Sommerszene Festival
International, contemporary, powerful, avant-garde, discursive, political: the annual Sommerszene festival is SZENE Salzburg’s centrepiece. For two weeks, leading names and newcomers from all around the globe visit the city to present their latest dance and theatre productions. The programme features landmark artistic figures whose projects reflect our reality through a variety of aesthetic approaches. The festival is devoted principally to projects in the performing arts with a focus on dance, theatre and performance. However, Sommerszene – with its contemporary and interdisciplinary understanding of art – also presents projects from other disciplines such as installations, films and concerts. Alongside high-calibre visiting productions, Sommerszene also collaborates closely with local companies to develop site-specific works for the festival, thus transforming public spaces into performance venues.
Each annual festival presents 12 to 15 Austrian and international productions at various venues around Salzburg. This has established Sommerszene as a fixture in the European festival calendar since the 1980s, with its avant-garde philosophy giving it substantial international influence.
The archive of festival brochures from previous years can be found here.
Sommerszene 2027 will take place from 2 to 17 June 2027.