Advancing new contemporary dance across Europe
review
Jan Martens: any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones
A stripped down but hyperkinetic composition invokes a collective will
2 min
review
Marion Darova & Martina Apostolova: WO MAN
Strict forms and unsettling imagery combine to dissolve gender identity
2 min
article
Dance+: Mulholland Drive
Dance can slip through the nets of convention and identity – just like the films of David Lynch
4 min
article
Dance classes through the screen
Springback experiences of what works (or doesn’t) as online class participants
6 min
review
Ann Van den Broek: Creating Joy
A polished kinetic, aural and videographic walk around joy, guided by Flemish choreographer Ann Van den Broek
2 min
article
Present futures
Going digital in 2020 has been a natural step for a festival founded to hybridise physical and virtual realms
7 min
article
Dance+: Us
Double trouble in the climactic dance scene of Jordan Peele’s 2019 horror Us
4 min
LISTEN
Guest episode: dis[]tanz podcast
Observing and considering how a performance-protest in Athens came to inhabit both the real and the online worlds
41 min
review
Hamid Ben Mahi: Chronic(s) 2
Revisiting a work twenty years on, hip hop dance artist Hamid Ben Mahi finds that the fundamental things still apply, as time goes by
2 min
article
Beyond the visual: Johanna Hedva’s Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain
As live arts migrate to the screen, Claire Lefèvre wonders whether a book might more fully register and reawaken the aura of live performance
5 min
article
Dance+: Permanent Vacation
Dance brings a moment of presence within the waking dream of a world adrift
4 min
LISTEN
Circulating artists, defunded infrastructures (audio)
Don’t just blame Covid for this crisis: restructuring the cultural field had already led to more artists and fewer resources
16 min
article
Circulating artists, defunded infrastructures
Don’t just blame Covid for this crisis: restructuring the cultural field had already led to more artists and fewer resources
12 min
review
Ultima Vez: Hands do not touch your precious Me
An online premiere from Wim Vandekeybus, Olivier de Sagazan and Charo Calvo that ventures into mythic worlds
4 min
article
Screening times
As Covid has brought screened dance and screendance into close proximity, four screendance curators look at the dynamics between them
9 min
LISTEN
Screening times (audio)
As Covid has brought screened dance and screendance into close proximity, four screendance curators look at the dynamics between them
11 min
review
Wanjiru Kamuyu, An Immigrant’s Story; Smaïl Kanouté, Never Twenty One
Edgy performances at the edge of Paris that take us beyond our own horizons
3 min
review
Teresa Vittucci, Michael Turinsky, Claire Vivianne Sobottke: We Bodies
We Bodies is an hour-long performative question on monsterhood, exorcism, domination, docility – and more
2 min
LISTEN
Life sentences: on reviewing and renewing (audio)
Can performance reviews escape from the sentences of the courtroom or the classroom, and live a little more?
9 min
article
Life sentences: on reviewing and renewing
Can performance reviews escape from the sentences of the courtroom or the classroom, and live a little more?
6 min
article
Visible and erased: the case of the ‘Alzheimer’s ballerina’
What does the viral video of a former dancer with Alzheimer’s disease suggest about the dancer, about disease, about us?
6 min
article
Dance+: Giri/Haji
The BBC/Netflix crime drama Giri/Haji is another sign of mainstream media turning to contemporary dance for inspiration and innovation
4 min
review
Adrien M & Claire B: Faire corps
A rapturous fusion of sensation and motion, imagination and engineering, and body with light
2 min
article
Marcos Morau: Sonoma, Surrealism and me
Threads of history – artistic, cultural, personal – lie beyond the exuberant images and costumes of Marcos Morau’s new work Sonoma
11 min
article
The leap into the abyss and the need to heal again
Anastasio Koukoutas spoke to some recent dance graduates to find out how they feel about their future, in the face of the coronavirus crisis
8 min
article
Dancing virtually into the London Film Festival
Alongside dance documentaries, the new LFF Expanded strand is taking steps into virtual dancing
12 min
article
Danser Brut – outsider dance
A wide ranging exhibition across two museums in Belgium affords fascinating visions of the idea of ‘outsider dance’
9 min
article
Dance+: Act of Love
Animal courtship dances transformed into human choreography by Russell Maliphant, to advertise condoms
4 min
article
kinkaleri: is it my world?
