Dance from four Spanish regions converges on a Madrid suburb for the sixth Coslada Radial

Each September, Coslada — a post-industrial suburb on Madrid’s eastern edge — undergoes a specific transformation. Its plazas, parks and Teatro Municipal become a stage for a contemporary arts festival that has, in six editions, built itself into one of the most consistent points of intersection between municipal culture and professional creation in the region. The VI Coslada Radial is not primarily an event that happens in a theater: it is a proposition about where art belongs, and who it is for.

Dance anchors this year’s edition, curated by Juan de Torres Larumbe — director of the resident company Larumbe Danza. Five companies arrive from four Spanish regions with works that share almost nothing in technique. From Galicia, Elvi Balboa’s Baunsbak sets the body into a new physics of rebound, built around jumping boots as the instrument of movement. From Málaga, REA Danza’s Gravedad mutua suspends two bodies on aerial ropes and converts the grammar of trust and weight into choreography. From Valencia, OtraDanza’s Rito — by Asun Noales and Susana Guerrero — layers ancient Greek and Mixtec mythology against the vanguard history of twentieth-century dance, gathering sculpture, light, sound and movement in one space.

Madrid’s own Elías Aguirre brings Flowerheads Show, in which three figures of baroque aesthetic inhabit a peculiar “garden of delights” populated by insects, flowers and amphibians, scored by Ed is Dead and José Pablo Polo. The youth company LD2, twelve dancers between 14 and 17, presents Grounded Gravity — a piece of explosive collective energy choreographed by Larumbe for the occasion. LD2 is itself an argument about locality: it grows from the Talleres Larumbe, a fifteen-year training program that has accompanied young people in Coslada and points toward a sustainable local ecology of dance.

Performer inside Teatro Municipal de Coslada, La gran fiesta by Nelson Galtero — Imagen: Nelson Galtero / VI Coslada Radial

Theatre and experiential work complete the program. Teatro Ruido Interno merges live performance and virtual reality in Cervantes encantado, navigating the Spanish Golden Age through Cervantes’s work. 7 Bubbles’ Menina is a walking performance inspired by Velázquez and sculptor Juan Muñoz, converting a roly-poly figure into a mobile invitation to find the ideal viewing point. Cosmos Creativo and MyH Producciones bring Universo Accesible, an astronomical journey across art and science guided by a performer and an unusual AI companion.

Running through all of it is the tenth anniversary of the Teatro Municipal — which gives this sixth edition a particular resonance. Nelson Galtero’s La gran fiesta continues from its May premiere: an immersive narrative experience set in the theater’s normally off-limits spaces, built around the story of a hen whose owner brings her to the theater as a last resort. On Saturday the 19th, Coslada enamorada enters its second phase: the city’s sculpture, Antonio López’s Mujer de Coslada, responds to the theater’s declaration of love made in May, with the public as witness. A third act in December will complete the anniversary year.

Hugo Nieto leads artistic direction for a sixth year. The festival runs September 18–20, with events spread across public and indoor spaces throughout the city. Most activities are free; a symbolic €1 is charged for capacity-controlled shows. Concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings round out the three days. Full program: coslada.es/radial.

Tags: contemporary dance, Coslada, Coslada Radial, Hugo Nieto, Juan de Torres Larumbe, performing arts