World’s Largest Theater Scenography Festival to Take Place on June 8-18

The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space was established in 1967 to bring the best of design for performance, scenography, and theatre architecture.

Opening of the main exhibitions of the Prague Quadrennial will take place on Wednesday, 7 June at 6 p.m. in the Holešovice Market Hall – the main venue of this 15th edition.

Numerous parts will also be hosted in the National Gallery and The Academy of Performing Arts.

PQ does not operate merely as a festival, gradually it has evolved into a platform, which explores progressive approaches, new media, virtual spaces and interdisciplinary relations.

The main two exhibitions – the Exhibition of Countries and Regions and the Student Exhibition – are competitive and the artistic teams of individual countries and regions are appointed by the local curator representatives.

During the eleven days, the visitors of PQ will have the opportunity to experience around 150 exhibitory projects and installations, 50 performances mainly in the public space, a live exhibition of 35 concepts of performance spaces, 60 of the most inspired publications about scenography issued in the past five years or 40 blocks of expert lectures.

Each programme section examines scenography/performance design from a different point of view, making the Prague Quadrennial one of the most diverse cultural events in the world.

“RARE”

The theme of PQ 2023 is “RARE” – in a sense of unique, one-and-only, raw, or bizarre. This choice reflects the ground-breaking changes in all areas of human activity and creativity, which were accelerated by the pandemic during the last two years.

Our conception of the physical was significantly altered – the space, encounters and sharing.

The physical became a rare and unique opportunity. The theme aims to invite scenographers and performance designers to share their notions of the post-pandemic world and their visions of the future influenced by the events of the near past.

Anywhere – with the Festival Pass

All the programme sections of Prague Quadrennial 2023 will be accessible only to the Festival Pass holders. From 18 January, you can purchase the 11-day Festival Pass for an early-bird price of 2400 CZK and 1400 CZK for students via the GoOut.net portal.

The Festival Pass also grants access to the time-limited Digital Archive of PQ. From Spring 2023, PQ will offer 3-day and 1-day Festival Passes as well. Later in 2023, the ticket sale will start, for those interested in visiting just the main exhibition spaces in the Holešovice Market and the Trade Fair Palace of the National Gallery Prague.