advancing european dance

Cherish Menzo, Darkmatter. Photo © Bas de Brouwer

review, article

Eyes on Tanz im August 2023

Emily May, Evgeny Borisenko | 03.10.23

Two Springback writers took pot-luck at the big Berlin dance festival

14 min

Fluidical, Sophia van der Putten’s ‘vibrating slime installation performance’. Photo © Jorah Sarah

review, article

Humans on the fringe

Rebecca Douglass | 28.09.23

A dance-focused look at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival finds humans on the edge…

10 min

Finola Cronin and Mikel Murfi in Junk Ensemble’s Dances Like a Bomb

review, article

Edinburgh Fringe 2023: meshing interest with attendance

Róisín O’Brien | 25.09.23

In contemproary dance, is the Intellectually interesting also the entertainment wary? You never can tell…

7 min

Solène Weinachter, After All. © Genevieve Reeeves

article

Solène Weinachter – dancing before and after all

Róisín O’Brien | 20.09.23

An interview with the French-born Scottish dance artist as she creates her first self-directed work

6 min

Violeta Vitanova in Sorrow Island: The North End of Outer Hope. © Gergana Encheva

review, article

Moving Body Varna: on and off screen

Lydia Wharf | 18.09.23

A festival where the body moves fluently – and intimately – between stage, site, screen and headset

9 min

Ehs came from another planet by Amalia Bennett and Antigone Gyra. ©South Space for Photography

review, article

Dance Days Chania 2023:
The Conscious Body

Stella Mastorosteriou, Ariadne Mikou | 14.09.23

Themes from the 13th edition of the international contemporary dance festival in the coastal town of Chania, Crete

14 min

Two women in flowing dresses and white sneakers, stepping sideways in parallel positions. Behind them, their shadows multiply and overlap their outlines

review, article

ImPulsTanz 2023: past presence

Lena Megyeri | 11.09.23

The imprint of the past on the performance of the present, at the 40th edition of ImPulsTanz Vienna

8 min

A crowd of bodies of various genders, near nude, all whirling around in different states of action and agitation. The lighting is dark, and a metal scaffold looms in the background

review

Home and away at the Venice Dance Biennale

Emily May | 10.08.23

This year’s Italian and international commissions at the Venice Biennale contrast in almost every way

5 min

On a white stage strewn with marshmallows, a small figure (Chiara Bersani) lies down in one corner, while from another a standing figure (Elena Sgarbossa) moves towards her.

review

Chiara Bersani/corpoceleste: Sottobosco

Greta Pieropan | 08.08.23

A poetic other world is magically conjured from cloth, space, sound, bodies – and marshmallows

2 min

Two men and two women form a crisscross of coloured bodies (red, blue, greem) on pink and green op-art floor.

review

Dimitris Mytilinaios: Repair

Ariadne Mikou | 01.08.23

A Greek work selected for international exposure is rich in ideas, whether as postmodern profusion, density of material or to fill a vacuum

2 min

Three men in bright yellow unitards dappled with green, orange and blue, all looking to the left and bent into a wide demi-plié, against a dark purple background. The man in front is in sharp focus with a somewhat alarmed expression, the two behind are blurred.

review, article

Jam-packed:
a day at Les Hivernales’ On (y) danse aussi l’été !

Callysta Croizer | 26.07.23

Avignon’s national choreographic development centre distils styles and ambiences in its summer programme - on a daily basis

9 min

Carlos Garbin (centre) in EXIT ABOVE (Rosas). Photo © Anne Van Aerschot

article

Out of the blues

Oonagh Duckworth | 13.07.23

Rosas dancer Carlos Garbin talks about becoming a Rosas musician in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s new Exit Above

6 min

Libya, by Radouan Mriziga. Photo © Beniamin Boar

review

A bird’s-eye view at Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2023

Yasen Vasilev | 12.07.23

A selection of performances from Brussels’ expansive Kunstenfestivaldesarts shows its stylistic and thematic range

10 min

A man and woman in dark shirt and trousers against a backdrop of brick columns. He extend his right arm straight out, his left arms folded so that his hand touches his nose and mouth. She leans on his shoulder, throwing a questioning glance towards the camera.

review

Fuori Programma Rome: focus on Israel

Ariadne Mikou | 11.07.23

How was the strand of performances from Israel at Rome’s Fuori Programma festival?

7 min

A bearded top-knotted young man in red tshirt (Mohamed Toukabri) leans forward. In the hook of his arm, his mother Latifa, in blue tshirt with grey hair, leans back.

review

Mohamed Toukabri: The Power (of) the Fragile

Dom Czapski | 04.07.23

Between mother and son, motherland and migration, this tender tale is moving – if not specifically so

2 min

review

Simona Bertozzi: Onde

Ariadne Mikou | 16.06.23

Form undulates with flow in a sensorial choreography of imagination, evocation and presence

2 min

article

The wall and the circle

Yasen Vasilev | 08.06.23

A European workshop on equity in dance prompts reflections on enclosure and inclusion, on insiders, outsiders, in-betweeners and go-betweeners

12 min

A greenish translucent plastic sheet covers ghostly white figures inside, one of them pressing a dark palm against its surface

article

STHLM DANS: Curating outside the box

Anna Kozonina | 06.06.23

Talking about the big bang that opened STHLM festival in Stockholm – and about the act of talking about dance

12 min

Camille Decourtye, Blaï Mateu Trias and the pied crow Gus in Là. Photo © François Passerini

review

Baro d’evel: Là

Lena Megyeri | 01.06.23

Impressive but also frail but also funny, a show that is a little human, a little animal and a little magical

2 min

review

Florentina Holzinger: Ophelia’s Got Talent

Plamen Harmandjiev | 30.05.23

Beyond trivial and beyond tasteful… Holzinger rides again, through pop, schlock and Schiller

2 min

Against a bright orange curtain are silhouetted two puppet-like figures, one standing with forearms raised as if in question, the other bent forward, hand to chin, as if pondering

review, article

Queer Darlings 2023

Evgeny Borisenko | 25.05.23

An in-depth dive into the fourth and final edition of Berlin’s Queer Darlings festival

14 min

A dark figure in red top presses fingers against a translucent plastic screen that's splattered with blood

review, article

Is Marikiscrycrycry… a goner?