How a public relay by Italian group kinkaleri turns into a fruitful question: have we become estranged from the world we created?
4 min
article
Domokos Kovács & Petra Nagy: Do not feed the polar bears
Two Hungarian creators on their response to environmental questions in conception, production and performance of their latest work
9 min
article
Dance+: Moonrise Kingdom
In Wes Anderson’s 2012 film, two runaway pre-teens dance on the empty beach of an unknown land called love
4 min
article
To sit or not to sit? The question of movement direction
What do movement directors do? A new collection of interviews shines a light on an overlooked craft
9 min
review
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker & Radouan Mriziga: 3ird5@w9rk
The intersection of nature with culture – a garden – forms the setting for a site-specific duet by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga
2 min
review
Faye Driscoll: Guided Choreography for the Living and the Dead
Choreography through headphones, motionless performance within our heads, self-isolation and fantasy – Faye Driscoll’s ’audio choreography’ gets inside you
2 min
article
Talkabout: Urban dance languages at Peepshow Palace
A dialogue on content, context and tradition in urban dance at a corona-proof performance season in Amsterdam
12 min
article
Forward steps
Rather than longing for the past, some dance artists are using the pandemic crisis to imagine futures for performance
7 min
article
Local leads the way: Pelzverkehr Festival, Austria
The Covid crisis is shifting focus from the international to the regional – but festivals such as Pelzverkehr have already been there for years
4 min
article
Unknown waters: Berlin’s Tanz im August after Covid
Tanz im August director Virve Sutinen on rethinking the festival for post-pandemic times
8 min
article
Being together apart: the hollowing of the post-quarantine public
A public performance ‘practice’ in Athens responded to the coronavirus crisis – but did ‘The Crater’ rethink or recreate its underlying conditions?
8 min
article
Dance+: Protein synthesis – an epic on the cellular level
A mind-blowing, free-spirited dance film that is both scientifically exact and culturally far out
4 min
review
Peeping Tom: The Missing Door, The Lost Room
Works in mysterious ways: two pieces by Belgian physical theatre company Peeping Tom
2 min
review
Pere Faura: Rèquiem Nocturn
Pere Faura’s extravagant tribute to Bob Fosse mixes mortality with showbiz and mundane life
2 min
article
Sands of time: capturing Bausch’s Rite of Spring before lockdown
A rehearsal for a performance that never was: École des Sables’ version of Bausch’s Rite of Spring catches a moment in time
4 min
article
www DANCE: partying from IRL to URL
The mix of Covid, digital connectivity and our deep-felt human drive to dance together have reconfigured our dancing spaces
12 min
article
Dance+: Joker
A solitary dance becomes a rite of transformation in Todd Phillips’ 2019 Joker
4 min
article
The rise of the online dance class in lockdown
The offer, the reach and the uses of online dance classes are expanding during lockdown – and beyond?
7 min
article
Strange times
The coronavirus lockdown induces strange visions of our absence. Dance is an art of presence. Can we reconcile their values for the sake of the future?
3 min
article
A virus in the system
Covid-19 is prising reality from normality. What thoughts and feelings arise from this fissure for our Springback network?
