E.S.C.E.N.A.A
E.S.C.E.N.A.A.: Espaces Sans frontières, Création En Nous, Artistes et public Actifs
(Spaces Without Borders, Creation Within Us, Active Artists and Audiences)
E.S.C.E.N.A.A. is a 12-month European project (October 2026 – September 2027). It is led by Théâtre & Réconciliation (Belgium) in partnership with Festival Z (Fundació Privada Joan Bosch, Girona, Catalonia). It is supported by the Erasmus+ programme (Small-scale partnerships in adult education).
The project starts from a simple observation. Participatory art projects are growing across Europe, yet they often remain on the margins of professional festivals. Festivals, for their part, struggle to reach the audiences furthest from cultural life. E.S.C.E.N.A.A. aims to bring these two worlds together. It brings participatory art forms into the official festival programme and turns them into meeting spaces where professional creation and collective creation respond to each other.
Objectives
The project develops new “light” participatory formats. They need few technical resources and little of the audience’s time, and they fit easily into the festival space. This means they can be replicated in very different festival settings.
E.S.C.E.N.A.A. also pursues several further objectives:
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to train, support and raise the profile of young socially engaged artists, and to help them build professional careers at European level;
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to create a lasting network between young Belgian and Spanish artists;
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to encourage mutual learning and the exchange of good practice between the partners;
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to develop support tools for artists and festivals that wish to bring participatory practices into their programming.
Who is the project for?
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Young emerging artists (aged 18–35) from Belgium and Spain, who are at the heart of the project;
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residents and audiences of the Girona region, especially those with little access to cultural life, who are invited to co-create the works;
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Festival Z audiences, who will discover hybrid forms that combine professional creation with citizen participation;
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European festivals, which will be able to draw on the methods and recommendations produced by the project.
Activities and timeline
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October 2026 – January 2027: European survey. A questionnaire is sent to around thirty festivals in Belgium, Spain and elsewhere in Europe to map existing participatory practices, needs and expectations. A summary of the results will be published in four languages (FR, ES, CAT, EN).
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February – June 2027: training in Belgium. 10 young artists (5 Belgian, 5 Spanish) take part in six days of training in the participatory theatre method developed by Théâtre & Réconciliation. Working in Belgian-Spanish pairs or trios, they design their own artistic proposals and then refine them in online follow-up sessions.
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Summer 2027: experiments at Festival Z. Four to five participatory performances are presented in Festival Z’s official programme, in Girona and Salt. They take place both indoors and in public spaces, with the participation of local residents.
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July – September 2027: dissemination of results. A round table is held during Festival Z, and a public event takes place in Belgium. Both include screenings of the performance videos and the artists’ testimonies.
Resources and outputs
E.S.C.E.N.A.A. will produce:
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a summary of the survey on participatory practices in European festivals;
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a final document tracing the project’s journey, the artists’ training, their testimonies and recommendations for European festivals, translated into French, Spanish, Catalan and English;
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videos of the performances, shared on the partners’ websites and social media.
Through E.S.C.E.N.A.A., we stand for a creative and inclusive Europe. In this Europe, festivals become places of shared experience, and a new generation of artists reinvents the connection between creation, audiences and place.
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only.
