Amazing Things to Do in Madrid in March

BRUJA! offers an immersion in Golden Age theater through the universal language of dance, reviving classic texts written by men but inhabited by women. Manuela Barrero dlcAos’s piece functions as an act of sisterhood, transforming classical verse into a dance piece celebrating the resilience of our ancestors: a tribute to the “forgotten” figures who were branded as witches for defending their honor, loving freely, or possessing wisdom.

The Reina Sofía Museum revives a milestone of the audiovisual avant-garde with the revival of La imagen sublime, the 1987 exhibition that documented the birth of video art in Spain. Through a hybrid format combining screenings in a movie theater and an exhibition in the gallery space, this series revives the “do-it-yourself” spirit and post-dictatorship experimentation that fused performance, television, and music videos.

A string quartet, enveloped by the Madrid night and surrounded by 5,000 candles, performs works by Vivaldi , Mussorgsky, Paul Dukas, and Debussy. Meanwhile, in the sky, a thousand drones appear, drawing figures, stars, constellations, flowers… providing a visual and magical context to what we are experiencing. DroneArt Show will only take place over three nights this spring at the Hipódromo de la Zarzuela.

They can go from 0 to 100 km/h in less than two seconds and reach 320 km/h without using a single drop of gasoline. And now, the world’s most cutting-edge single-seaters will gather in Madrid to compete in a World Championship full of excitement and electricity. This is what the ABB FIA World Championship for electric single-seaters will look like at the Madrid Jarama-RACE Circuit.

The great live music festival returns to La Casa Encendida in collaboration with Radio 3, celebrating the arrival of spring with more than 20 national bands and artists. This year’s lineup brings together emerging and eclectic acts with established names: El Kanka, Ginebras, La Plazuela, Cora Yako, Boyanka Kostova, and Mujeres, among others. The day is divided into nine concert blocks spread across the Patio and the Auditorium, complemented by sets from the station’s most iconic DJs in Room A and surprise intimate performances.

BuzzAttack is an immersive team-based game experience that recreates the excitement of a game show set (yes, the kind they air on TV after dinner).

The challenges combine questions, mental agility tests, and group dynamics, with fully customizable themes: from The Lord of the Rings and Stranger Things and Spanish cinema to internet memes and pop culture. A format designed for groups of friends, birthdays , and even bachelorette parties.

Teatralia turns 30. Three decades of performing arts for all audiences will be celebrated in style: 30 shows spanning genres as diverse as choreographed circus, puppet theater, and live music, among others, will fill the stages of the Community of Madrid throughout the month of March.

Venues such as the Paco Rabal Cultural Center, the Quinta de los Molinos Open Space, La Casa Encendida, Réplika Teatro, the Teatro de La Abadía, and Teatros del Canal will host the program in the capital. Meanwhile, Teatralia will extend to more than 15 municipalities in Madrid, including Alcalá de Henares, La Cabrera, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, and Villanueva de la Cañada.

This series proposes an active advocacy for rural areas by using the performing arts and contemporary creation as tools for social transformation. Through a diverse program ranging from staged poetry workshops to educational concerts, it seeks to foster a dialogue about depopulation and the value of the land.

Artists of the caliber of Fetén Fetén, Karmento, and El Naán share their experiences to weave networks between the city and the countryside, promoting new methodologies in arts education and social intervention.

Less than an hour and a half by car from Madrid lies the city of Valladolid. Any weekend can be a great getaway, but on March 28 we have an extra reason to go: The Four Kingdoms: The Great Medieval Tournament. This live show features a reenactment of the medieval jousts that decided matters of state in the 14th century and much more: period-themed decor throughout the venue, family-friendly activities, and a showcase of medieval crafts. The show will have three sessions (morning, afternoon, and evening), and tickets for some of them are almost sold out—first come, first served!

Candlelight is a concert series that brings music to the most unexpected corners of Madrid in a magical setting, surrounded by candles. This month, among all the concerts offered by Candlelight, highlights include a tribute to The Lord of the Rings on the 25th anniversary of its film premiere, a tribute to Hans Zimmer, the best music of Mozart and Bach…There are as many Candlelight concerts as there are candles at a concert; there are as many musical styles as there are tastes on Spotify.

