This is the theater that builds scenes in Málaga

We enter a construction zone, with helmets and vests, surrounded by piles of iron that will soon serve as the framework for the new subway tunnel being constructed in the Eugenio Gross area. This is not their natural habitat, but the artists quickly make it their stage. They are experts at this. And, although it may not seem like it, both worlds have a lot in common. Just like the workers who are currently operating the heavy machinery, they know what it's like to chip away at stone and make their way in the 'underground'. They also build something: they create scenes. 'Autóctonxs' returns to take over the Teatro del Soho CaixaBank, from the lobby to its stage, with what is currently happening in live arts. Music, performance, poetry, audiovisuals, and even all at once come together for the fourth consecutive year in a festival that proves that another way of making and understanding theater is possible.

From January 29 to February 1, eleven different, daring, and subversive proposals will be seen. In the majority of them, improvisation plays a decisive role: what happens depends a lot on the here and now. In some cases, the piece is built in the moment; in others, it is presented in the process of construction. There is 'Impro en el Hall', where professionals from different disciplines come together for the first time to create something new on the first floor of the theater; at the entrance to the Sala Goya, 'Happening poéticos' will occur, proposals that move between dance, performance, and spontaneity; and inside the Sala Goya will be live arts in their most experimental state ('Ensayo Acierto'), in full 'work in progress'. Finished and complete works will occupy the noble area of the Soho, its main stage, but with formats and stagings that break all conventions: the 'Nuevas Dramaturgias'.

Poetic Happening

• Location Hall of Sala Goya.

• Tickets 6 euros

• January 30 Colectivo La Triangular performs 'Montar un Cuerpo'. 1:00 p.m.

• January 31 Alejandro Morales performs 'Shot me down'. 1:00 p.m.

• February 1 Lau Efron performs 'La Comba'. 12:00 p.m.

"Artists who take risks are the ones who truly mark the contemporary of their time," defends Alessandra García, a cultural agitator from Malaga, Max award winner, and responsible for designing each year a cutting-edge theatrical program with the support of Antonio Banderas. "We put on the table what is happening in 2025-2026," she adds. Because as Reyes Oteo, electronic luthier and composer, defends, "the programming of things already done is very good, but we have the obligation to continue the history of art with our small contribution." Repeating repertoire, she says, "gives us a thrill, but is dispensable." "What is essential is to create works that did not exist before," she maintains.

Her contribution to 'Autóctonxs' consists of a free improvisation with dancers Lea Delaporte and Yosbani Antonio (Hall first floor. Friday, January 30. 4:00 p.m.). Both will react to the sounds generated by Reyes Oteo, a true music engineer, creator of interactive musical devices that she activates with her body. In this case, she will use glass containers of different sizes with water—dyed with colors—as an interactive element. She seeks to awaken internal emotions and talk about birth in a broad sense, and for this reason, the heartbeat will be heard live.

Reyes Oteo shares the 'Impro en el Hall' lineup with a transgressive combination: the word of Roy del Postigo and the copla of Roberto Aragón (Hall first floor. Saturday, January 31. 4:00 p.m.). "He sings it and I tell it," points out the writer and also historian Roy del Postigo. Together they claim folklore as something "completely contemporary," not only from the reinterpretation of popular songs from the 40s and 50s, but also recognizing the place that today's copla singers of the 21st century occupy, from Isabel Pantoja to María Peláe, passing through Diana Navarro and Pasión Vega. All of them brave women and references of the copla, of the scene, and of art. They pay tribute to them a step from the Puerto, a "very coplero" environment (there is 'Tatuajes'), and with the touch of "popular religiosity" that always accompanies them. Not to mention La Zamarrilla, the virgin who "sheltered the dissent" (the bandit, the outlaw, the different) under her clothes. "She protected us, continues to protect us all, and we continue to sing to her," adds Roberto Aragón with his coral earrings and ready to don the bata de cola in the hall of the Soho.

Impro in the Hall

• Location First floor hall.

• Tickets 10 euros.

• January 30 Reyes Oteo along with Lea Delaporte and Yosbani Antonio. Music and dance. 4:00 p.m.

• January 31 Roy del Postigo along with Roberto Aragón. Word and copla. 4:00 p.m.

An hour later, that Saturday, January 31, the Sala Goya opens to 'Carroza' (Sala Goya, 5:00 p.m.), a work in the process of creation with Ventura Díaz and Pedro Ocaña. "We are the B-side of an eighties kinki record from the flea market," they warn. Their piece is "a reflection on the creative process as something continuous and evolving, moving away from creating just out of obligation." It criticizes the superficiality of 'likes', empty applause, and recognition without real support, with a conclusion: "Nothing fills if there is no backing from the people one loves." And for that, they surround themselves with friends: Akawave, Judith Gómez, Marity Manzanera, and Alejandro Morales, among others, join them in this "act of redemption and faith." It is one of the proposals of 'Ensayo Acierto', like 'Las amigas', the result of the meeting between Jana Pacheco and Cris Celada: two Madrid women with theatrical concerns who met in Mangas Verdes (Sala Goya. January 30. 5:00 p.m.).

