Luftanje Scene Ribnjak 2026

Luftanje Scene Ribnjak is a young festival that has so far held two editions, taking place throughout April in 2024 and 2025. It presents a month of curated programmes featuring Croatian performing artists in residence at Ribnjak, combined with knowledge exchange within the independent performing arts scene. The festival offers a vibrant mix of contemporary theatre, dance, and music, showcasing resident Ribnjak artists alongside several international guest artists.The term Luftanje is not easily translated, as it originates from the local Zagreb dialect. Beyond its everyday meaning of “airing out”, Luft (air) has often been understood in philosophical and scientific thought as the bearer of light, transparency, and vitality — not merely a space through which we move, but a substance with its own qualities and influence on the world. In this sense, Luftanje refers to a broader concept of openness, exchange, and movement between the inner and the outer — a process in which space becomes permeable, responsive to what comes from outside and to what is released from within. It is both an emergence into light and an act of unveiling, yet it can also imply stillness or idleness — and precisely in that tension between activity and pause, movement and delay, a space for play emerges.

Luftanje Scene Ribnjak is therefore not merely a physical or symbolic “airing out”, but a dynamic process of exposure and reflection — of what happens on stage and of what shapes it.

In April 2025, more than 50 Croatian and French artists presented their work through nine performances, two concerts, workshops, and an educational, artist-development programme.The 2026 edition is currently in the making.