12 min
article
New Choreographers Festival Athens
A Springback spinoff at the seventh New Choreographers Festival
9 min
article
Gaspar Noé: Climax
Gaspar Noé’s Climax is thrilling, stylish and harrowing. Its story is prefigured in the extraordinary opening dance scene
4 min
review
Crystal Pite/Jonathon Young: Revisor
A farce in the fog of post-truth, post-dramatic abstractions… Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young’s Revisor trails a string of questions
2 min
review
Daniel Linehan: sspeciess
Exploring co-existence and ‘becoming-with’, Daniel Linehan’s new group piece radiates radical softness
2 min
review
KDV Dance Ensemble: Las Casas Invisibles
A new company are the first contemporary dance show to headline at Berlin’s iconic electronic music venue Funkhaus
2 min
article
A stage in the gallery: Dimitris Papaioannou’s Sisyphus/Trans/Form
Dimitris Papaioannou’s first site-specific work for an art gallery, at Collezione Maramotti
6 min
article
On and off the platform: dunaPart5, Hungary
New voices at the Hungarian platform for performing arts – and new battles over state support and control
8 min
article
From company dancer to co-director to CODA: an interview with Stine Nilsen
Former co-director of Candoco (UK), Stine Nilsen returns to Norway as director of CODA Oslo International Dance Festival
10 min
review
Mårten Spångberg: 46
The advocate of ‘post-dance’ performs a solo – hashtagged #lonelyformalism – that reassembles his own choreographies
2 min
review
Jann Gallois: Samsara
All rise: choreographer, curtains, dancers and spirit ascend in a piece about worldly bondage and higher powers
2 min
article
The Continuous Network: capillary action of dance into galleries
A four-year UK collaboration between Siobhan Davies Dance and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art asks: why take dance into art galleries, and what can happen when you do?
7 min
article
Dance+: Dancing in the schoolyard
T-step on the tarmac? An innovative school principal goes viral with his plan to get kids moving
3 min
![Daniela Cruz in Cristina Planas Leitão’s UM [unimal]. Photo © Susana Neves](https://springbackmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ununimal_©Susana_Neves-3_web-450x300.jpg)
translation
PT19: On being, enduring and becoming the performing body
Controlling, uncovering and being the performer’s body, at the 2019 Portuguese Platform for Performing Arts
5 min
review
Hodworks & Unusual Symptoms: Coexist
Fearless performers brace themselves in a questing, questioning work by Hodworks (HU) and Theater Bremen (DE)
2 min
article
Moving audiences: the Montag Modus event series
Berlin curator Léna Szirmay-Kalos on developing new formats for showcasing performance outside the theatre
8 min
article
Postdancing in the dark
Posting from the POST-DANCE-ING conference in Stockholm 2019, Anna Kozonina asks: how did it work, what did it do?
10 min
article
Fringe cuts from Edinburgh 2019
A week of dance at the Edinburgh Fringe, as seen by Lena Megyeri at the 2019 NICritics programme for independent writers
8 min
article
Dance+: Kung Fu Hustle
Slick, stylish, violent… the Axe Gang in Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle know how to cut a figure on the dance floor – and off it…
4 min
review
Florentina Holzinger: TANZ, a sylphic reverie in stunts
Pitching witch against fairy, Florentina Holzinger’s TANZ bares the corporal discipline and punishment of romantic ballet through brutal parody and spectacular stunts
2 min
review
La Ribot / Dançando com a Diferença: Happy Island
You can see the trees on Happy Island. What about the wood?
2 min
article
New directions home? ImPulsTanz 2019
Lena Megyeri reflects on the crisis of objective in contemporary dance at Vienna's contemporary dance festival.
5 min
article
Radical empathy and real engagement: Take Me Somewhere 2019
Dance artists at Glasgow’s genre-crossing festival of experimental performance take you beyond performance itself
5 min
review
Gunilla Heilborn: The Wonderful and The Ordinary
A work in which the ordinary surpasses the wonderful leads to wonderings about words
2 min
review
Oona Doherty: Hard to be Soft – A Belfast Prayer
An attempt to heal the trauma of the collective Belfast body produces very mixed results
2 min
article
Slow and gentle: Santarcangelo Festival 2019
Performances at the 49th Santarcangelo Festival stir our sense of being and embodiment
7 min
article
Dance+: Happy Together
A tango scene in Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together invites our hearts into the spaces between separation and togetherness, fiction and reality
4 min
article
Six of their sex: female dancemakers at ImPulsTanz 2019
A choreographic variety of women’s work at ImPulsTanz Vienna
7 min
article
Earth moves: contemporary roots at Sismògraf festival
The old made anew: three contemporary choreographers reworking folkloric heritage at Sismògraf Festival
9 min
article
Julidans NEXT, Amsterdam: performers steal the show
Julidans NEXT offers new opportunities for both artists and audiences
6 min
article
Vote for dance: Antistatic Festival 2019, Bulgaria
The 12th Antistatic Festival called a #VoteForDance – but how did the performances poll with our reviewer?