Georgia Howlett | 23.05.23

Both sides of the stage: audience member Georgia Howlett talks with creator and performer Malik Nashad Sharpe about their show Goner

6 min

Four women in various states of action - two kneeling on the floor, one standing and swinging her hair, a fourht in a judo-type crouch on a long becnh. They're in bright, sporty outfits, and two green bean bags (or punch bags?) complete the scene

review, article

End on a high: Dansa València 2023

Riikka Laakso | 16.05.23

Valencia’s long-running annual festival calls to dance, to rhythm – and finally to us

12 min

Two seated nude figures in near darkness, face each other, arms extended to embrace each other's shoulders

article

Orbita – Rome’s contemporary dance season

Ariadne Mikou | 11.05.23

How a five-month season of dance in Rome is finding its niche within the city’s larger dance ecology

9 min

review, article

Another angle on Czech Dance Platform 2023

Lena Megyeri | 09.05.23

After Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, might contemporary dance be growing less self-obsessed?

7 min

Two figures suspended in the air, one upright, one upside down, balancing on long rods also suspended from the ceiling, in a geometrical but asymmetrical formation. The tone is grey, and behing they their grey shadows are cast against the wall

review

An angle on Czech Dance Platform 2023

Emily May | 26.04.23

Emily May found herself watching Czech Dance Platform through a postmodern-ish American lens (just don’t tell her teenage self)

8 min

Close up of face, to the left of the frame. One eye looks towards the right. Underneath the eye is cupped a metal spoon, almost as if it were directing the glance to the right

article

Local in Limerick

Greta Pieropan | 04.04.23

Local works paired with international ones on the stage of Dance Limerick’s What Next festival

4 min

On a blurred background, three black men appear on a screen. In the foreground, we see the backs of the heads of the audience (all white, as far as we can tell) who are watching the screen

article

‘What are these peripheral practices?’

Betina Panagiotara | 04.04.23

Betina Panagiotara travels from the southeast to the northwest of Europe to find out what peripheral dance practices look like

8 min

In a slanting spotlight on a shadowed stage, a man is perched perilously on top of a double-sided ladder that is falling

review

Richard Mascherin: Caer Caer Caer

Hang Huang | 29.03.23

Falling, failing and the fates that befall us in Mascherin’s poetically staged physical fable

2 min

On a tilted floor strewn with reddish grains a woman launches herself headlong and is caught by a man. In the background, other figures are running

review

Léa Tirabasso: Starving Dingoes

Georgia Howlett | 16.03.23

The impacts of harrowing piece on the ‘science of programmed death’ are felt inside, outside and between our bodies

2 min

review

Side Step Festival Helsinki

Anna Kozonina | 14.03.23

Anna Kozonina journeys through an impressive programme but wonders why we keep caging dance in black boxes and white cubes

14 min

Woman in gold with many strings of beads, jewelry and headwear appears in the centre, twisting dramatically on the surface of a lake, with a spray of water all around her shooting towards the camera

article

Dance+: Love, Death & Robots

Kosta Karakashyan | 28.02.23

Dance and rotoscope animation combine to stunning effect in the award-winning Netflix series

4 min

In a dark room, a man is slipping off an armchair, looking upwards at the woman who has leaned forward to kiss - the armchair, not the man

review

Mime Time

Georgia Howlett, Sanjoy Roy | 23.02.23

A newbie and a has-been take separate routes through the London International Mime Festival

min

A ballet teacher (Gemma Chan) in checked blouse and ostenatious ring on her finger gently lifts the head of another woman (Florence Pugh) in black, at a ballet class. Behind them, other women (blurred focus) are also at the ballet barres.

article

Dance+: Don’t Worry Darling

Lena Megyeri | 17.01.23

The dark side of dance takes centre stage in Olivia Wilde’s tale of beauty and control

5 min

An airy studio space. In the background, a black-clad woman in very high heeled boots faces away, one arms extended towards the windows behind. In the foreground, a bald-headed man, torso only visible in the photo, leans backwards

review

Nitsan Margaliot: Foresigns

Annette van Zwoll | 09.01.23

A triple bill of duet encounters with mysteries that both captivate and mystify

2 min

Poster for Oktoberdans 22 showing woman with white wig, brown vest and orange striped apron, arms bent in front of her with hands nearly touching, one of them gloved

article

Springback Assembly at Oktoberdans 22

Oonagh Duckworth | 18.12.22

Springback writers gathered for our annual Assembly at the Oktoberdans 2022 festival in Bergen, Norway. We collated the resulting reviews, presentations and diaries into a special supplement.

min

Man in orange top and turquoise trousers is running away down a paved treet lined with green trees.

article

Slow motions through climates of change

Karina Buckley | 16.12.22

Laughing, learning, touring and moving (slowly!) in the face of climate degradation – with Rita Marcalo’s Instant Dissidence

12 min

Three women in jeans and t-shirts on a stage backed by crinkled plastic curtain. Two front women in deep, unbalanced back bends. The woman at the back is on the floor already.

review

LEE\VAKULYA: Burnt [the eternal long now]

Jonas Schildermans | 13.12.22

Dance work as material and metaphor for body labour and physical burnout

2 min

Foreground: a figure holds a microphone (face and body out of picture). Midground: a man looks towards her. Background: a woman (face and body half off pic) also looks towards her

article

CODA 2022: movement research for every body?

