The 26th Seoul Performing Arts Festival (SPAF 2026) will take place over 18 days, from October 8 to 25, at major performance venues across Seoul, including the National Theater of Korea, SFAC Theater QUAD, and ARKO·Daehakro Arts Theater.
 
Started in 2001, the Seoul Performing Arts Festival (SPAF) is the longest-running international performing arts festival in Korea. SPAF is held for one month in Autumn in Daehangno and nearby areas in Seoul.
 
SPAF provides a platform for dialogue between artists and audiences through contemporary performances, workshops, and creative labs. SPAF is hosted by the Korea Arts Management Service with support from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Arts Council Korea.
 
The Seoul Performing Arts Festival 2026 unfolds as a “Multiverse of Art.” Comprising 19 performance works alongside creation labs and workshops, this year’s festival is a journey in which artists and audiences imagine together, connect their senses, and build a new universe of dialogue and coexistence.

The “Locality and Trans-locality” section brings together diverse theatre works from Korea, Asia, and South America, along with the Asian Playwrights Project, to look at the spaces, times, and memories of the past we inhabit through multiple layers.
 
Through this, audiences will encounter not a single narrative but a universe of differing perspectives and interpretations.
 
“Experiments at the Edge of Creative Aesthetics” explores the boundaries of artistic form through matter, technology, installation, music, and sound. These experiments are pluralistic trials in the rules and irregularities of art, revealing how art generates new territories of sensation.
 
Here, the artist’s work is not a finished product but a universe of relations that continually expands as the audience’s senses and imagination intervene.

“The Expansion of Contemporary Dance Language” traces how dance, beginning from the aesthetics of the body, has developed through physical technique, expression, and the refinement of movement.
 
Extending into conceptual dance, fusion with visual art, and discourse on AI and the body, this section reframes the body not merely as a tool of expression but as a universe of thought unfolding through movement.
 
“Festival d’Avignon @ SPAF 2026” is a project born of close artistic exchange between festivals, continuing its connection to the Korean-language invitation program of the Festival d’Avignon, which marks its 80th edition this year.
 
Beyond works of theatre, dance, and multidisciplinary art, it includes a staged reading by Korean and French actors based on Han Kang’s novel We Do Not Part, creating a universe of ongoing connection and sharing.
 
The Seoul Performing Arts Festival 2026 will also feature a diverse range of programs, including lectures, masterclasses, workshops for young dancers, and forums for international festival professionals.
 
For more information about the festival, visit the official Seoul Performing Arts Festival 2026 website (https://spaf.or.kr/2026/spaf/).

References

• 2026 서울국제공연예술제 (Seoul Performing Arts Festival 2026)