EscenaPatrimonio Performing Arts Festival - Spanish UNESCO World Heritage Cities Group

EscenaPatrimonio Performing Arts Festival was created in 2018 as one of the main cultural events of the 25th Anniversary celebrations of the Spanish UNESCO World Heritage Cities Group.

The Festival came into being a section of the Heritage Night, an unprecedented cultural event which took place for the fist time on 15th September 2018 simultaneously in the 15 Spanish World Heritage Cities with free access to world class performing arts shows, museums, historic sights and participative activities for visitors and locals all night long.

EscenaPatrimonio is a curated performing arts festival that -as it names implies- was born with the aim of bringing together a variety of theatre, dance and site specific proposals to give a new life to the remarkable UNESCO-listed World Heritage sites of the 15 Cities.

The cultural agents and municipalities strongly believe that the Heritage sites are essential memories of our past but also "live" platforms for the artistic creation and exchange with their inhabitants and visitors.

The festival’s first edition has brought all sorts of performing arts, from Flamenco, to contemporary dance and physical theatre to the well-known heritage spaces and hidden gems of the 15 Cities, as well as to the city’s streets, parks and squares.

2019's edition on 21st September will be focusing on time and ageing and it will be entirely dedicated to dance in all its forms and genres, since we think that dance is the perhaps the most universal of the performing arts and we are willing to foster to growing interest for contemporary dance outside the major metropolitan Spanish cities.

Context activities and workshops are also organised to bring dance closer to citizens and visitors and most of the productions will require a community involvement engaging locals of all ages in the actual performances process.

The Festival has the strong ambition to cooperate with other European Heritage Cities and UNESCO sites networks through residencies programmes, co-curation and co-production projects.

The festival strives to become an international reference platform for artists willing to work site-specific in extraordinary heritage sites throughout the year and it is a significant opportunity for the Cities to re-think the long term social function of their inestimable heritage sites in constant dialogue with their inhabitants.