Yasen Vasilev | 01.12.22

Yasen Vasilev looks forwards and outwards from the main seminar at CODA 2022, on the theme of disability

9 min

Dancers in loose V-formation with wheelchair user at the front, the others lined behind with arms loosely stretched forward. Above them hanging transparent cloths with geometric patterns echo their loose translucent costumes

article

CODA 2022: staging diversities

Sanjoy Roy | 01.12.22

Towards a diversity of diversities at CODA Oslo International Dance Festival

11 min

Blurry figure of woman in darkness in foreground, one arm outstretched. In the background, a mirror reflects a main in a waistcoat ascending some stairs, looking towards the woman

review

CoisCéim Dance Theatre: Go to Blazes

Karina Buckley | 29.11.22

A mix of live and VR performance in response to Joyce’s classic novel becomes a heady, scented experience

2 min

Against a backdrop of tall city buildings, a dancer leaps high in the air towards us

article

I is for International:
On programming dance from abroad

Lydia Wharf | 24.11.22

Lydia Wharf talks to Ellie Harris of London’s Greenwich & Docklands International Festival about the increasing challenges to international programming and co-operation

5 min

A female figure completely cased in black clothes with a mask over her face on which a digital word is beamed (the letters "cogni" suggesting the beginning of the word "cognition")

review

Adrienn Hód: Soft spot

Lena Megyeri | 08.11.22

In its (dis)association of word and action, Adrienn Hód's new work touches a primal fear – of the critic

2 min

Woman in white shirt and red trousers, arms outstretched and face lifted. Behind her, blurry figures of other dances in multicoloured costumes, and behind them the figures of a baroque orchestra

review

Marianna Henriksson & Anna Mustonen: Eros

Inês Carvalho | 03.11.22

A singers, dancers and orchestra reach out in a meditation on the unreachability of desire

2 min

Reverie, by Georgia Tegou and Michalis Theophanous. Photo © Andreas Simopoulos

review

Georgia Tegou & Michalis Theophanous: Reverie

Georgia Howlett | 11.10.22

With its subconscious mysteries and fugitive feelings, Reverie is as much a ‘place’ as a ‘piece’

2 min

review

Eleonora Siarava: Blue Beyond

Ariadne Mikou | 10.10.22

Time, space, light, cycles – Eleonora Siarava’s Blue Beyond is both cosmic and minimal

2 min

Woman in salmon shirt and blonde wig in the foreground, behind her, blurred is another in the same outfit. Both pictured against a tree-lined park road on a grey day

article

Oona through the ages

Sedera Ranaivoarinosy | 07.10.22

Oona Doherty ventures down new roads as London’s Dance Umbrella gives us a chance to look back at where she’s been

7 min

Yannis Brissot & Mei Chen, Very Tiny Little Drop of Wax. Photo g Nora Kirschmeier

review

Mei Chen, Yannis Brissot: Very Tiny Little Drop of Wax

Hang Huang | 20.09.22

A curiously cryptic hybrid morphs into an echo of a singer’s unregretted life

2 min

Jaw-droppingly complex: Hung Dance in See You. Photo © Chen Chih-Chang

review, article

Edinburgh by numbers

Róisín O’Brien | 15.09.22

Róisín O’Brien figures a way round dance at the Edinburgh Festivals

6 min

Hands Up: Agnietė Lisičkinaitė at B.Motion 2022. Photo © G. Ceccon

review

Place of freedom? B.Motion 2022

Ariadne Mikou | 13.09.22

In midsummer, the Italian city of Bassano del Grappa becomes a many-limbed festival of dancing

8 min

review, article

Paths through ImPulsTanz, part 2

Lena Megyeri | 08.09.22

Not just the sights but the sounds: Lena Megyeri continues her route through Vienna’s month-long ImPulsTanz festival

7 min

Channelling spirits from the past: Boglárka Börcsök in Figuring Age. Photo © Andreas Bolm

review, article

Paths through ImPulsTanz, part 1

Lena Megyeri | 06.09.22

Lena Megyeri looks at climate and memory in the first of two routes through Vienna’s sprawling ImPulsTanz festival

8 min

Woman in gauzy top and underwear, man in dark trousers and open shirt, each in disco-pose with one arm up and the other out. Behind them are neon blue lights, and a yellow door, and the whole scene is soaked in dark red light.

article

Dance+: Ex Machina

Georgia Howlett | 01.09.22

The unnerving AI disco dance in Alex Garland’s movie provokes ideas about dance, autopilot and self-programming

5 min

review, article

Tanzwerkstatt Europa 2022: gestures from the zeitgeist

Evgeny Borisenko | 29.08.22

Munich’s long-running, many-stranded Tanzwerkstatt Europa serves as a quality sample of what’s in the air of current contemporary dance

14 min

A woman's body seen from the back, with tight printed blue-green top, and a silky light blue tie over sheer underwear

article

Ice Hot Nordic Dance: time to credit dance and controversy?

Anna Kozonina | 25.08.22

The big, well-organised Nordic dance platform returns with performances that are variously emotive, well-crafted, surreal and smartypants

12 min

Four figures in a circle facing centre, just the upper bodies showing, each one with their head tilted back and mouth open, as if crowing to the skies

review

Maija Hirvanen: Mesh

Hang Huang | 23.08.22

Humans within a more-than-human world – but does the idea outweigh the material?

2 min

Woman dressed in black is doubled over, head down and face hidden, arms hanging and straight legs crossed. On her head, an embroidered red funnel-like hat. Behind, some orange-red curtains

review

Elle Sofe Sara: Vástádus eana – The answer is land

Sedera Ranaivoarinosy | 19.08.22

An audience gently transported from Berlin to Sápmi, to witness a performance of roots, reclamation and resilience

2 min

review

Ivo Dimchev: In Hell with Jesus

Plamen Harmandjiev | 17.08.22

Dimchev’s entertainingly provocative song, dance and quiz-show sees six characters in search of a musical. Meta, much?

2 min

Yun-Chen Chang: Still Changing Skyline. Photo © Robert Maybach

article

The Non-Fungible Body

Hang Huang | 11.08.22

A new performance festival moving between the ‘non-fungible’ or unique body and its digital reproductions and simulations

7 min

Four figures spread out all in the same stretched position, torsos tilted back, one arms stretching up behind and one leg stretching forward in front

article

Kalamata International Dance Festival 2022

Stella Mastorosteriou | 09.08.22

Beauties and realities mix and separate at the long-standing Greek dance festival

13 min

Woman lying twisted on dark floor with dark background, almost as if suspended in air. A red/blue light highlights parts of her legs and one arm.

article

Baltic Dance Platform 2022: from intimate to social

Anna Kozonina | 25.07.22

Dance platforms may be designed for professional development, but the art itself is their lifeblood. Anna Kozonina takes its temperature at Baltic Dance Platform 2022

13 min

Topshot of woman in pink-purple tunic dress lying with arms open and smiling face on purple confetti background

article

Presente Futuro 2022

Ariadne Mikou | 21.07.22

A performing arts festival in Sicily that nurtures and rewards young artists – but is it enough?

