Name: Riga Performance Festival STARPTELPA 2026
Start: 2026-05-25T12:00:00+03:00
End: 2026-05-31T17:00:00+03:00
Location: Riga

Riga Performance Festival STARPTELPA 2026

The Riga Performance Festival STARPTELPA returns for its 8th edition! From 25–31 May, the festival will present a rich and diverse programme at St Saviour’s Anglican Church and other venues across Riga, Latvia.
The 2026 theme, SONIC VIBRATIONS, explores the layered and dynamic presence of sound as a performative force. Moving beyond the understanding of sound as mere accompaniment, the festival foregrounds vibration, resonance, silence, and dissonance as active agents shaping bodies, spaces, and collective memory.
While performance art has often privileged the visual and the corporeal, this edition shifts attention towards the auditory and atmospheric. Artists have been invited to approach sound as material, method, and metaphor – engaging with its capacity to carry histories, transmit affect, and generate new forms of relation. By considering sound as embodied and spatial, the festival highlights how listening itself can become a critical and transformative act.

This year’s festival features live performances, a video performance night, networking opportunities, the interdisciplinary scholarly conference “Aesthetics of Protest and Legal Mobilization”, VV Foundation award ceremony and Madame Nielsen’s (DK) solo concert.
▪️Monday 25 May – Arrival
▪️Tuesday 26 May – Kick-Off Event (Theater-Club “Hamlets”)
▪️Wednesday 27 May – Video Performance Night (K. Suns)
▪️Thursday 28 May – Friday 29 May – International Conference “Aesthetics of Protest and Legal Mobilization” (Art Academy of Latvia – K2)
▪️Thursday 28 May, Friday 29 May, Saturday 30 May – Live Performances (St. Saviour’s Anglican Church)
▪️Sunday 31 May – VV Foundation Award Ceremony and Madame Nielsen’s Solo Concert (Latvian National Museum of Literature and Music)
The detailed festival programme is available at: www.rigaperformancefestival.com/festival-2026.

The festival programme includes both free and ticketed events. Free events include the festival opening (26 May), the academic conference (28–29 May), and the closing event (31 May). Advance registration is required for the closing event; to register, please email [email protected].
The video performance evening (27 May) will operate on a donation basis.
For the live performance programme at St Saviour’s Anglican Church (28–30 May), visitors may purchase either a full festival pass covering all three days (€25) or day tickets (€15). Discounted rates are available for students and arts professionals: €10 for a day ticket or €15 for a full festival pass. Children and young people under 18, as well as pensioners, may attend free of charge.
Tickets are available here: www.aula.lv/pasakumi/rigas-performances-makslas-festivals-starptelpa.

The festival is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, Danish Arts Foundation, ERASMUS+, Nordic Culture Point, Canada Council for the Arts, Culture Ireland, VV Foundation, PAiR, LSM, K. Suns, Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia, Aston Hotel Riga, MĀ TELPA, Art Academy of Latvia, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and Latvian National Museum of Literature and Music.