Find Your ‘Gigil’: FIFTH WALL Festival Returns This October

(SPOT.ph) If you think dance only belongs on a traditional stage, FIFTH WALL Festival is here to prove otherwise. Returning for its seventh edition, the independent movement platform is curating four days of performances, multimedia installations, artist talks, parties, and other experiences in the Metro this October.

FIFTH WALL is a platform dedicated to showcasing dance through different creative disciplines beyond the conventional. Since it debuted in 2020, the festival has continued to evolve, expanding the ways that Filipinos can experience movement.

For its seventh iteration this year, the festival takes on the theme Gigil. The Filipino word captures the intense feeling that’s almost too much to contain. Most of us associate it with the overwhelming urge to squeeze an extra-cute baby—but FIFTH WALL Festival takes the concept further by exploring how feelings are held back, built up, and eventually burst out.

Happening from October 22 to 25, FIFTH WALL Festival 2026 will take over NBS Park in Mandaluyong for the first time. The event spotlights seven artists working across performance, film, and contemporary art, each offering their own interpretation of gigil.

The festival explores this distinctly Filipino feeling through three familiar expressions: pigil (restraint), ipon (buildup), and sabog (release). It is basically the process of holding something in, feeling it intensify, and eventually letting it all out. Through movement, film, and other creative outlets, the featured works present what happens when emotions and experiences become too much to contain.

So, how do they do it? The festival includes four original live works, two multimedia installations, and a special program featuring Japanese dance artist Tohru Dance.

Here's the day-by-day schedule for Fifth Wall Festival, including the featured works, performance times, and ticketing details. 

• Time: 8:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

• Admission: Ticketed (standing room only)

• Inspired by Ishmael Bernal's 1980 film Manila by Night, this live performance explores the stretch of time skipped over in a scene where a character gets into a vehicle and arrives at another location. It is co-produced by FIFTH WALL and features choreography by Madge Reyes.

• Time: 8:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

• Admission: Free with the performance ticket

• Time: 7:00 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.

• Admission: Ticketed

• Making its Philippine premiere, this performance combines theater, vocal music, craft, and movement to tell stories of trans identity and queer memory. Through stitching and song, Bunny Cadag explores feminine expression, intergenerational trauma, and healing.

• Time: 7:55 p.m. to 8:10 p.m.

• Admission: Free with the performance ticket

• Time: 9:00 p.m. to 9:40 p.m.

• Admission: Ticketed

• This world-premiere solo performance brings the Filipino male body into dialogue with artificial intelligence. Drawing on shared Austronesian heritage between Taiwan and the Philippines, Garcia presents the body as a living archive that remembers beyond language, nation, and code.

• Time: 9:50 p.m. to 10:05 p.m.

• Admission: Free with the performance ticket

• Time: 1:30–2:30 p.m.

• Admission: Free; registration required

• Get to know Japanese dance artist and internet sensation Tohru Dance in this intimate discussion about their creative practice, ideas, and unconventional approach to movement.

• Time: 2:30–4:30 p.m.

• Admission: Free, registration required

• Join an open dance jam with Tohru Dance and beats by DJ Meek.

• Time: 7–7:45 p.m.

• Admission: Ticketed

• Time: 9–9:30 p.m.

• Admission: Ticketed (standing room only)

• Time: 9:40–10:00 p.m.

• Admission: Free with performance ticket

• Time: 6–6:45 p.m.

• Admission: Ticketed

• Time: 7:30–8:30 p.m.

• Admission: Ticketed

• This performance brings together two contrasting feminine icons: Mama Mary and pop superstar Madonna. Through movement and pageantry, Torrado explores stories passed down through generations of women, touching on brown identity, colorism, class aspirations, and the resilience of working mothers.

Also read: Flow State: How The Daloy Dance Company Tells Stories Through Movement

• Time: 8:30–8:45 p.m.

• Admission: Free with performance ticket

In between performances, visitors can check out the two unique installations that are part of the festival.

• World premiere

• This moving-image installation imagines a surreal afterlife encounter unfolding through a series of vignettes. Four ghosts interact through miniatures, makeup, costumes, and movement, performing rituals of transformation.

• World premiere

• Exploring performance documentation, Axibal reworks archival footage of audiences from the 2025 festival. As time alters the footage, the archive becomes a new visual experience, reflecting on how performances and the people who witness them are remembered.

“With Gigil, we wanted to continue FIFTH WALL's advocacy of creating new contexts for audiences to encounter dance through contemporary, cross-disciplinary, and experimental programming,” says FIFTH WALL Founder and Director Madge Reyes. “We’re interested in what becomes possible when artists are given the freedom to experiment, when different disciplines and communities intersect, and when audiences are invited to experience art beyond the traditional stage.”

Tickets and festival passes can be purchased online through fifthwall.helixpay.ph or on-site at the registration booth. Keep in mind that only cashless transactions are accepted, both online and on-site.

You can purchase tickets for individual live performances. Set A (Brown Madonna) is P1,299, while Set B (Manila After Dark, The Singer, and Lore) is P999 each. Door rates, applicable from October 22 to 25, are P1,799 for Set A and P1,499 for Set B.

If you’re planning to watch more than one show, bundles are more than worth their price:

• Gigil na Gigil Pass (all performances): P2,796

• Super Gigil Pass (Brown Madonna + two Set B shows): P2,297

• Medyo Gigil (Brown Madonna + one Set B show): P1,548

• Slight Gigil (two Set B shows): P1,498
  

For online purchases, you'll receive a QR code with your ticket details via email. Seating is limited and strictly first-come, first-served, so arrive early to secure your spot.

Plus, here’s a bonus for festivalgoers: Astro is serving an exclusive meal for FIFTH WALL Festival ticket holders. Show your festival ticket to purchase Chicken Lolli & Pop before or after a show!

For more information, visit FIFTH WALL's website.

Also read: Must-Watch Concerts and Theater Shows This October 2026