8 min
article
Hack me tender: Mette Ingvartsen’s Red Pieces
Orgies, utopias and joyful existence in Mette Ingvartsen’s Red Pieces
8 min
article
Dance+: The Favourite
In place and out of time: dance anachronisms in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite (2018) are part of a fickle world
4 min
article
Already there? An interview with Ginevra Panzetti & Enrico Ticconi
Italian choreographic duo Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi on powerplay and physical rhetoric – past and present
5 min
article
SPRING Utrecht 2019: ‘In many ways, the future is already here’
Name it, hashtag it, experience it… The SPRING festival in Utrecht dives into dance, performance, installation, god, politics, gender – and the future
8 min
article
Dance+: Dogtooth
The distorting mirror of dance reflects an intimate reality of adolescent vulnerability in Dogtooth (2009)
4 min
review
Sofia Mavragani: Afterwords
Mouth movement makes for an intriguing choreographic experiment, but Anastasio Koukoutas doesn’t quite swallow it
2 min
article
Caught in the act of seeing
Look, then look again. Anastasio Koukoutas on altering visions in three contemporary dance pieces from Greece
10 min
review
Nicole Beutler Projects: 8: Metamorphoses
What’s the measure of a man? This performance questions what we are even measuring when we say ‘man’
3 min
article
Dance+: Echoes, Ode to Silence
Andres Arochi’s short film uses dance to revisit Luis Barragán’s masterpiece of modernist architecture
3 min
article
Rakete Festival 2019: from Mama to Mother Earth
At the intersections between the personal and the panoramic – a new generation of dance artists at the Rakete Festival, Vienna
6 min
article
Queer Darlings 2019, Sophiensaele Berlin
Camgirls and drag queens, chatrooms and cabaret: two surprising pieces from a festival of feminist and queer performance
7 min
review
Albert Quesada & Zoltán Vakulya: OneTwoThreeOneTwo
An experiment in choreography and staging that is definitely ‘not flamenco’ – but neither is it something else
2 min
article
Imagetanz 2019
Up close and personal with a lot of orifices at Vienna’s 30th Imagetanz Festival
7 min
article
Dance+: La Joie de Vivre
Wedged between independence and genocide, a Cambodian dance scene shows that loving life is precious – and takes practice
4 min
WATCH
At work: Jesús Rubio Gamo
‘It was dance and music that saved me from loneliness. ’ Spanish choreographer Jesús Rubio Gamo talks about the turning point that led to the creation of Gran Bolero (2019)
6 min
review
Jefta van Dinther: The Quiet
Quantum leaps in time… a mysterious world holds on to its secrets
2 min
review
Yukiko Masui / Léa Tirabasso
A double bill that contrasts mental anguish with physical recklessness
2 min
article
Trash aesthetic: Meet The Symptoms
What is waste? Who is trash? Réka Szabó and Dániel Szász of The Symptoms speak about recycling a street performance
7 min
article
Dance+: Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria
Toil and trouble brews in a cavernous, covenous dance company
3 min
WATCH
At work: Marie Cantenys
‘The garment is not the outcome, the outcome is everything together.’ Fashion designer Marie Cantenys talks about working with dancer Maya Jilan Dong
6 min
article
London International Mime Festival 2019
Using language and losing language: Theatre Re, Gecko and Peeping Tom at the 2019 London International Mime Festival
6 min
article
Taiwan Dance Platform 2018
The 2018 Taiwan Dance Platform was ‘made in Asia’, but even more international in scope
8 min
article
Dance+: Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina
A pivotal scene in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina is wordless, its drama of love, transgression and death distilled in dance
