10 September – 26 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

Installation

Free admission

Os Espacialistas

Mappa: Concetto Spaziale

Designed for Espaço BoCA in Lisbon, the Espacialista scenographic installation entitled “Mappa: Concetto Spaziale” was created to be the biennial’s meeting point, a space that hosts concerts, performances, talks, workshops, a store and moments of conviviality.

11 September – 15 October

Lisboa

Cinemateca Portuguesa

13 September – 23 October

Madrid

Filmoteca Española

cinema

Tickets

João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata

Malamor / Tainted Love

“Malamor / Tainted Love” is the name of the film cycle that brings together the BoCA, the Cinemateca Portuguesa and the Filmoteca Española, in a collaboration dedicated to cinema as an affective, political and unclassifiable territory.

12 – 14 September

Lisboa

Centro Cultural de Belém

19 September

Theatro Circo

24 – 25 October

Teatro das Figuras

7 November

Teatro Aveirense

opera

Tickets

Dino D’Santiago

Adilson

More than an individual, Adilson represents thousands of people left on the margins of the system. The opera turns waiting into poetry and turns invisibility into an act of resistance.

19 September – 26 October

Lisboa

Galerias Municipais EGEAC - Galeria Quadrum

Installation, Visual Arts

Free admission

Adriana Proganó

Echoes of whispers, plimplim

Through sculptures arranged in the space, the visitor is led to perceive sounds coming from unusual places, expanding listening beyond the usual.

28 September

Madrid

Parque de El Retiro

26 October

Lisboa

Lago do Jardim do Campo Grande

performance

Free admission

Gemma Luz Bosch

El Sonido del Barro

Gemma Luz Bosch creates ceramic instruments that transform clay into music. In this performance, she leads the audience on an intimate and attentive listen. Crafts, sound and landscape merge, revealing the poetry of the molded earth. Part of the “I Want to See My Mountains” cycle.
October

3 – 4 October

Madrid

Teatro de la Abadía

25 – 26 October

Lisboa

Teatro do Bairro Alto

Theatre

Tickets

Alberto Cortés, João Gabriel

Os Rapazes da Praia Adoro

A creation that brings together theatre and painting to explore the intimate encounter between two male bodies — one Portuguese, the other Spanish — on an imaginary beach somewhere between Lisbon and Madrid. This symbolic place becomes a space of connection and healing, where intimacy and desire intertwine, evoking memories of 1970s and 80s pornographic cinema. The piece proposes alternative ways of understanding male sexuality, marked by delicacy, poetry, and the need for affection.

15 October

Lisboa

Cinemateca Portuguesa

23 October

Madrid

Filmoteca Española

cinema

Tickets

João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata

13 Alfinetes

Commissioned by BoCA, “13 Alfinetes” is the new film by João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata, a work of fiction that blends devotion, desire and spectres. Drawing inspiration from a miracle attributed to Santo António and filtered through the restless gaze of the two directors, the film draws on this legend to construct a contemporary tale of faith, revenge and disillusionment.

22 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

talk

Free admission

Seba Calfuqueo

Talk with Seba Calfuqueo

Seba Calfuqueo’s work draws on her cultural heritage and life experience as a starting point for a critical reflection on social, cultural and political dynamics surrounding the Mapuche subject in contemporary Chilean and Latin-American society.

22 – 25 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

Workshop, performance, Visual Arts

Tickets

Seba Calfuqueo

Situar el cuerpo

In the workshop, which results in a performative public sharing and a lecture by the artist, at Espaço BoCA, the artist seeks to bring a contemporary reflection on the relationship between the human and what we understand as nature, developing a point of rupture in which we can understand that these two concepts can coexist.

24 – 25 October

Lisboa

Academia das Ciências de Lisboa

Dance

Tickets

Marcos Morau

Totentanz

A show conceived for unconventional spaces where death — that age-old figure, feared yet fascinating — takes centre stage. Drawing inspiration from the medieval tradition of danse macabre (“dance of death”), the performance invokes a collective ritual for our times: a nameless mourning, a meditation on the fragility of life and its indiscernable end.

25 October

Lisboa

Panteão Nacional

Concert, Dance

Tickets

Aurora Bauzà & Pere Jou

A BEGINNING #16161D

Five dancer-singers bearing portable lamps breathe, walk and talk, in a composition where the body that sings dissociates itself from the body that moves

25 October

Madrid

Goethe-Institut Madrid

26 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

performance

Free admission

Creation resulting from BoCA Sub21

BoCA Sub21 is a participatory and experimental project in which a collective of young people aged between 16 and 21 follow the biennial’s programme and the issues it raises. In 2025, two groups will be formed, each in one of the biennial’s cities: Lisbon and Madrid.

