About

The International Summer Festival Hamburg takes place for three weeks each August at Kampnagel and selected places in the city of Hamburg. Since its beginning in the mid 80s, the festival has held a position as one of the big European festivals, presenting theatre, dance, visual arts, performance, music and theory from all over the world. András Siebold has been Artistic Director of the festival since 2013, whose programme focuses on the entanglement of pop culture and avantgarde and the interdisciplinary expansion of genre boundaries. Invited artists stand out due to their interest and engagement in the present and radical aesthetic approaches. An essential feature of the festival is the high proportion of world premieres and co-productions, which are realized within a worldwide network of partners. In recent years, the International Summer Festival Kampnagel has become a globally acclaimed platform for the latest productions of contemporary dance pieces. Internationally renowned groups and artists develop works at Kampnagel that represent the future of contemporary dance and subsequently appear on major stages around the world. Each year the festival invites or produces about 50 different works that attract up to 50.000 visitors from Hamburg and abroad.

International Summer Festival on tour


Dance

Marlene Monteiro Freitas

A masked person is sitting on a chair. Three musicians are playing guitar in the background.
Archive
German Premiere

NÔT


06.08. - 09.08.2025

State-of-the-art in contemporary dance: the festivals kicks off with the visionary opening piece of Festival d'Avignon.


Performance

Miet Warlop

Large blue, crumpled plastic sheeting sculpture on a dark stage with two fans in the background.
Archive
German Premiere

Inhale Delirium Exhale


07.08. - 10.08.2025

The latest theatrical coup by Belgium’s queen of sensory intoxication: three thousand running meter of fabric, exuberant imagery, humor, and mythological references collide on stage.


Dance

Ogemdi Ude

Under dim lighting, a dancer forms an “O” with her arms above her head. Shimmering elements appear under her top. Other dancers can be seen in the background.
Archive
Weltpremiere

Major


07.08. - 10.08.2025

Tender and fierce homage to Black femininity to the groove of a dance form rooted in the US South, which also inspired Beyoncé.


Dance / Performance

MACKENZY BERGILE

A person dressed in dark clothing, lying half down, smears chalk on their face. They are wearing white gloves and white tulle on their head.
Archive
Weltpremiere

Autothérapie: Unbolting Colonial Statues from Our Consciousness


07.08. - 10.08.2025

A stage work about the collective history of colonized bodies.


Performance / Music

Akua Naru / Tyshawn Sorey / Anta Helena Recke / Ensemble Resonanz

Spread across several platforms throughout the stage, people stand and sit with music stands in front of them, some of them holding instruments. Akua Naru stands on the platform in the middle with her arms outstretched.
Archive
Weltpremiere

longing to tell - a blues opera


14.08. - 16.08.2025

Based on the book "Longing to tell" by Tricia Rose.


Carolina Bianchi y Cara de Cavalo

Cadela Força Trilogy Chapter II The Brotherhood photo by Mayra Azzi 3
Archive
German Premiere

The Cadela Força Trilogy: Chapter II — The Brotherhood


14.08. - 16.08.2025

With incomparable poetic force, the Brazilian theater maker stages a play about masculinity and violence: a theatrical event, gripping until the very last second.


Performance

Florentina Holzinger

Ten people are singing in front of a giant inflatable torso with breasts and a vagina. Most of them are naked except for a white doctor's coat and sneakers. A person is lying on a hospital bed, coughing, with a white bandage and needles on their forehead.
Archive

A Year Without Summer


21.08. - 24.08.2025

The latest disturbingly sensual flood of images from an exceptional artist redefining theater.


Theatre

Christoph Marthaler

Four people in festive clothing sit next to each other, their heads hidden by hanging jackets, with a red first aid kit and a statue of the Virgin Mary in the background.
Archive

Der Gipfel (The Summit)


20.08. - 22.08.2025

This European co-production gathers six eccentrics on an alpine summit – poetic, at times melancholic, always humorous, and carried by very good songs.


Performance

Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha

Two figures dressed in white costumes with long wires spread out around their hips can be seen in the dark lighting. Several canisters and containers are on the stage, and in the background is a white screen with black lettering.
Archive
German Premiere

Tapajós


21.08. - 23.08.2025

Powerful testimony of an environmental catastrophe told through the stories of mothers — and onstage developed photographs.


Dance

A.I.M / Kyle Abraham

A I M Kyle Abraham CASSETTE VOL 1 c Alexandra Polina 05 low res
Archive

Cassette Vol. 1


23.08. - 25.08.2024


Theatre

Kornél Mundruczó / Proton Theatre

Three men are standing in a kitchen-living room and talking. One of the men has his back to the audience and is naked.
Archive

Parallax


21.08. - 23.08.2024


Theatre / Performance

Jaha Koo / Campo

A man is working at a kitchen island, which is illuminated in red. Two other people are watching him.
Archive

Haribo Kimchi


08.08. - 10.08.2024


Dance

(LA) HORDE & Ballet national de Marseille

Twelve young dancers stand in a dark stage space. They are dressed in different streetwear-style costumes. Three sit on the shoulders of three others. The group stands slightly on their knees with their hands outstretched frontally.
Archive

Age of Content


09.08. - 12.08.2023


Dance / Music

Aszure Barton / Ambrose Akinmusire

A heavily trained dancer stands topless with his arm raised in a dark room.
Archive

AA|AB: B E N D


25.08. - 27.08.2023


Theatre

Gisèle Vienne

Three people kneel in front of a car in orange mist. They rest their heads on each other's shoulders.
Archive

Extra Life


23.08. - 25.08.2023


Theatre / Music

Kid Koala

Framed as in a movie scene, two puppets, a green cricket and a mosquito with big black eyes stand in an office room behind two copying machines and look at each other.
Archive

The Storyville Mosquito


11.08. - 14.08.2022


Theatre

Gisèle Vienne

Asset 109532
Archive

Der Teich


12.08. - 15.08.2021

Der Teich


Theatre

Miet Warlop

After All Springville
Archive

After All Springville: Disasters and Amusement Parks


13.08. - 15.08.2021


Theatre / Dance

Gisèle Vienne

Asset 78521
Archive

Crowd


10.08. - 12.08.2018