3 min
review
Jan Martens: Passing the Bechdel Test
Jan Martens’ choreography is a canvas that interweaves the action and speech of teenage performers with an impressive array of feminist texts, figures and thoughts
2 min
WATCH
At work: Bára Sigfúsdóttir
Icelandic choreographer Bára Sigfúsdóttir on working between reality and imagination
6.5 min
article
DanceLive Aberdeen, Scotland
Aberdeen’s DanceLive festival combines a productive dance platform and a conscious aim to connect with non-dance audiences
6 min
article
Dance+: Mauvais Sang
An intoxicating scene from Leos Carax’s Mauvais Sang embodies the headlong rush of youthful love and the mystery of its memory
3 min
article
Polyphony, playing and politics: the many voices of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
On voices, parts, and playing parts in the many-limbed choreography of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
8 min
article
Oktoberdans, Bergen: minorities dance for a majority audience
Two programmes at Scandinavia's largest dance platform navigate the exclusivity of an ‘inclusive’ mindset
9 min
article
Towards the ‘ironic spectator’
Apathy as activism: what has become of political art and a politicised audience?
10 min
review
Ivo Dimchev: Som Faves
A maniacal movement manifesto upends audience expectations in a one-off performance at London’s Chisenhale Dance Space
3 min
article
Dance+: Dead Poets Society
Show, don’t tell! A teacher’s lesson on conformity from an embodied perspective
3 min
article
Black and blue at Festival Les Plateaux
Choreographers Ana Pi and Calixto Neto take on ‘black dance’ on their own terms
6 min
article
Favourite jumper: Igor & Moreno, Idiot-Syncrasy
Caring but not careful – who knew an hour of jumping up and down would touch so many people in so many ways?
6 min
article
Down in one: the single-shot music video
On the appeal and the achievement of the one-shot music video
6 min
article
Dance+: American Psycho
Is that a raincoat or are you just glad to see me? Róisín O’Brien on the choreography of a murder
3 min
article
Tanz im August talkabout #2: portrait of myself as my father (Nora Chipaumire), The Waves (Noé Soulier)
Springback’s Berlin Three discuss patterns and parentage in two very different pieces at the Tanz im August season
9 min
article
Dansathon: an international dance hackathon
A report from the first ‘international dance hackathon’, a joint venture between Liège, London and Lyon that is more than just a competition
10 min
article
Tanz im August talkabout #1: Inoah (Bruno Beltrão) and R. OSA (Silvia Gribaudi)
Springback’s Berlin Three discuss body politics and national politics at the Tanz im August season
9 min
review
Jefta van Dinther: Dark Field Analysis
Two men embark on an expedition inside the body and beyond the mind, in Jefta van Dinther’s psychedelic Dark Field Analysis
2 min
article
Les Brigittines International Festival 2018
A many-layered thing: contrasting takeaways of our Springback writers at Les Brigittines, Brussels, reflect the genre-crossing styles of the festival itself
6 min
review
Michikazu Matsune: All Together
Recollection, reflection and re-enactment make for a memorable evening in Michikazu Matsune’s new piece about people both present and absent
2 min
article
Dance+: Little Miss Sunshine
For the win! Anna Kaszuba on why artlessness triumphs in the dance scene from ‘Little Miss Sunshine’
3 min
review
Rosas: The Six Brandenburg Concertos
A workbook choreographic exercise builds to a surprisingly exhilarating finale in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s new Six Brandenburg Concertos
2 min
article
Shape of YouTube
Two widely viewed danceworks beg the questions: how does YouTube shape dance? And how do you shape YouTube?
