European Queer Performing Arts Platform
Stage for untold and erased queer stories
What this is
From Europe's periphery, to every stage.
PERFORMA-Q is a three-year, EU co-funded platform for queer performing arts. Six partner organisations — from Bratislava to Sarajevo, Brno to Vienna, Stockholm to Mariupol-in-exile — build residencies, touring routes and a living video archive for stories that dominant stages have ignored or erased.
We honor the work. We reveal the unseen. We remember what history erased. And we laugh out loud while doing it — because joy is a refusal too.
Open Call · Cycle 2 · 21 October – 30 November 2026
Six residencies.
Six hosts.
Cycle 2 is open.
Performing artists, directors, playwrights and collectives working with queer identity and marginalisation in and from Europe's periphery — this stage is built for you and with you. Artistic fee €1,500 – 6,000, travel and stay covered, residencies March – October 2027. The host you choose matters.
Open Call · Cycle 1 · Results
111 applications.
6 residencies.
The first open call closed on 31 July 2026 with 111 applications from across Europe — 71 individual artists and 40 collectives. A twelve-member Artistic Board read every proposal twice, and on 30 September 2026 selected one residency for each partner organisation.
Not selected does not mean not good enough: the selection rate was 5.4 %. Cycle 2 is open now — read the call and apply again.
| Ivana Kováčiková | Studňa osamenia · NOMANTINELS, Bratislava |
|---|---|
| Uta P. Bekaia & Leah Feldman | (Supra)National · SARTR, Sarajevo |
| Priehradná, Benčíkovie & Veidenbauma | What I Can Say And Who I Can Be · CO.LABS, Brno |
| Pascal Marty | Out of reach · Wiener Wortstaetten, Vienna |
| Krišjānis Elviks | SPAC / Scensverige, Stockholm |
| Marcus Peter Tesch | Dirty Waters × Toter Grund · UCPE, residency in Bratislava |
PERFORMA-Q in action
Three ways the platform works
Residency
Time, care and resources to develop new performance work — 18 residencies across three years, with mentoring, shared facilities and critical companionship. Cycle 1 runs October 2026 – April 2027; Cycle 2 follows from March 2027.
Residency programmeTouring & Networking
Selected works travel between partner stages and festivals, building routes for queer performance across borders — and building the alliances that keep it moving after the curtain call.
How touring worksQTHEQ Video Archive
A living video archive of queer performing arts — documentation, interviews and captured performances, so that what happens on these stages is never erased again.
Enter the archiveThe Consortium
Six partners.
Six countries.
One stage.
Led by NOMANTINELS (Bratislava), the consortium spans Slovakia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Austria, Sweden and Ukraine.
Contact us
Write to the platform
Questions about the residency, touring, or the archive — or press and partnership enquiries. We read everything.