9 min

In an open-air stone courtyard backed by trees and sky, a woman in black trousers and vest looks skywards. Behind her, another woman in a black strap dress sings into a microphone

article

Dominio Pubblico: Senza Titolo Festival 2022

Georgia Howlett | 19.07.22

Rome’s ‘untitled’ youth arts festival strikes chords with young people’s complex experiences of unentitlement

10 min

LISTEN

Czech Dance Platform 2022: two views

Emily May, Sanjoy Roy | 15.07.22

All of Czech Dance Platform 2022 in 40 minutes, divided into two viewpoints. With reflections on the disappearing dancer, sound & vision, eco-consciousness, plus touches of prog-rock, sci-fi, and a low-down on the final awards.

40 min

Megumi Eda in Kristal Rizzo’s Monumentum, the Second Sleep. Photo © Studio Pagi

article

Lugano Dance Project 2022

Lena Megyeri | 13.07.22

A new dance festival with a utopian setting – and vision?

9 min

Left: woman in bright red top, white shorts and patterned socks, in kooky pose. Right: 3 figures in dark clothes, one upright, two kneeling

article

Danse Élargie: almost ridding dance of its borders

Sedera Ranaivoarinosy | 11.07.22

Who were the hits, also-rans and could-haves/should-haves at the international Danse Élargie competition for new choreography?

6 min

A set made of a central slab with three layers and a backpiece, plus stpes to one side, and benches around it. Five figures in blue dresses and white stocking are arranged across the set. Sheets of white paper are strewn all over.

article

What makes a performance contemporary?

Yasen Vasilev | 07.07.22

Three works at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels take forms that articulate complexities of the world today

8 min

A black woman with Afro hair walks towards camera against dark background. She wears a short black tunic dress with inflated wide shoulder pads

review

Soa Ratsifandrihana: gr oo ve

Hang Huang | 04.07.22

A choreographic debut tunes music, movement and personal history

2 min

Four naked muscular men, backs towards us, joined in a row by hand-to-buttock links

review

Nadia Beugré: L’Homme rare

Bas Blaasse | 30.06.22

Masculinities and spectatorships questioned up front and behind the back

2 min

Five wet bodies in wigs and underwear form tangle together in a clump

review

Alice Ripoll: Lavagem

Yasen Vasilev | 23.06.22

Buckets, cleaning cloths, soap and water become implements of joyous resistance

2 min

Cecilia Bengolea’s La Danse des Éléments, at a former steelworks in Esch, Luxembourg. Photo © Eike Walkenhorst

review, article

Cecilia Bengolea: La Danse des Éléments

Emily May | 21.06.22

Awakening connections between dance, art, industrialism and personal history

7 min

First Memory (Noé Soulier / Thea Djordjadze / Karl Naegelen). Photo © Anna Van Waeg

review

Noé Soulier, Thea Djordjadze, Karl Naegelen: First Memory

Bas Blaasse | 07.06.22

An artistic alliance configures everyday movement and moveable panels – to what end?

2 min

Cherish Menzo and Camilo Mejía Cortés in Darkmatter. Photo © Bas de Brouwer

review

Cherish Menzo: Darkmatter

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 03.06.22

Dystopian poetry coming from other-worldly dark matter and black blood

2 min

Woman and man in dark green against dark background. Side by side, looking down.

article

Windows on Brussels Dance, 2022

Evgeny Borisenko, Anastasio Koukoutas, Anna Kozonina, Lena Megyeri, Lydia Wharf, Greta Pieropan | 26.05.22

A variety of glimpses on to Brussels dance through a window in March 2022

12 min

review

Schweigman& and DOX: Eros

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 23.05.22

Will chocolate and floral flavours in an industrial building form the gateway to a sisterly rite of passage?

2 min

review

Zsófia Tamara Vadas, Csaba Molnár, Imre Vass: Game Changer

Lena Megyeri | 29.03.22

Changing the rules of performance – while staying on the same pitch?

2 min

Party scene from Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza, young woman stands on a bar with one arm raised, fist clenched. Around her partygoers are revelling, behind her a Martini sign.

article

Dance+: La Grande Bellezza

Anastasio Koukoutas | 24.03.22

The bump of lust and the grind of vacuity form ‘the great beauty’ that prefigures our times

4 min

In the darkness, one man looks through a window-like frame at another, as if in a mirror. Both are unclothed.

article

A necessary transformation: the performing arts and VR in Taiwan

Jonas Schildermans | 22.03.22

Covid and climate change have accelerated the creation of VR and performance hybrids, especially in Taiwan

8 min

The upper body of a woman with her back to us, in brown t-shirt. Left arm folded to touch fingertips to left shoulder. Light catches her hair. Behind her, another woman out of focus in the distance

article

Moving Colors youth dance festival

Stella Mastorosteriou | 18.03.22

A youngster helps out our grownup at a Greek festival that asks how young audiences might respond to contemporary dance that’s not specifically made for them

7 min

Grey school corridor with male and female dancer in distance, dressed like the characters in the musical Oklahoma. In the foreground a school janitor looks on

article

Dance+: I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Lena Megyeri | 11.03.22

The dreamspaces of dance and narrative cinema coincide in the unreal romance of Charlie Kaufman’s film

4 min

A bench surrounded by dramatic smoke and slanting orange lighting. Dark figures: one guitarist lying down, another sitting, two performers stand on the bench behind them.

article

Tanztage Berlin 2022: Hard times require hard dancing

Evgeny Borisenko | 07.03.22

Tomorrow is the question. How does dance move with and through the end of times?

13 min

Nina Morgan-Madelaine leans against a half-destroyed hut, inside are Valentina Formenti and Hannes Langolf, glimpsed through a crack in the wall, but also see from above on a projection

review

Lost Dog: A Tale of Two Cities

Ka Bradley | 03.03.22

Charles Dickens’ bulky, tangled tale boiled down to a soup of familial deception…

2 min

Man and woman in shiny green shirts and shorts face each other in front of a big neon sign which says WELCOME. Compagnie La PP (Romane Peytavin and Pierre Piton) in Farewell Body.

article

Swiss Dance Days 2022

Charles A. Catherine | 01.03.22

The Swiss dance platform is a cocktail of art, culture and dance… but which mixes hit the spot for Charles A. Catherine?

