From March 6 to 22, Mexico City and Puebla host the fourth edition of TONO Festival, a nomadic gathering dedicated to time-based art: performance, dance, live music, video installations, and moving image. For more than two weeks, artists from around the world will present new and existing works at museums and cultural spaces in both cities.

The program is spread across Casa del Lago UNAM, Museo Jumex, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Museo de Arte Moderno, Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, La Laguna Bodega, and Casa de La Acequia in Mexico City, and Museo Amparo in Puebla.

Sam Ozer, founder of the festival, explains that TONO was born in part out of a personal passion for dance, with a mission to explore and support time-based works of art while fostering an active dialogue between cultural spaces. She adds that the festival aims to offer visitors a different way of inhabiting time and space. Since its previous editions, TONO has brought together more than sixty artists from twenty-five countries, and in 2026 it continues its commitment to collaborating with international institutions.

DANCE

In the dance program, the festival presents the Mexican premiere of Jawbreaker, by American artist Alexa West. Trained in visual arts at Cooper Union and in dance through collaboration with the Martha Graham school, West uses the piece to explore themes of patriotism and the culture of exhaustion through a fusion of athletic movement, Shaker rituals, and postmodern dance.

Italian choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni presents Save the Last Dance for Me, a work focused on the preservation of the polka chinata, a dance with early twentieth-century roots that is at risk of disappearing. Polka chinata is a historically significant dance, particularly in the Bologna region, having emerged from the hardships of the World Wars. Sciarroni and his company come to Mexico City in collaboration with Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

PERFORMANCE AND INSTALLATIONS

At the Museo de Arte Moderno, TONO organizes a performative program with percussionist Eli Keszler alongside the retrospective of Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Jardín inconcluso. Meanwhile, artist Melanie Smith presents a performance at Museo Jumex, in the context of her exhibition Un tiempo de libertad en que el mundo había sido posible.

One of the festival’s highlights is This Joy, by artist Tino Sehgal, presented at Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo in San Ángel and also at Casa de La Acequia. In this work, three dancers interpret the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and translate the energy it emanates into physical encounters with visitors, bringing the practice of the artist—recipient of the Golden Lion at the 55th Venice Biennale—into dialogue with the spaces of one of Mexico City’s most iconic house-museums. Sehgal is internationally recognized for creating works that exist only in the moment of encounter between performers and spectators, with no physical objects or documentation, making this a rare opportunity to experience one of his works live. The piece inaugurated the festival on March 6 and remains on view throughout the programming.

‍IN PUEBLA: HOTEL APORIA

In Puebla, Museo Amparo presents Hotel Aporia (2019), by Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen. The multichannel video installation transforms the museum’s galleries into a ryokan—a Japanese inn—set during World War II. The work weaves together historical figures such as kamikaze pilots, philosophers of the Kyoto School, and filmmakers like Ryuichi Yokoyama and Yasujiro Ozu alongside contemporary characters, offering a perspective of history as a constantly evolving process of transformation.

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LIVE MUSIC

The music program features live performances by Space Afrika, Franziska Aigner, Kelman Duran, and Kianí del Valle. TONO also presents a special project by Mexican artist Avantgardo, and a selection of works by Thai filmmakers and video artists—including Jeanne Penjan Lassus, Tulapop Saenjaroen, and Chulayarnnon Siriphol—curated by Rosalia Namsai Engchuan, moving image curator at the Bangkok Kunsthalle. A closing evening in collaboration with the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is also planned.

Festival TONO 2026 offers a unique opportunity to experience, in some of Mexico’s most important cultural venues, works by leading international artists. The full program, with dates and times by venue, is available on the festival’s website.

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Festival TONO 2026 runs from March 6 to 22 in Mexico City and Puebla. Full program: tonofestival.com/es/festival-2026-es/