show the rich stylistic and emotional diversity of Polish music, its numerous genres and the multigenerational nature of sensitivity and talent. It will also reveal that Polish music excels at combining tradition with modernity. The concert will be a perfect introduction to the Music Week Poland.
The Music Week Poland was born from ambition, aspirations and needs, but also from the great potential of the Polish music scene. We envision it as a gateway for Polish and Eastern European artists to enter the dynamic and constantly developing European music markets. At the same time, it will serve as a meeting point where professionals and artists will have the chance to meet and connect in a safe, open and encouraging environment. Here, artists and their teams, professionals from different backgrounds and audiences will participate in a very natural, organic cultural exchange.
In our pursuit, we fully understand that education, networking and the need for competence and expertise are fundamental to the development of the music market. Our mission is to support all participants – artists, managers, publishers and concert and festival organisers – on this journey.
In this global conversation about music, we plan to give exposure to the voices from local scenes and to look for regional perspectives, subtexts and experiences. Our goal is to connect with our neighbours, recognising them as our natural partners. We believe that creativity and talent are endless resources driving sustainable economic growth – not only for creators and audiences, but also for the environment. Cooperation is always more rewarding than competition.
Having said all this, there are also things we do not do or believe in: genre-categorisation, social divisions and generational exclusion. We fully understand that music needs context, which is why we strive to bring people together on many platforms: music, but also literature, film, design, new media and technology. We want to look for areas where music intertwines with economics, politics and social problems.
Above all, we are not afraid to deal with difficult and demanding issues. We will thoroughly and boldly discuss the challenges the music market faces. We will undoubtedly review our values, standards and principles. Even in the most heated moments, we will not lose sight of the main reasons we fell in love with music – its sincere emotions and pure joy.
