Riga Performance Festival STARPTELPA

The Riga Performance Festival STARPTELPA returns for its 8th edition.

Curated by the Latvian Centre for Performance Art.

From 25–31 May, audiences are invited to experience a diverse programme of performances and events at St. Saviour’s Anglican Church and other venues across Riga, Latvia.

This year’s programme features live performances at Theatre Club “Hamlets” and St. Saviour’s Anglican Church, video screenings at Cinema K. Suns, networking opportunities, the interdisciplinary academic conference “Aesthetics of Protest and Legal Mobilization” at the Art Academy of Latvia, the VV Foundation award ceremony and a solo concert by Madame Nielsen (DK) at the Latvian National Museum of Literature and Music.

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 that shape bodies, spaces, and collective memory.  

While performance art has often privileged the visual and the corporeal, this edition shifts attention toward the auditory and the 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.  

Framed through ideas of resonance, postmemory, and productive tension, the 2026 programme encourages works that explore how voices overlap, examining not only the afterlife of sound, but also silence as a communicative force. The unique acoustic environment of St. Saviour’s Anglican Church becomes an integral part of this exploration, offering a site where architecture and vibration meet in dialogue.

Programme highlights:

• 26, 28, 29 & 30 May – live performance evenings
• 27 May – video performance night
• 28–29 May – conference: “Aesthetics of Protest and Legal Mobilization”
• 31 May – VV Foundation Award ceremony and Madame Nielsen’s solo concert

View the live performance programme on the STARPTELPA website.

The festival programme includes both free and ticketed events. Free events include the festival opening, the academic conference, a masterclass, and the closing event. Advance registration is required for the closing event via starptelpa@rigaperformance.lv.

The video performance night operates on a donation basis. Tickets for the live performance programme at St. Saviour’s Anglican Church are available either as a full festival pass covering all three performance days (€25) or as individual day tickets (€15). Discounts are available for students and industry professionals: €10 for a day ticket or €15 for a full festival pass. Children and young people under 18, as well as seniors, may attend free of charge.

Tickets are available here.

The festival is organised by the Latvian Performance Art Centre (LPMC), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to developing performance art in Latvia through artistic, educational, and research projects, while fostering international networks of collaboration.