8 min

Photomontage of a white faces with dark smeared eyes against black background, and stylised leaves

article

Live and layered: London International Mime Festival 2022

Ka Bradley, Sanjoy Roy | 21.02.22

Channelled online in last year’s edition, LIMF 2022 reopens its many-faced, multi-sensory playground of live communication

10 min

LISTEN

Isabelle Schad: practice, continuity and infinite limbs

Beatrix Joyce | 16.02.22

An interview with German choreographer Isabelle Schad, known for large group works and for mixing Eastern philosophy with somatics and folk dance. Accompanying the audio is a fuller text edit of the interview.

min

woman in tight olive-green shirt and bright yellow trousers, dark hair slicked and heavy eye makeup, one eye open, one eye closed. She twists towards the viewer, with hands held in fists

article

Helsinki’s Moving in November: pasts, pleasures, projections

Anna Kozonina | 14.02.22

Anna Kozonina selects from and reflects on the latest edition of Helsinki’s long-standing international festival

12 min

article

Dance+
The splatter dance of Smac McCreanor

Anastasio Koukoutas | 08.02.22

Splay, squash, splash, shatter… Smac McCreanor’s twisted replications of objects breaking under pressure are comic, relatable – and addictive

6 min

The upper body of a woman against a dark background. She wears an orange t-shirt beneath a brown jacket, sleeves rolled up, her hands splayed against her chest. Her face, hair and hands are heavily caked with wet plaster

article

Embodied literature: an interview with Ben Duke

Emily May | 03.02.22

On blending literature, theatre and dance – Ben Duke talks about storytelling, embodiment and the classics

9 min

article

Certamen Coreográfico de Madrid: a chronicle from within

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 27.01.22

Jordi Ribot takes a look into and around the long-standing, many-armed Spanish choreography platform

9 min

Seated woman in vest and trunks, left arm stretched up, right arm bent forward, mouth open and hair flying. Behind her the diagonal rungs of a lighting rig and a vertical strip light. The whole photo has a deep red colour cast

translation

Interview: Mette Ingvartsen on The Dancing Public

Marie Pons | 24.01.22

Choreomanias, contagious movement and collectivity – Mette Ingvartsen delves into the background to her new solo

17 min

article

Keeping on track: a European culture trip by train

Sanjoy Roy | 05.01.22

Can we opt for rail tracks instead of flight trails? Springback editor Sanjoy Roy gave it a go – and shares some practical and life lessons from the experience

12 min

Encantado by Lia Rodrigues. A ragged line of dancers swathed with exuberant multicoloured cloths and fabrics swirling all around them

review

Lia Rodrigues, body and soul

Charles A. Catherine | 28.12.21

Based in a Rio favela and fêted in Paris, Lia Rodrigues brings different yet connected works to this year’s Festival d’Automne

4 min

Mia Habib’s How to Die, Inopiné. Woman with cropped hair and outstretched arms is looking up in the foreground. She wears a grey unitard embroidered with lichen-like greys and oranges. In the background are four others, in similar costumes. Wooden pallets lie on the floor and there is smoke in the background.

article

CODA collection: four dances from Norway

Riikka Laakso, Anna Kozonina, Yasen Vasilev, Greta Pieropan | 07.12.21

A collection of four responses to four works at CODA Oslo International Dance Festival 2021

11 min

Mette Ingvartsen in The Dancing Public. Woman in trunks and sleeveless top, head thrown back and arms up, on a platform. Behind and to the right of her is her own shadow on the wall

review

Mette Ingvartsen: The Dancing Public

Yasen Vasilev | 29.11.21

Can a theatre event infect a public body with movement?

2 min

The final scene of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up

article

Dance+: Blow-Up

Anastasio Koukoutas | 23.11.21

Blowing up the final scene of Antonioni’s notorious film to reveal the games of reality and representation

4 min

Silvia Gribaudi’s Monjour. Photo © Andrea Macchia, courtesy Torinodanza Festival / Teatro Stabile di Torino - Teatro Nazionale

review

Silvia Gribaudi: Monjour

Oonagh Duckworth | 17.11.21

A troupe of men with hands for fig-leaves are ‘just for you’ in a performance that is both bittersweet and perplexing

2 min

Lukas Blaha in Lavabo. Photo © Vojtěch Brtnický

article

Czech Dance Platform 2021

Lena Megyeri | 04.11.21

Lena Megyeri at the bumper edition of the Tanec Praha’s Czech Dance Platform

13 min

woman in red top, blue sleeves and ochre shorts, in a shoulder stand with legs in the air. The right leg has a prosthesis below the knee. Behind her are draped fabric curtains of different cuts and colours, and a tower made of foam offcuts

article

Dance+: Material Bodies

Jelena Mihelčić | 14.10.21

Accessories, prosthetics, props, extensions, constructions… Dorothy Allen-Pickard’s short film on the blur between materials and bodies

4 min

Two barechested men on the floor. One (Dan Daw) on his back with one leg bent the other extended, the other (Christopher Owen) reaches towards Daw with this outstretched arm

review

The Dan Daw Show

Ka Bradley | 06.10.21

A Crip kink dance shows the linkage of liberation and constraint, the leashed and the unleashed – physically, erotically, socially, emotionally

2 min

FIEBRE, by Tamara Alegre, Lydia Östberg Diakité, Nunu Flashdem, Marie Ursin, Célia Lutangu. Winner of the [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series. Photo © Nelly Rodriguez

article

A week at ImPulsTanz Vienna

Lena Megyeri | 27.09.21

To complement our snappy 1-line reviews of 26 ImPulsTanz shows, let Lena Megyeri be your in-depth guide to one week at the month-long festival

13 min

Outdoor audience on socially distanced seats looking at the lit MultiStory stage, Edinburgh Castle in the background

article

Edinburgh Festivals Diary, August 2021

Róisín O’Brien | 21.09.21

Big arts festivals have been cautiously opening up to the public – but what is it like to be there? Róisín O’Brien sampled summer dance in Edinburgh…

10 min

Mads Mikkelsen as Martin, drinking from a bottle surrounded by partying students in the final scene of Thomas Vinterberg’s film Another Round

article

Dance+: Another Round

Lena Megyeri, Stella Mastorosteriou | 14.09.21

In the marvellous finale of Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, a dance, not a drink, comes to fill a lack in our lives. Here are two takes on the scene, one on the merging of actor, character and movement, the other a close-up of the dance itself.