25 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

performance, Visual Arts

Free admission

Public presentation of the workshop “Situar el cuerpo”

Public sharing from the workshop led by artist Seba Calfuqueo, which seeks to bring a contemporary reflection on the relationship between humans and what we understand as nature, developing a breaking point in which we can understand that these two concepts can coexist.

Past events

10 – 28 September

Lisboa

Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado

10 – 26 September

Lisboa

Carpintarias de São Lázaro

Exhibition, Visual Arts

Felipe Romero Beltrán

Dialecto

In Dialecto, Colombian artist Felipe Romero Beltrán combines photography, performance and choreography to reflect on the bureaucratic violence that befalls young migrants in Spain.

10 September

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

Installation, performance, Music

Free admission

Os Espacialistas, Farra Fanfarra, Veludo

Opening Espaço BoCA

With a scenographic installation by the architecture collective Os Espacialistas, who will guide us through the corners of the house, we open the doors of Espaço BoCA with trumpets, trombones and tubas to the sound of Farra Fanfarra, and then let ourselves be carried away by the beats of Veludo’s DJ set.

11 – 12 September

Madrid

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

20 September

Lisboa

MAC/CCB Museu de Arte Contemporânea e Centro de Arquitetura

performance

Free admission

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa

De Espiral en Espiral

Taking as its starting point the deck of cards — a colonial artifact strictly regulated by the Spanish Crown as a means of economic and symbolic control — Ramírez-Figueroa follows a winding path between imposition and deviation, power and witchcraft. In the hands of the women in his family, these same cards, once an accessory of entertainment and imperial earnings, become fortune telling tools, instruments for survival and the transmission of occult knowledge.

11 September – 10 October

Lisboa

Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes

Installation, cinema

Free admission

João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata

With No Before and After

A film installation by João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata, which calls on the past to question the present. Drawing on their film “Where Is the Street? or “With No Before and After”, which they shot in 16 mm in the middle of the pandemic, the two filmmakers now present an installation establishing a dialogue with the film “Os Verdes Anos” (1963), the debut feature by Paulo Rocha that founded the New Portuguese Cinema movement.

13 September

Madrid

La Casa Encendida

20 September

Madrid

Esta es una plaza

11 October

Madrid

Esta es una plaza

Installation, Visual Arts, performance

Free admission

Gabriel Chaile, Batuko Tabanka, Batucada Sico Bana, Agnes Essonti, Megane Mercury, Estefanía Santiago

Alcindo Monteiro

The oven-sculpture “Alcindo Monteiro” by Gabriel Chaile pays tribute to the Portuguese youth of Cape Verdean origin who was murdered in 1995, in Lisbon, in a racist attack that became a symbol of the anti-racist struggle in Portugal. The installation will be on display from September 13 to October 13 and activations will take place on September 13, 20 and October 11.

13 – 14 September

Lisboa

Sala Estúdio Valentim de Barros / Jardins do Bombarda (TNDM II)

performance

Tickets

Julián Pacomio

Toda la Luz del Mediodía

The second part of a long-term trilogy, this project explores the moment of midday, where intense, vertical light brings both clarity and weight. The work investigates the transition from excess energy to stillness, from exposure to fading, translating into choreography the tension between heat, rest, and visibility.

19 – 20 September

Lisboa

Culturgest

Theatre, performance

Tickets

Tianzhuo Chen, Siko Setyanto

Ocean Cage

An immersive performance combining installation, dance, and film, inspired by the traditions of Lamalera, Indonesia. It explores ecology, spirituality, and interdependent relationships between species, in a sensory experience where ancestral rituals intersect with visions of the future.

20 September

Lisboa

MAC/CCB Museu de Arte Contemporânea e Centro de Arquitetura

talk, Visual Arts

Free admission

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa

Talk with the artist

The talk takes place within the framework of the performance “De Espiral en Espiral” commissioned by TBA21 and co-produced by BoCA, premiering during the biennial in Madrid at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and in Lisbon at the MAC/CCB Museu de Arte Contemporânea e Centro de Arquitectura.

20 – 21 September

Lisboa

Sala Estúdio Valentim de Barros / Jardins do Bombarda (TNDM II)

Theatre

Tickets

Kiluanji Kia Henda

Coral of Bodies without North

In the theater show “Coral dos Corpos sem Norte”, Kiluanji Kia Henda thinks of migration as a process of the pemba. Going as coming back. The journey as a stay in place. A curse that accompanies us at every step and takes us back to where we started.

