Best of Budapest & Hungary

From April 29 to May 12, the 44th Budapest Spring Festival will take place, offering more than 40 events, including theater performances, exhibitions and concerts, in thirty venues.

      According to a statement from the festival organizers, this year's cultural events are also linked to the 20th anniversary of Hungary's accession to the European Union, with many of the programs exploring the intellectual and emotional links with Europe.

     The festival will feature new venues: some of the programs will take place in the Merlin, which reopened in 2023, and in the new public space of the city, the City Hall Passage.

     On April 29, the 2024 Budapest Spring Festival will open with a concert by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, featuring works with Hungarian roots but European influences.

    The best of the genre will come to Budapest for the Budapest Jazzfest, celebrating 20 years of EU membership with an open-air concert on World Jazz Day, on April 30.

    According to the announcement, the Rimini Protokoll theater group from Germany will present a groundbreaking production at the festival. The performance will bring the elusive idea of Europe to the living rooms of private homes.

    The Spanish company Roger Bernat/FFF invites audiences to Trafó for a debate imitating a parliamentary vote. Cirque Inextremiste, a French company combining dance, music and street art, will present an interactive prequel at Madách Square, while the Freeszfe Association will present The Island of Peace or HUXIT.

    The Hooligan Art Community's Bunker Cabaret will feature Ukrainian performers who will show how theater and music were brought to the bunkers of Ukraine after the outbreak of war.

    The Sarajevo War Theater presents Susan Sontag's Alice in Bed at the Örkény István Theater. The play, with its unique structure, about the late philosopher William James and writer Henry James's late sister Alice James, will be directed by Zoltán Balázs and presented for the first time in Hungary.

   Judit Rezes, Ildi Tihanyi and Judit Gerlóczi will show the potential of worn and worn-out clothes on the catwalk in a fashion show entitled Sustainable Fashion Spaces.

   The interactive urban performance Silver boom will explore when and why women's bodies become invisible with age. In the performance, which takes place in the Újpalota market hall, choreographer and director Anna Anderegg delves deep into the relationship between urban space, gender and age. The festival will also feature Stereo Akt's play After I Quit, directed by Martin Boross.

    According to the announcement, the cultural and community spaces that have significantly shaped Budapest's cityscape over the past 20 years, the Roma pubs, will also be part of the festival for one evening. The Club Festival will take the narrow streets and closed walls of the party district out into the open, with music and art performances in the courtyard of the City Hall during the first two weekends of May.