The sixth edition of DRAG ME UP – Queer Art Festival will open on 3 November and continue until 15 December 2025.

Conceived by ONDADURTO TEATRO, the project, promoted by Roma Capitale – Department of Culture, won the public comptetion of Roma Creativa 365. Cultura tutto l’anno in cooperation with Zètema Progetto Cultura.

UMANAMENTE EROƏ [Humanly Heros] is the subtitle chosen by Rome’s drag and queer performing arts festival, dedicated to creating a new vision for the future.

How to change the course our society has currently undertaken and leverage the human capacity to aspire to a different future and the possibility of doing so together?

The way we relate to the future also depends on the way we participate to the collective capacity of imagining shared horizons, which contribute enormously to influencing the way collective communities position themselves vis-à-vis values and rights. Every artist, in their own way, shall be responding on the merit of this challenge.

<< In previous editions, the event was very positively received by the public and critics, with the participation of numerous artists from the contemporary scene. This is a festival that transcends linguistic and performative borders to investigate social

and artistic issues. Today, more than ever, we feel the urgency to demand and occupy a space where possible and existing identities and stories can be told and celebrated. To imagine together a world in which stereotypes and prejudices are overcome through dialogue between generations, cultures and perspectives. DRAG ME UP wishes to provide a safe space where all can feel comfortable >>.

A  polycentric festival that moves across the urban fabric, from Rome’s city centre to its EASTERN and WESTERN peripheries, encouraging neighborhoods to reconnect and a variety of urban spaces to intertwine, from cultural venues to new creative hubs. The new edition of a festival that has increasingly become a must-see in Rome’s winter cultural programme will come to life both in the city’s theaters and cultural venues (OFF/OFF Theatre, Teatro del Lido di Ostia, Accademia Italiana, Centrale Preneste Teatro, Teatro Tor Bella Monaca) and online.

This edition’s journey will unfold by way of different narratives and techniques, evolving every year as we strive to experiment with the Contemporary. The festival’s main feature lies in its relentless quest for multidisciplinarity and HYBRIDISATION, by means of a programme that uses and mixes up precise techniques and languages.

THE VALUES OF THE INITIATIVE

An event adopting cross-sectoral strategies and forms of co-creation to engage urban communities in workshops and performance actions.

An event experimenting with expressive avant-gardes, unconventional languages and perceptions through the lens of digital humanities. Last but not least, civil rights’ protection as the key to tackle gender-related issues (homophobia, transphobia, patriarchal society, male chauvinism) and all forms of discrimination: DRAG ME UP is one of the few city festivals explicitely promoting an intersectional approach to the protection of people’s rights.

A cultural project founded on non-discrimination and the vision of gender inclusion. A festival that responds to the Agenda 2030 targets and the EU’s approach to cultural programming in connection to the fight against any form of cultural and gender discrimination.

<< How can we meet each other halfway? How can we create closeness, respect and trust for one another?  Such questions, but above all suggestions and food for thought, will be posed and shared with the public through our line-up’s light-hearted, bitter and sarcastic autobiographical storytelling. >>