Pictures speak louder than words, bodies feel more than we can comprehend, laughter heals more than we dare admit!<\/p>\n
Welcome to the Zagreb Clown Festival 2026, a festival that brings you the world’s best performances in the manner of the theatrical clown, a style that dates back to ancient times, and is unfairly identified with commercial animation…<\/p>\n
The theatrical clown is much more than a red nose, funny costumes and cheerful music. The clown is a character that outlines every person, a character who shows their inner conflict without shame, without holding back… Clown is a character who deliberately exposes their imperfections, their hidden feelings, their dilemmas and fears, who sees potential in every problem and who dares to laugh at themself in front of others, together with others…<\/p>\n
The clown evokes empathy, and that is something that we lack in our everyday lives, especially today…<\/p>\n
ZAGREB CLOWN FESTIVAL cannot bring us the much-desired world peace, but it can encourage us to have the same much-desired empathy for the people around us as for ourselves…<\/p>\n
This year’s theme is EXPANDING OUR COMFORT ZONE. As last year’s masterclass clown Avner Eisenberg taught us, we don’t need to step out of our comfort zone, we just need to expand it and we will feel good in new situations, we will more easily accept challenges and overcome fears…<\/p>\n
The first performance of this year’s festival comes from Spain. In his play h\u00d4y, Carlo M\u00f4 breaks the fourth wall, as clowns do, and raises the question of personal confinement within the space we call home and the perception of time that is defined by seconds, minutes, days…<\/p>\n
On the second day of the festival, we bring a cross-section of the clown personas of all festival participants together, as well as solo performances by domestic and foreign clowns. There will be clowns from all over the world. Get ready for two hours of clown cabaret.<\/p>\n
Saturday is always a prime day for us! In the morning, we start with the play DANGER for all generations by the Swiss theater La Compagnia Due, because a clown can erase the boundaries between something we consider appropriate for children and something we consider theater for adults. Clown theater has the ability to erase all logic, and easily returns us to our childhood selves, no matter how old we are. Two more performances are scheduled for Saturday. American clown Iman Lizarazu will perform her COMMEDIA DELLA BASQUE “BASQUETTE QUESE”, about the challenges of insomnia, and the Spanish duo C\u00eda. La Buffa will surely knock you off your feet with their play about (good) sisterly relationships NI F\u00da, NI F\u00c1. The play, in addition to sisterly ones, questions many relationships that are imposed on us by birth, and not by our own choice… It asks the question of whether it is wise to break all ties or still find the strength and maintain them…<\/p>\n
On Sunday morning, listen to a lecture on the centuries-old clown tradition that is much, much longer than the appearance of the circus tent, known to both Western cultures and the indigenous peoples of South and North America… Dr. John Towsen, one of the leading historians of clown art in the world, will talk about it in detail.<\/p>\n
Sunday evening brings one of the world’s leading clowns, Pepa Plana, to Zagreb with the play A CADA PAS. This poetic clown takes us on an absurd journey in which she will try to erase all the borders and restrictions we know and rediscover the world.<\/p>\n
The festival ends with Michel Zerphy’s musical clown monodrama BEDUTZED! A clown and his banjo talk about whether one can stop being a clown and retire…<\/p>\n
The festival offers a wide range of stories and clown styles, so don’t miss the opportunity to hang out with us from 7 to 10 May 2026 at two locations, Triko Cirkus Studio at Vla\u0161ka 92 and KUC Travno at Bo\u017eidara Magovca 17!<\/p>\n
See you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pictures speak louder than words, bodies feel more than we can comprehend, laughter heals more than we dare admit! Welcome to the Zagreb Clown Festival 2026, a festival that brings you the world’s best performances in the manner of the theatrical clown, a style that dates back to ancient times, and is unfairly identified with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,79,142,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-news","category-news","category-newsletter","category-zagreb-clown-festival-2026-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n