Lelenfant 2026 – the Nest of Hope

Lelenfant is entering its fifth international edition. For five years, we have been creating a meeting space in Wrocław for children and young people from around the world, believing that emotions, art, and true presence are among the most important paths leading to mutual understanding.

Over the years, we’ve woven together wandering stories, experiences, and traditions like twigs brought from around the world. With each successive story, we’ve discovered that Lelenfant has become more than just a festival. Today, it has become a deeply rooted, safe, and welcoming community. A community where children and young people come together across boundaries of language, religion, background, and experience.

Lelenfant becomes a Nest of Hope for them.

A nest where every child matters, no culture is left out, and art becomes the language of building a shared home. A nest that belongs not to a single person or organization, but is created through the collaboration of many people. A nest woven from the care, trust, courage, and curiosity of others.

The highlight of this year’s edition will be a large-scale performance staged at the Capitol Musical Theatre. For many months, children and young people from various countries, along with artists and educators, have been working on a shared story that will unfold in July in Wrocław.

Professional artistic direction, set design, music, and visual design will create a space where the young artists and their stories remain at the heart of the performance.

A diverse range of traditions and contemporary forms of expression will collide on stage. Afro-Brazilian rhythms and dance will be combined with the acrobatics of the new circus performed by young artists from Berlin’s Afro-German community. Traditional Persian music will dialogue with conceptual theater from the Greek island of Andros. Traditional dances from Southeastern Europe – from Romania and Bulgaria – and North Africa, represented by children from Morocco, will be met with modern interpretations. 

The core of the performance, and the heart of the collective nest, is formed by a Wrocław youth group who contributed their own original story, “Tańcuj“. It’s a story about freedom. About transcending the patterns, roles, and expectations imposed on us by the modern world. It’s a story about the primal, wild nature that lies dormant within every human being—the part of us that longs for authenticity, courage, and self-expression.

Because only a safe nest gives you the strength to spread your wings. It gives you the courage to unleash your hidden talents, hear your dreams, and dance your own dance.

On stage, the Polish story will be heard in dialogue with other “liberation dances.” With the Palestinian dabke — a dance of community, strength, and resistance; with the culture of the Tigray region in Ethiopia — one of the oldest communities in the Horn of Africa; with Afro-Brazilian rhythms carrying the memory of roots and community; and with a Romanian dance inspired by the Mărțișor ritual, a symbol of rebirth, the arrival of spring, and a new beginning.

All these stories share a common thread: the desire for freedom, the need to maintain one’s identity, and a hope that endures despite hardship.

This is a spectacle brimming with color, energy, and emotion. A story about friendship stronger than borders. About hope—not as a naïve dream, but as an everyday choice. About a world built on cooperation instead of division.

We invite everyone who believes that art can build bridges, that diversity is a source of strength, and that encountering others remains one of the most important paths to a better world.

Iwona Frydryszak – Lelenfant Program Director 

This year we will see in Wrocław:

Poster layout: Barbara Michno