One of Italy’s best-known botanical gardens is again a stage for theatre, music, movement and meetings between artists and audiences. On Sunday, 13 September 2026, the Metamorphosis section of the seventh Prima Onda Fest closes at Palermo’s Orto Botanico, after running from 3 September.

Organisers describe Metamorphosis as “an archipelago of visions”. Performances are not simply moved outdoors: some are made to converse with nature, biodiversity, space, the body and the community. The University of Palermo’s Botanical Garden, part of the UniPa Heritage museum system, hosts this section. The festival as a whole also uses other city venues.

Today’s programme, 13 September

The morning is given to Open Day Diaria, 10:00–13:00. The sports and cultural association from Palermo’s historic centre offers body and creative practices — from yoga, pilates and dance to Feldenkrais, Gyrokinesis, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, capoeira, theatre and functional training. It is a cultural and wellbeing session, not medical advice.

At 17:30 Zaches Teatro presents Cappuccetto Rosso nel Bosco (Little Red Riding Hood in the woods), about 40 minutes, directed and written by Luana Gramegna, with Gianluca Gabriele, Francesca Valeri and Enrica Zampetti. Characters appear, vanish and move around the audience. Narration, dance, figure theatre and live music — including the viola — turn the garden into the story’s “forest”.

At 19:00 comes Cuoro Ensemble Vocale, a pop-up choir: people who like to sing, not necessarily professionals, gather and learn the piece shortly beforehand. The concept is by Riccardo Matranga. Serena Ganci directs; today’s listings name Riccardo Serradifalco (guitar), Carmelo Drago (bass) and Giorgio Bovì (drums) among the live accompaniment. Produced by Genìa. Listed duration: 60 minutes.

The evening closes at 21:30 with Suonando Viole, by and with Martina Cirri, produced by Voodoo SRL. Cirri, a Palermo singer-songwriter and guitarist, presents a guitar-and-voice set on the way to her first album, due in autumn 2026. The title track was selected by Musicultura in 2025. Organisers frame the concert as a sequence in which each song is a step towards recognising beauty; no duration beyond the official listing is added here.

Metamorphosis ends; the festival does not

Prima Onda Fest was born in 2020 on Palermo’s southern coast and has spread from the centre to the outskirts, from the international scene to local communities. The seventh edition has three sections: Derive (26–30 August), Metamorphosis (3–13 September) and Approdi (17 October–6 November, at Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, Kalsa and Pagliarelli). 13 September is the last day of Metamorphosis, not of Prima Onda Fest as a whole.

Over ten days at the Botanical Garden the programme has included Sicilia Tarantella, Le Fenicie — freely inspired by Euripides’ Phoenician Women, touching war, exile and conflict — Il Pescatore e la Sirena, drawing on Gianni Rodari’s “La sirena di Palermo”, the contemporary dance work FLLNGLS (Michael Incarbone) and Carne with Elvira Frosini and Daniele Timpano. The audience is not sealed off as in a conventional theatre: the garden can be set, path or narrative element.

Who organises it, and where

The festival is produced by Associazione Genìa, in partnership with UniPa Heritage (University of Palermo) and CoopCulture, with DAMS UniPa and Fondazione Sant’Elia. Tickets and bookings go through CoopCulture.

The Botanical Garden, inaugurated in 1795 on a site begun in 1789, is one of Sicily’s reference botanical institutions: scientific collections, research and a public space. For Metamorphosis that green heritage becomes a meeting ground between art and biodiversity — a local cultural story, not a global headline.

Photo: the Aquarium basin at the University of Palermo Botanical Garden. Photograph from 2007, not from Metamorphosis 2026. Author: tato grasso, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.

Source consulted: Metamorphosis — Prima Onda Fest 2026 (UniPa Heritage); programme: Metamorphosis — Prima Onda Fest.