8 min

Dark red and black photo of the dance project by PRICE called Melodies are so far my best friend – showing a cloaked man standing on a raised table, surrounded by audience members in Covid facemasks

article

ImPulsTanz Vienna: one-sentence reviews

Claire Lefèvre | 26.08.21

Twenty-six performances from ImPulsTanz Vienna 2021 – condensed into one sentence each

3 min

Dancers in bright green, orange, red and purple outfits, in front of a brass band in city square in Woolwich Southeast London. Part of Protein Dance’s guided performance En Route.

review

Protein Dance: En Route

Lydia Wharf | 24.08.21

An antidote to digital dislocation, guided experiences such as Protein's En Route reconnect us with place and presence

2 min

Woman in black with long arc of hair as she leans her body to the left, against a brick wall backdrop

review

Isabelle Schad: Pieces and Elements / FUR

Emily May | 15.07.21

Slow, steady, serene – an open-air double bill by German choreographer Isabelle Schad

2 min

Cristina Kristal Rizzo, Ultras. Photo © Renzo Zuppiroli

article

Going forward to normal

Gaia Clotilde Chernetich | 08.07.21

Italian choreographer Michele Di Stefano on curation, choreography and the possibility of a ‘new normal’ for dance

5 min

Isadorino Gore. Disability Knights. Photo by Victor Zhukov, 2015

article

Strange Russian dances

Anna Kozonina | 29.06.21

What is happening in experimental choreography in Moscow and Saint Petersburg?

18 min

A man and a dancer lie spreadeagled on the floor in the same position, in Katja Heitmann’s Motus Mori

article

SPRING Festival Utrecht: ‘Seen live, with love, Jordi’

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 08.06.21

A letter to and two postcards from ‘test events’ for the reawakening of live performance

8 min

[image description: Katharina and Tanja are wearing the same stripy jumpsuit in colours of blues, green, reds and salmon with bare-skinned arms, shoulders and backs. Tanja is sitting on the floor with her back facing us. She has a round tattoo in the centre of her upper back. Tanja is slightly leaning to the left, which lets parts of her upper body escape the picture frame. Her head is turned to the right and her gaze is following a black crutch, which she is supporting with her stretched-out right hand. The tip of the crutch catches Katharina’s jumpsuit, furling it and revealing more of her white skin. Katharina’s two legs and her backside are visible and in a motion of moving towards the right, therefore the rest of her body is escaping the frame. It might even seem as if the crutch is luring Katharina back into the picture? End of description.]

article

Skype, crutches and pleasurable glitches

Claire Lefèvre | 11.05.21

Collaborators Tanja Erhart and Katharina Senk talk about multi-sensorial connection, technological pleasures and the aesthetics of access

9 min

IG cover image of @somatic_based_content_only: crude eyes and mouth drawn on top of rainbow coloured images of dancers bodies in leotards

article

The memeing of dance

Emily May | 07.05.21

Dance memes may be common, but few emerge from within the contemporary dance world. Enter Mr Felden Krisis…

9 min

review

Jan Martens: any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones

Jonas Schildermans | 04.05.21

A stripped down but hyperkinetic composition invokes a collective will

2 min

Marion Darova and Martina Apostolova, two women in white sneakers and dark blueish trousers and tops, on a dark bluish stage, with two floor lights behind them, in their stage duet WO MAN

review

Marion Darova & Martina Apostolova: WO MAN

Yasen Vasilev | 30.04.21

Strict forms and unsettling imagery combine to dissolve gender identity

2 min

Jitterbugging couples and dark shadows against a purple background, the opening scene of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive

article

Dance+: Mulholland Drive

Yasen Vasilev | 20.04.21

Dance can slip through the nets of convention and identity – just like the films of David Lynch

4 min

Woman smiles at her teacher on a laptop screen before an online fitness class

article

Dance classes through the screen

Sanjoy Roy | 15.04.21

Springback experiences of what works (or doesn’t) as online class participants

6 min

Two dancers on either side of a video screen place their hands to their ears, as does a third woman on the video screen. A moment in Ann Van den Broek's video performance Creating Joy, for her company WArd/waRD

review

Ann Van den Broek: Creating Joy

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 12.04.21

A polished kinetic, aural and videographic walk around joy, guided by Flemish choreographer Ann Van den Broek

2 min

Simon Senn with laptop, microphone and audiovisual equipment at desk. Face of woman, digitally superimposed, on large screen behind him, in the performance Be Arielle F

article

Present futures

Róisín O’Brien | 22.03.21

Going digital in 2020 has been a natural step for a festival founded to hybridise physical and virtual realms

7 min

Doubled: Lupita Nyong’o as Red and Adelaide in Jordan Peels’s Us (2019)

article

Dance+: Us

Ka Bradley | 23.02.21

Double trouble in the climactic dance scene of Jordan Peele’s 2019 horror Us

4 min

LISTEN

Guest episode: dis[]tanz podcast

Beatrix Joyce, Anastasio Koukoutas | 18.02.21

Observing and considering how a performance-protest in Athens came to inhabit both the real and the online worlds

41 min

Man (Hamid Ben Mahi) holding a clay lantern with smoke arising from it

review

Hamid Ben Mahi: Chronic(s) 2

Charles A. Catherine | 16.02.21

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

A photograph of a person surrounded by loose pages that they have torn from a book with their mouth. They are leaning against a wall, seated on the floor. Their face is entirely obscured by a mouthful of pages. They have shoulder-length brown hair and wear an apron covered in mud.

article

Beyond the visual: Johanna Hedva’s Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain

Claire Lefèvre | 11.02.21

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

dance scene in Jim Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation

article

Dance+: Permanent Vacation

Anastasio Koukoutas | 02.02.21

Dance brings a moment of presence within the waking dream of a world adrift

4 min

LISTEN

Circulating artists, defunded infrastructures (audio)

Yasen Vasilev | 28.01.21

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

Yasen Vasilev | 28.01.21

Don’t just blame Covid for this crisis: restructuring the cultural field had already led to more artists and fewer resources