22 September

Madrid

Nave de Terneras del Centro Cultural Casa del Reloj

27 – 28 September

Lisboa

Carpintarias de São Lázaro

Dance

Tickets

Elena Córdoba, Francisco Camacho

Uma ficção na dobra do mapa

A reunion between two choreographers, returning to a dialog that began ten years ago, where memory and the body are living archives. Based on the idea of inhabiting each other, this project revisits the deep sharing between the two, now aware of the transformations of time and the way the past resonates in the present.

23 September

Madrid

Goethe-Institut Madrid

3 October

Lisboa

Fundação PLMJ

masterclass, talk, Visual Arts

Free admission

Kiluanji Kia Henda

Memória, Poder e Paisagem: a Arte de Kiluanji Kia Henda

In this masterclass, the Angolan artist takes us through his creative and reflective universe, situated at the forefront of anti-colonial thinking, proposing a reflection on how the generations that grew up during and after the war re-signify these events and analyze the impact of geopolitics on Angola’s history.

27 September

Madrid

Goethe-Institut Madrid

28 September

Lisboa

Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal

performance

Free admission

Isabel Cordovil

Historia do Escudo

The performance invites the public on a reflective walk, starting at the Goethe-Institut in Madrid and the National Library in Lisbon, towards the site of the action, collectively reimagining the relationship between care, resistance and public space. Part of the “I Want to See My Mountains” cycle.

27 – 28 September

Madrid

Museo Nacional del Prado

5 October

Madrid

Museo Nacional del Prado

Theatre, Dance

Tiago Rodrigues, Sofia Dias & Vítor Roriz, Patrícia Portela, Angélica Liddell, Rodrigo García

Words and gestures: for a performative collection at Museo del Prado

“Words and Gestures” is a cycle that invites four theater artists - Tiago Rodrigues (PT) with Sofia Dias& Vítor Roriz (PT), Patrícia Portela (PT), Angélica Liddell (ES) and Rodrigo García (AR/ES) - to write and direct creations inspired by works from the Prado Museum’s collection.

1 October

Lisboa

Cinema Fernando Lopes

performance, cinema

Tickets

Ana Pérez-Quiroga

¿De qué casa eres?

Alongside the film screening, in the performance created for BoCA 2025, “De qué casa eres? – performance #1”, this cartography of memory steps out onto the stage. A games table, a lampshade, a bench: objects that recreate the intimacy of home and a place of leisure.

3 October

Lisboa

CAM - Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian

9 October

Madrid

Museo del Traje

conferência, performance

Tickets

Pedro G. Romero, Niño de Elche

Descomposición/Choro

This conference-performance assumes itself as a listening to the border that refuses its connotation as a line of separation, but embraces it as a vibrant zone of encounters and tensions, where music, language and collective practices continue to (re)write stories to come.

4 October

Lisboa

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian / Anfiteatro ao ar livre

11 October

Madrid

Museo del Traje

Concert

Tickets

Niño de Elche, Pedro G. Romero

El cante rasgueado

In the ‘stripe’ that separates — or unites — the south of Portugal, Huelva and Extremadura, sound operates as a link in a chain between geographies and histories. There we hear the cante alentejano with its viola campaniças, the fandango cané in Alosno chanted by groups of men over the incessant strumming of guitars, or even the luso-extremaduran tangos and jaleos handed down by Portuguese Romani communities.

4 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

Concert, performance

Tickets

Tristany Mundu

Essays from a city around a city

“Ensaios de uma cidade volta de uma cidade” is an acoustic performance that proposes a sensitive reflection on the movements of the city and its margins.

5 October

Lisboa

MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia

12 October

Lisboa

MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia

19 October

Lisboa

MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia

Installation, Visual Arts, performance

Free admission

Kiluanji Kia Henda

Coral of Bodies without North

This installation by Kia Henda, an enormous metallic fence, is a receptive stage with pathways formed by railings of various geometric patterns, such as those placed over windows to prevent break-ins.

6 October

Lisboa

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas - NOVA FCSH

masterclass, talk, Theatre

Free admission

Julián Pacomio

Trilogia do Sol

In this masterclass, artist and performer Julián Pacomio shares his artistic journey and the creative process behind the project “The Sun Trilogy”, an investigation into the different intensities, mythologies and dramaturgies of sunlight throughout the day.

9 October

Lisboa

Estufa Fria de Lisboa

talk, Installation, Theatre

Free admission

El Conde de Torrefiel

Talk with the artist

El Conde Torrefiel’s practice crosses theater, choreography, visual arts and literature, building a hybrid language that looks at the present, exploring the relationship between the individual and the collective, the private and the political. The conversation takes place as part of the inauguration of the installation “Yo No Tengo Nombre”, which will be on show at Lisbon’s Estufa Fria from October 9 to 15, 2025.

