Presented by Mapas, the programme features the company’s hit production ‘Hammer’ and the double bill ‘ima & Wild Poetry’
Auditorio de Tenerife has secured GöteborgsOperans Danskompani for Mapas 2026, offering audiences two performances that form the company’s only Spanish stop. Hammer, the Swedish company’s signature production choreographed by Alexander Ekman, will be staged in the Symphony Hall on Saturday 11 July at 7.30 p.m. and again on Sunday 12 July at 6 p.m. The double bill with ima by Sharon Eyal and Wild Poetry by Hofesh Shechter will be presented on Tuesday 14 July at 7.30 p.m., in the same venue.
Hammer, created by acclaimed Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman, will be staged featuring 31 international dancers. This striking large-scale dance piece explores contemporary egocentrism. Sold out around the world, the two-act production Hammer uses humour to examine today’s society. The performance inspires the audience to break through fake facades and choose life instead of likes. Multi-award-winning choreographer Alexander Ekman is bold, unpredictable and innovative. His visually powerful work turns a spotlight on contemporary society’s self-image, often with a humorous twist. Ekman has created around 50 works, which have been performed by almost as many companies worldwide. Hammer marks his third creation for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani.
The double bill will be presented in a single performance. The programme will open with ima, by Sharon Eyal, whose work is characterised by a hypnotic choreographic language with a fierce physicality and a pulsating, mesmerising energy. Eyal and GöteborgsOperans Danskompani are a match that has toured worldwide. Their previous collaboration, SAABA, has made guest appearances to great acclaim in London, Paris, Sydney, and Seoul. For ima, Eyal has again collaborated with Maria Grazia Chiuri, former Creative Director of Dior, who created the costumes for SAABA. Their work together on Dior’s seasonal fashion collections is among their most celebrated collaboration.
Following the interval, Wild Poetry will be presented, featuring 16 dancers on stage in a piece by choreographer Hofesh Shechter. His work blurs the line between parody and sincerity. The dancers are in perpetual movement, alternately as a phantasmagorical collective and as individual protagonists, transforming the experience through new expressions, like a raging sea from which new images emerge. Wild Poetry, Hofesh Shechter’s second piece for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani after Contemporary Dance (2019), has received acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Since its 2023 premiere, it has been staged in cities including Lyon, The Hague, Baden-Baden, St Pölten, and at the Kuopio Dance Festival. The UK-based Shechter company is also renowned for composing atmospheric musical scores that complement the distinctive physicality of his dancers.
This edition of MAPAS 2026 concludes on July 24 with Bodies of Water, a choreography by Spain’s Iván Pérez for the German company Dance Theatre Heidelberg (DTH), which he leads as artistic director. Featuring ten international dancers, the performance explores the deep physical and emotional bond between humans and water. Through a choreographic journey of great sensorial intensity, Bodies of Water, which premiered in January, immerses itself in the transformative power of water and poses fundamental questions: What invisible connections give shape to our existence? How can bodies of water, for which the show is named, be used as sources of inspiration for movement and dance?
Tickets are priced at 15 euros, and Under-30 tickets are available for €5, with usual discounts for students, unemployed people and large families, among others. The partial Mapas season pass also offers access to these three latest productions — Hammer, ima & Wild Poetry and Bodies of Water — for just 39 euros. Tickets and the pass can be purchased on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the box office from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and by telephone on 902 317 327 during the same hours.