This innovative project by the PROJEKTIL collective transforms the architecture of a historic church into a living digital canvas using video mapping techniques. The experience immerses the viewer in a seven-stage journey that follows the course of the Vltava River, blending Smetana’s iconic composition with electronic beats and verses by Goethe.

Through a choreography of lights that reacts to every beat, the physical space disappears to make way for forests, springs, and rapids, offering a contemporary and accessible vision of symphonic music for all audiences.

Young Ukrainians Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk have been working as filmmakers and visual artists since 2016. In this exhibition, the duo presents Pedagogies of War, a reflection on how the Russian invasion has reshaped Ukrainian public space.

Using footage from surveillance cameras in Kyiv, Khimei and Malashchuk reveal the ravages of violence and war on daily life and democratic structures, staying true to their style that straddles documentary and audiovisual fiction.

Cirque du Soleil returns to Madrid with OVO, a production that immerses us in the daily life of an insect community where everything—working, playing, and, of course, falling in love—happens at a frenetic, colorful pace. The story begins with the arrival of a mysterious egg (ovo, in Portuguese), which piques everyone’s curiosity and becomes the central thread of a story about the stages of life.

OVO is a circus show that defies gravity and logic: from ants juggling their own food (and each other!), to crickets running up vertical walls, to a spider contorting itself into impossible shapes.

After becoming a widow, Raimunda marries Esteban, whom her daughter Acacia publicly rejects. What Raimunda doesn’t know is that this mask of hostility hides a love story between the two. When Esteban begins to get rid of all the men surrounding Acacia, the townspeople start calling her “Malquerida.”

Natalia Menéndez directs this revival of Jacinto Benavente’s classic, with Aitana Sánchez-Gijón leading the cast. Malquerida speaks of love and desire, but also of power, ambition, and violence with surprising relevance.

The Teatro Marquina is hosting a second run of Chavela, the Last Shaman. Following the success of the first season, with Luisa Gavasa, Rozalén, and Nita in the lead roles, the play will add María Peláe to its cast.

Chavela Vargas, nicknamed “La Chamana,” is the protagonist of this play by playwright Carolina Román, which invites us to immerse ourselves in a dreamlike space, between memories and reality, dedicated to the beloved voice behind the most iconic renditions of “La Llorona ” and “Paloma Negra.”

This small exhibition of works by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, better known as Il Guercino, centers on a painting the Thyssen holds by the artist: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well, dated around 1640. Accompanying this work is a series of paintings illustrating the image of women in the Bible through Guercino’s eyes, including works such as Susanna and the Elders (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado), The Adulteress (London, Dulwich Gallery), and Samson and Delilah (Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux Arts).

This gastronomic experience invites curious palates to explore the 18th century through the flavors that foreign queens introduced to the Spanish court. In a format that combines historical rigor with culinary practice, participants will be able to prepare and taste recipes from Italy, France, or Portugal from 300 years ago, adapted to national traditions.

The workshops, designed for those ages 12 and up, offer a sensory journey through dishes such as vitello tonnato or bacalhau à brás, turning the kitchen into a window onto the culture and customs of the Enlightenment.

Blurring the boundaries between disciplines (his art draws inspiration from film, dance, photography, music, and even sculpture), London-based filmmaker and artist Isaac Julien offers a journey through the influence of African art and Black queer culture on the artistic avant-garde of the early 20th century.

The video installation Once Again… (Statues Never Die) reconstructs a series of imagined dialogues between philosopher Alain Locke (father of the Harlem Renaissance movement) and collector and philanthropist Albert C. Barnes, played respectively by André Holland (Moonlight) and Danny Huston (Succession).

The official opening on March 6 will feature the artist in attendance. Additionally, the program will conclude the following day at the Cine Doré, where Looking for Langston (1989), by Julien himself, and* * *Les Statues Meurent Aussi* (1953), by Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and Ghislain Cloquet.