The dancer Alejandro Morales will do a double shift on Saturday. Shortly before collaborating with 'Carroza', he presents himself solo in a 'Happening poético' that combines dance and word to claim "the need of the artist to maintain his authenticity" between excessive admiration and 'hate'. Founder along with Ventura Díaz of the cultural association El Círculo Breaking, a pillar of the local and national breaking scene, Morales is a self-taught artist forged in the streets of Carranque. "And dance has led me to want to create and tell things," he says. Indeed, something of what will happen in this 'Shot me down' (Hall of Sala Goya. January 31. 1:00 p.m.) will serve as a starting point for another piece he is already preparing.

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A day before, the audience will see Paula Campos and Andrea Muñoz, two young dancers who form the Colectivo La Triangular. "They always ask us where the third one is," they laugh. They open the morning program of 'Autóctonxs' with the performance 'Montar un cuerpo' (Hall of Sala Goya. January 30. 1:00 p.m.), where "almost everything" is improvisation. Trained in contemporary dance at the conservatory in Malaga, together they debut with an action in which they intervene with voice, gesture, and the entire body. The scene transforms into a kind of game, a board where both have the same rules but each "decides how to play her game," just like in life itself. Their presence on the poster symbolizes the philosophy of 'Autóctonxs', their commitment to making the Malaga scene feel the Soho as their theater: "We have been audience in other editions and fantasized about being there. Now we have achieved it," they say proudly.

Ensayo Acierto

• Place Sala Goya.

• Tickets 10 euros.

• January 30 Jana Pacheco and Cris Celada. Work in progress 'Las amigas'. 5:00 p.m.

• January 31 Ventura Díaz and Pedro Ocaña. Work in progress 'Carroza'. 5:00 p.m.

The last 'Happening poético' is signed by Lau Efron, a multidisciplinary creator without labels who will take to the hall of Sala Goya the exercise that has changed her life in the last year: jumping rope (Sunday, February 1. 12:00 p.m.). "It helped me keep my thoughts in order and be more receptive to observing the world around me." Lau Efron will jump surrounded by screens that simulate "the chaos" of her mind, where good and bad ideas mix, and where the same sounds a bulería as Chopin.

Each day of the festival ends on the main stage with the 'Nuevas dramaturgias', projects that due to their scope, recognition, and technique require a larger space. Finished works that mix languages and disciplines, and that do not respond to the classic structures of setup, conflict, and resolution. The first, on Thursday, January 29, is 'Dar Ghost', an experimental piece that arises from a musical and audiovisual project by Soledad Villalba and Pablo Macías, to which Ana Iglesias and Francisco Valero gave the theatrical imprint. On stage, a DJ invokes a ghost at a chaotic party, a classic ghost in white sheets that will evolve throughout the session, inviting reflection on the passage of time, loneliness, getting lost and finding oneself... and whatever each one wants to think. "It will take each one to a place," they say, always driven by a succession of stimuli, from the play of lights to the projection of images, with live music.

'Dar Ghost' opens a section that closes the writer Sara Torres, with her essayistic and poetic texts joined to the movement research of Carmen Rojas and Karelis Zambrano. Together they explore the 'Pulsion of sweetness', allowing to imagine another relationship between body, desire, survival, and language (Main stage. February 1. 1:00 p.m.). Among others, Marina Otero presents 'Ayoub', a work that arises from a personal story ("I made a trip to Tangier to find him, marry him, give him my Europeanized South American papers and make a new work from that") to end up in a proposal that talks about impossible loves, colonialism, and Palestine (Main stage. January 30. 7:00 p.m).

New Dramaturgies

• Place Main stage.

• Tickets 20 euros. 50 euros for the pass for the four works.

• January 29 Meanwhile Ghost / Meta Producciones Escénicas present 'Dar Ghost'. 7:00 p.m

• January 30 Compañía Marina Otero presents 'Ayoub'. 7:00 p.m

• January 31 Compañía Éskaton presents 'Military Exercises to Confuse Ecstasy with Agony'. 7:00 p.m.

• February 1 Carmen Rojas, Sara Torres, and Karelis Zambrano present 'Pulsion of Sweetness'. 1:00 p.m.

It is followed by the most daring proposal of the festival: 'Military Exercises to Confuse Ecstasy with Agony', by the company Éskaton, a piece that subjects bodies live to practices that oscillate between the painful and the pleasurable, confusing one with the other. "Each body relates in a different way to the discourse that has constructed it (...) Each exercise addresses the danger of dismantling that body from the discourse," they explain.

In short, four days to discover that theater that "inhabits the crack" – in the words of Alessandra García –, that survives on the margins and that sets the pace for what today, now, in this very moment, is being built in the live arts.