12 min

Hands do not touch your precious Me. Photo © Danny Willems

review

Ultima Vez: Hands do not touch your precious Me

Lena Megyeri | 25.01.21

An online premiere from Wim Vandekeybus, Olivier de Sagazan and Charo Calvo that ventures into mythic worlds

4 min

article

Screening times

Emily May | 21.01.21

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)

Emily May | 21.01.21

As Covid has brought screened dance and screendance into close proximity, four screendance curators look at the dynamics between them

11 min

Wanjiru Kamuyu, An Immigrant's Story. Photo © Pierre Planchenault

review

Wanjiru Kamuyu, An Immigrant’s Story; Smaïl Kanouté, Never Twenty One

Charles A. Catherine | 22.12.20

Edgy performances at the edge of Paris that take us beyond our own horizons

3 min

Claire Vivianne Sobottke, Michael Turinsky and Teresa Vittucci in We Bodies. Photo © Mayra Wallraff

review

Teresa Vittucci, Michael Turinsky, Claire Vivianne Sobottke: We Bodies

Evgeny Borisenko | 10.12.20

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)

Sanjoy Roy | 08.12.20

Can performance reviews escape from the sentences of the courtroom or the classroom, and live a little more?

9 min

black and white figure of running man with text overlay

article

Life sentences: on reviewing and renewing

Sanjoy Roy | 08.12.20

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’

Anastasio Koukoutas | 27.11.20

What does the viral video of a former dancer with Alzheimer’s disease suggest about the dancer, about disease, about us?

6 min

A moment from the rooftop dance scene in the final episode of Giri/Haji

article

Dance+: Giri/Haji

Emily May | 17.11.20

The BBC/Netflix crime drama Giri/Haji is another sign of mainstream media turning to contemporary dance for inspiration and innovation

4 min

Light and body in Adrien M & Claire B’s Faire Corps

review

Adrien M & Claire B: Faire corps

Oonagh Duckworth | 12.11.20

A rapturous fusion of sensation and motion, imagination and engineering, and body with light

2 min

Woman and wheeled packing container in Marcos Morau’s Sonoma, La Veronal

article

Marcos Morau: Sonoma, Surrealism and me

Clàudia Brufau | 10.11.20

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 | 29.10.20

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

Dazzle: Solo, a VR experience by Bruno Martelli and Ruth Gibson. Photo courtesy of BFI London Film Festival

article

Dancing virtually into the London Film Festival

Ka Bradley | 27.10.20

Alongside dance documentaries, the new LFF Expanded strand is taking steps into virtual dancing

12 min

Joachim Koester, Tarantism, 2007. © Courtesy of Joachim Koester and Jan Mot, Brussels

article

Danser Brut – outsider dance

Oonagh Duckworth | 27.10.20

A wide ranging exhibition across two museums in Belgium affords fascinating visions of the idea of ‘outsider dance’

9 min

Animal courtship dances transformed into human choreography: the ‘Act of Love’ 2016 video for Sagami condoms

article

Dance+: Act of Love

Stella Mastorosteriou | 22.10.20

Animal courtship dances transformed into human choreography by Russell Maliphant, to advertise condoms

4 min

‘is it my world?’ in Rome 2020, by italian performance group kinkaleri

article

kinkaleri: is it my world?

Anastasio Koukoutas | 19.10.20

How a public relay by Italian group kinkaleri turns into a fruitful question: have we become estranged from the world we created?

4 min

“Do not feed the polar bears” by Domokos Kovács and Petra Nagy. Photo © Anett Kállai-Tóth

article

Domokos Kovács & Petra Nagy: Do not feed the polar bears

Lena Megyeri | 15.10.20

Two Hungarian creators on their response to environmental questions in conception, production and performance of their latest work

9 min

Beach dance in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom

article

Dance+: Moonrise Kingdom

Anastasio Koukoutas | 24.09.20

In Wes Anderson’s 2012 film, two runaway pre-teens dance on the empty beach of an unknown land called love

4 min

Movement director Ayse Tashkiran rehearsing Maria Aberg’s 2018 production of The Duchess of Malfi, Royal Shakespeare Company. Photo © Helen Maybanks/RSC

article

To sit or not to sit? The question of movement direction

Suzanne Frost | 17.09.20

What do movement directors do? A new collection of interviews shines a light on an overlooked craft

9 min

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in 3ird5 @ w9rk. Photo © Anne Van Aerschot

review

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker & Radouan Mriziga: 3ird5@w9rk

Oonagh Duckworth | 15.09.20

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

Emily May | 08.09.20

Choreography through headphones, motionless performance within our heads, self-isolation and fantasy – Faye Driscoll’s ’audio choreography’ gets inside you

2 min

Cherish Menzo: Jezebel. Photo © Bas de Brouwer

article

Talkabout: Urban dance languages at Peepshow Palace

Lucia Fernandez Santoro, Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 03.09.20

A dialogue on content, context and tradition in urban dance at a corona-proof performance season in Amsterdam

12 min

Body prints from Yasmeen Godder’s I’m Here. Photo © Omer Alsheich

article

Forward steps

David Pallant | 01.09.20

Rather than longing for the past, some dance artists are using the pandemic crisis to imagine futures for performance

7 min

Woman dancer in public street, from Une joie secrète (2019), a film by Jérôme Cassou on the Nadia Vadori-Gauthier’s project ‘Une minute de danse par jour’,

article

Local leads the way: Pelzverkehr Festival, Austria

Claire Lefèvre | 27.08.20

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

Dissemination Everywhere! – a ‘radio ballet’ by Hamburg-based collective LIGNA. Photo © Christian Altorfer

article

Unknown waters: Berlin’s Tanz im August after Covid

Emily May | 25.08.20

Tanz im August director Virve Sutinen on rethinking the festival for post-pandemic times

8 min

Dancer in 'The Crater', a performance practice in Athens, 2020

article

Being together apart: the hollowing of the post-quarantine public

Anastasio Koukoutas | 17.08.20

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

Sanjoy Roy | 11.08.20

A mind-blowing, free-spirited dance film that is both scientifically exact and culturally far out