“To explore the gallery as a living space full of sensations.” This is what Dreaming Space, an exhibition on the career of Eduardo Chillida. The exhibition offers a journey through the Basque artist’s small-scale sculptures, which are intimate in nature and crafted from materials such as alabaster, wood, wrought iron, reinforced concrete, and chamotte clay.

This is complemented by a display of the graphic work that forms a fundamental part of his oeuvre: geometric drawings, collages, portraits, and self-portraits executed in ink, charcoal, and red chalk.

Madrid Fashion Week takes place from March 18 to 22, and once again, the Crystal Gallery at the Palacio de Cibeles will host the opening. On this first day, the runway will feature collections by Juan Vidal, Pedro del Hierro, and Teresa Helbig. On the second day, the shows will take place at the Palacio de Fernán Gómez, while the rest of the program will be held at IFEMA.

Between shows, all kinds of events will accompany Fashion Week. EGO, the section for emerging talent, will close out Madrid’s “fashion week” with brands such as Maikarfi and Mericusan.

Nostalgia/Utopia is a retrospective that invites visitors to immerse themselves in the universe of designer Ana Locking. Located in the iconic Ríos Rosas water tower, the exhibition brings together more than 160 garments that function as an archive of memory, exploring the constant tension between longing for the past and yearning for a utopian future.

IKONO is an immersive art space designed to be explored with curiosity. It’s not meant to be a place you go just to take photos: you enter to enjoy it, play, touch… The photos end up taking themselves, because the experience makes you want to capture it.

Many of its galleries feature works by contemporary artists who turn each installation into something truly striking, such as Ricardo Cavolo, Ishita Banerjee, and Kimberly Leahey.

Fernanda Orazi brings Unamuno’s revolutionary novel to the stage. In her production, the fog blurs the line between reality and fiction as the protagonist, Augusto Pérez, painfully discovers that his existence is a literary creation devoid of free will.

Madrid’s justice system takes the stage with a live courtroom drama where you go from being a spectator to sitting on the jury. In this murder trial, you’ll have to use your phone to analyze evidence: the defendant’s fate depends entirely on your ability to uncover the truth amid the lies, culminating in a final verdict that will decide whether justice is served.

March bids farewell, giving way to Holy Week. As a prelude to the processions, the 19th edition of the Organ Music Series will be held at the historic Church of San Ginés.

Adding to this musical lineup is a concert by the Municipal Symphonic Band at the Almudena Cathedral, rounding out the schedule leading up to the procession of the floats. Once Holy Week begins, the city will be filled with saetas and tamborradas, all complemented by the flavors of potaje de vigilia and homemade torrijas.

The Banksy Museum tour is structured as a well-contextualized and documented exhibition that brings together life-size reproductions of some of the artist’s most iconic works.

Each piece is presented with information about its origin, meaning, and social or political context. Many of these works no longer exist: they have been erased, destroyed, or are located in conflict zones, such as the Walled Off Hotel in Palestine or various walls in Ukraine that have been defaced.

The exhibition also explores the mystery surrounding Banksy’s identity, reviewing the main theories about who is hiding behind the pseudonym—a question that forms an essential part of the exhibition’s narrative.

Things are heating up in the early spring that March brings us. With the change of seasons, Madrid’s music calendar intensifies: we see this with the sold-out shows by The Divine Comedy, Suede, Hans Zimmer, and Rosalía’s four dates. But March is also the month of nostalgic returns to the 2000s, of the warmest folk , and of the necessary protest songs from bands like Biznaga. Here are some live shows you won’t want to miss:

• March 1: Herman Düne (Sala Villanos)
• March 5: Depresión Sonora (La Riviera)
• March 1: Tash Sultana (Movistar Arena)
• March 18: O’Flynn (Sala Clamores)
• March 20: Yumi Zouma (Sala El Sol)
• March 24: Robert Jon & The Wreck (Sala BUT)
• March 27: Yurena (Palacio Vistalegre)
• March 27 and 28: Biznaga (La Riviera)