6 min
article
[8:tension] at ImPulsTanz Vienna 2018
Don’t expect the new to be comfortable: the [8:tension] platform for new choreography is provocative, plural, sometimes tedious – and often out of the comfort zone
7 min
review
Jo Bannon: We Are F*cked
Doubt and disturbance come to a climax in Jo Bannon’s powerfully penetrating performance
2 min
article
Beyond borders: Amit Lahav and Gecko
Gecko’s Amit Lahav talks to Daniel Pitt about straddling genres, insularity and internationalism in British theatre – and being pummelled with love
7 min
article
Dance+: Dirty Dancing
Alexandra Gray on her first time watching Dirty Dancing – and why Baby’s first time on the dancefloor stays with her
3 min
review
Taneli Törmä: COVER – A symphonic poem in three movements
A merger of choreography and sound installation, Finnish artist Taneli Törmä’s COVER sensitively explores the kinaesthetic experience of sound.
2 min
review
Rocío Molina: Grito Pelao
They say that Mother knows best, but does she know how to turn that into a performance?
2 min
article
Danse Élargie 2018: big opportunities, bigger ambition
Beatboxing, b-boys, a beach and a balloon enlarge our concept of ‘dance’ in the fifth edition of the multi-disciplinary choreographic competition
5 min
article
Potsdamer Tanztageor: 3 × 3 = 8
When does 3 × 3 = 8? When our three reviewers go to three performances each at Berlin’s 2018 Potsdamer Tanztage festival
10 min
article
Bausch rebooted: Veza Fernández’s Wenn Auge Mund Wird
Vienna-based Veza Fernández refracts Bauschian Tanztheater through a contemporary prism
5 min
article
Dance+: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Dancing home alone before going out to do what vampires do. Ka Bradley on a moment of dance in the movie A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
3 min
article
Pietro Marullo’s WRECK: survival of the fittest in the age of austerity?
Pietro Marullo’s ‘elastic performance’ is a staging of the struggle to survive in a precarious environment – and an example of it.
3 min
review
Oona Doherty: Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus
A riveting portrait of the disadvantaged white male that meshes beauty with damnation
2 min
review
Florentina Holzinger: Apollon
Dance gets down and dirty – but is it worth the gross-out?
2 min
review
Katerina Andreou: BSTRD
Can a solo dance piece create, on stage, that much needed room of one’s own?
2 min
review
Timothy and the Things: Hunting (Vadászat)
Three men hunting – but for what, for whom, and why? Anna Dohy looks to the wider stage for answers
2 min
review
Jasna Vinovrški: Lady Justice
With witnesses, evidence and judgement – is a dance performance a bit of a trial?
2 min
review
Ligia Lewis: Minor Matter
Black matters in Minor Matter, a powerful encounter with the myriad concepts of blackness
2 min
article
How to like dance
Audience clubs are on the increase - why? Luke Forbes on his experience of a new workshop in Melbourne
8 min
article
The wilderness within
What happens when dance takes nature as its stage? A festival in the northernmost town in the world leads to a changed sense of self, culture and existence
8 min
translation
Christos Papadopoulos’s Opus: in search of the dialectics of music and movement
A textual exploration of a performative exploration in sound, meaning and time
6 min
LISTEN
Mònica Pagès watches Likes by Nùria Guiu
Classical music journalist Mònica Pagès sees a solo about the value of ‘likes’ in an age of social media. How was it for her?
16 min
article
The naked stage of Sanna Kekäläinen
Riikka Laakso on Finnish choreographer Sanna Kekäläinen, and the subversions and inversions of her 2017 piece Whorescope
10 min
review
Mette Ingvartsen: 21 pornographies
Assuming the position is at the heart of this physical exploration of erotica
2 min
review
Vero Cendoya: La Partida
Beautiful as dance can be, is it really any match for the beautiful game?
2 min
WATCH
At work: Meytal Blanaru
Brussels-based Israeli choreographer Meytal Blanaru on the workings behind her work
6 min
review
Arkadi Zaides: TALOS
Arkadi Zaides' detatched demonstration of surveillance, digital simulation and border infringements
2 min
review
Hodworks: Sunday
Hodworks’ Sunday begs the question: in the age of the selfie, what separates the person and the persona?
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