12th Bazaar Festival of Central and Eastern European performance 2026

Bazaar Festival 2026: the Human and Non-human Communities Edition

Our Prague festival focuses on independent innovating dance and theatre artists in East / Central European countries, always asking: what common themes can be found in such diverse countries? In 2026 the theme is Human and Non-human Communities.

What unites us as groups of individuals? What circumstances allow us to share an identity with others? And what does this bring us? Cooperation in communities—based on shared interests, skills, professions, faith, civic convictions, nationality, or various political views—has enabled us to achieve things that we could never have accomplished as individuals.

But what does being in a human community really open up for us? And what blind spots does it produce in us?

These questions take on new meaning when we extend our understanding of community beyond the purely human experience. When we focus our gaze on the microscopic communities that live around us, on us, and within us - or when we "zoom out" to see the communities of other species with whom we share the landscape, cities, and future. Together, we form larger entities, sometimes known as ecosystems.

The Bazaar Festival 2026 program is inspired by the work of independent researchers and makers from Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and other regions who work in the fields of dance and innovative theatre. It builds on the themes of previous years—such as "more than nation" (2017) or "searching for a common voice" (2018) – while also drawing on experiences that have fundamentally influenced our creative communities in recent years: the pandemic, recent military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, deteriorating conditions for agriculture, forestry, and fishing in Central Europe, and the continuing loss of biodiversity.

The artists whose work we are following this year do not approach these topics from a distance – they explore them through their own bodies, communities, and everyday realities. Thanks to their practices and research, they are able to reflect on broader contexts with extraordinary sensitivity and emphasis. What is remarkable is how often their work returns to the very foundation of our experience—the body that perceives, feels, thinks, and acts. Through contemporary dance, physical theater, and other forms of performing arts that place the body at the center of cognition, artists from Central and Eastern Europe ask: How does my body relate to the whole? How does it all work? How are we connected? Where are we headed?

The festival program opens with performances that explore the role of male and female communities in our behavior and identity, and then focuses on works and practices dealing with human communities of protest and resistance. The middle part of the festival is traditionally devoted to the natural world, this time to communities other than human ones, and then moves on to communities of play, pleasure, and diversity.