9 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

Concert, performance

Tickets

Deborah Krystall

Romi Ibérica

At BoCA Bienal, Romi Ibérica is presented as a concert-performance, revealing the rigour and inventiveness that Deborah Krystall has been asserting for decades at the iconic Finalmente Club in Lisbon. An invitation to breathe in the living memory of the Iberian axis, where every song and every gesture carries the indomitable beauty of a destiny that is sung to continue to exist.

9 – 15 October

Lisboa

Estufa Fria de Lisboa

Installation, performance

El Conde de Torrefiel

Yo No Tengo Nombre

The performative installation Yo No Tengo Nombre, features an LED screen cutting through the landscape, projecting a text that oscillates between the poetic and the prophetic. This discourse questions the relationship between humans and nature, reversing the role of the observer: what if it were nature looking at us — and naming us?

10 October

Lisboa

A Voz do Operário

Concert, performance

Tickets

Chrystabell

The Spirit Lamp

Chrystabell presents “The Spirit Lamp”, a show that transports us to a territory where music and image become luminescence, mapped by the creative memory of David Lynch.

11 – 12 October

Lisboa

MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia

Workshop, Dance

Tickets

Elena Córdoba

Anatomia poética: o calor vital dos vivos

Over two days, Elena Córdoba invites participants to focus on an element that is often invisible, yet remains essential: heat. Heat as the fundamental movement of life. As a silent language. Produced and dissipated continuously — by the skin, by breathing, by hairs — here heat is explored as choreographic material and relational medium.

11 October

Lisboa

Panteão Nacional

performance

Free admission

Milo Rau, Servane Dècle

The Pelicot Trial

A performance vigil that reconstructs the real and devastating case of Gisèle Pelicot. Conceived by Milo Rau and Servane Dècle, the play transforms the stage into an expanded courtroom, giving a voice to the victim and exposing the banality of violence and the complicit silence that sustains it.

15 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

leitura, talk

Free admission

Elvis Guerra

Ramonera

Elvis Guerra will present his book Ramonera, which will be published in Portugal in October this year by Orfeu Negro, marking the first time a work has been translated from Zapotec into European Portuguese. In this context, Elvis will present the poems he has written based on his personal experiences and cultural identity.

16 October

Lisboa

Teatro da Garagem / Teatro Taborda

17 October

Madrid

Sala Berlanga

Concert, Music

Tickets

Tânia Carvalho, Rocío Guzmán

Nossas Mãos / Nuestras Manos

This encounter reveals not the fusion but the coexistence of the Portuguese and Spanish artists, between melancholy and force, between the fragility of gestures and the power of presence.

16 October

Lisboa

8 Marvila

performance, Dance

Tickets

Candela Capitán

SOLAS

The performance “SOLAS” addresses the overexposure of the female body in the digital age. Five performers, five computers and a streaming platform share the same space - physical and virtual - in a choreographic device where a group of female performers contemplate themselves while being observed, in a staging that confronts the gaze, repetition and surveillance.

17 – 18 October

Madrid

Réplika Teatro

performance, cinema, Music

Tickets

Raquel André

Belonging | E di | Pertenencia | Zugehörigkeit | Pertença | 絆

Meeting people, getting to know their personal stories, their lives, their memories full of future. This show, which could be a performance film, suggests an immersion in the complexity of the idea of belonging.

18 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

Concert, Music

Tickets

Maria Reis

Suspiro…

Moving between acoustic and electric guitars, distilled rhythms and suspended vocal harmonies, she creates songs that are at once confession and invitation, crossing fragility with pop luminosity.

19 October

Lisboa

Espaço BoCA

performance

Free admission

Julián Pacomio

Os Teus Mortos

On the border between text and performance, words and choreography, “Os Teus Mortos” presents a staging of blindness: an expanded vision out of darkness, where the invisible is no longer absence but dramatic material. The public presentation resulting from this artistic residency will be a rite of passage, a gesture that embraces the end of the day as a site of vitality, beauty and the reinvention of our dead — and our ways of living with them.

21 October

Lisboa

Fundação PLMJ

masterclass, talk, Music

Free admission

Martim Sousa Tavares

Masterclass based on the opera “Adilson”

In this masterclass, maestro and artistic director Martim Sousa Tavares shares the creative process of the piece “Adilson”, exploring the ideas, choices and challenges that marked its conception.