4 min

Peeping Tom, Diptych. Photo © Virginia Rota

review

Peeping Tom: The Missing Door, The Lost Room

Clàudia Brufau | 03.08.20

Works in mysterious ways: two pieces by Belgian physical theatre company Peeping Tom

2 min

Razzle-dazzle and death: Pere Faure's Rèquiem Nocturn. Photo © Alfred Mauve

review

Pere Faura: Rèquiem Nocturn

Clàudia Brufau | 01.08.20

Pere Faura’s extravagant tribute to Bob Fosse mixes mortality with showbiz and mundane life

2 min

Gloria Biachi and Serge Arthur Dodoc in Bausch’s Rite of Spring, captured on a beach in Senegal

article

Sands of time: capturing Bausch’s Rite of Spring before lockdown

Ka Bradley | 06.07.20

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

Cath Carver | 29.06.20

The mix of Covid, digital connectivity and our deep-felt human drive to dance together have reconfigured our dancing spaces

12 min

Joaquin Phoenix looks in mirror in the bathroom dance scene of Todd Phillips’ 2019 film Joker

article

Dance+: Joker

Ka Bradley | 19.06.20

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

Emily May | 08.05.20

The offer, the reach and the uses of online dance classes are expanding during lockdown – and beyond?

7 min

article

Strange times

Sanjoy Roy | 21.04.20

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

Sanjoy Roy | 16.04.20

Covid-19 is prising reality from normality. What thoughts and feelings arise from this fissure for our Springback network?

12 min

Iro Vasalou, Becoming with Animal. Photo © Andreas Simopoulos

article

New Choreographers Festival Athens

Anastasio Koukoutas, Betina Panagiotara, Sanjoy Roy | 31.03.20

A Springback spinoff at the seventh New Choreographers Festival

9 min

Shot of opening dance scene of Gaspar Noé's Climax

article

Gaspar Noé: Climax

Ka Bradley | 19.03.20

Gaspar Noé’s Climax is thrilling, stylish and harrowing. Its story is prefigured in the extraordinary opening dance scene

4 min

Doug Letheren in Revisor. Photo © Michael Slobodian

review

Crystal Pite/Jonathon Young: Revisor

Suzanne Frost | 11.03.20

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

Daniel Linehan’s sspeciess. Photo © Danny Willems

review

Daniel Linehan: sspeciess

Marie Pons | 03.03.20

Exploring co-existence and ‘becoming-with’, Daniel Linehan’s new group piece radiates radical softness

2 min

KDV Dance Ensemble in Las Casas Invisibles at Funkhaus, Berlin. Photo © Jubal Battisti

review

KDV Dance Ensemble: Las Casas Invisibles

Emily May | 13.02.20

A new company are the first contemporary dance show to headline at Berlin’s iconic electronic music venue Funkhaus

2 min

Dimitris Papaioannou’s Sisyphus/Trans/Form. Photo © Julian Mommert

article

A stage in the gallery: Dimitris Papaioannou’s Sisyphus/Trans/Form

Gaia Clotilde Chernetich | 31.01.20

Dimitris Papaioannou’s first site-specific work for an art gallery, at Collezione Maramotti

6 min

Anna Biczók’s performance lecture Precedents to a potential future. Photo © Katarzina Chmura

article

On and off the platform: dunaPart5, Hungary

Lena Megyeri | 23.01.20

New voices at the Hungarian platform for performing arts – and new battles over state support and control

8 min

Stine Nilsen, the new director at CODA Oslo International Dance Festival

article

From company dancer to co-director to CODA: an interview with Stine Nilsen

Sanjoy Roy | 20.01.20

Former co-director of Candoco (UK), Stine Nilsen returns to Norway as director of CODA Oslo International Dance Festival

10 min

Mårten Spångberg in 46. Photo: Yasen Vasilev

review

Mårten Spångberg: 46

Yasen Vasilev | 13.12.19

The advocate of ‘post-dance’ performs a solo – hashtagged #lonelyformalism – that reassembles his own choreographies

2 min

review

Jann Gallois: Samsara

Charles A. Catherine | 10.12.19

All rise: choreographer, curtains, dancers and spirit ascend in a piece about worldly bondage and higher powers

2 min

Lucy Suggate’s Spirit Compass, at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK. Photo © Tui Makkonen

article

The Continuous Network: capillary action of dance into galleries

Emily May | 05.12.19

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

Online, offline and in line: Chinese schoolchildren learn the shuffle

article

Dance+: Dancing in the schoolyard

Stella Mastorosteriou | 02.12.19

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

translation

PT19: On being, enduring and becoming the performing body

Riikka Laakso | 29.11.19

Controlling, uncovering and being the performer’s body, at the 2019 Portuguese Platform for Performing Arts

5 min

Photo from Coexist by Hodworks and Unusual Symptoms

review

Hodworks & Unusual Symptoms: Coexist

Lena Megyeri | 24.11.19

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

Beatrix Joyce | 15.11.19

Berlin curator Léna Szirmay-Kalos on developing new formats for showcasing performance outside the theatre

8 min

Woman on floor with microphone at POST-DANCE-ING 2019 conference, Stockholm

article

Postdancing in the dark

Anna Kozonina | 13.11.19

Posting from the POST-DANCE-ING conference in Stockholm 2019, Anna Kozonina asks: how did it work, what did it do?

10 min

Scottish Dance Theatre in Ritualia, by Colette Sadler. Photo © Brian Hartley

article

Fringe cuts from Edinburgh 2019

Lena Megyeri | 29.10.19

A week of dance at the Edinburgh Fringe, as seen by Lena Megyeri at the 2019 NICritics programme for independent writers

8 min

Brother Sam (Kwok-kwan Chan) and the Axe Gang take the floor in Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

article

Dance+: Kung Fu Hustle

Ka Bradley | 23.10.19

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

Claire Lefèvre | 22.10.19

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

Dançando com a Diferença in La Ribot’s Happy Island. Photo © Caroline Morel Fontaine

review

La Ribot / Dançando com a Diferença: Happy Island

Evgeny Borisenko | 07.10.19

You can see the trees on Happy Island. What about the wood?

2 min

Chris Haring’s Liquid Loft company in Stand-Alones (polyphony)

article

New directions home? ImPulsTanz 2019

Lena Megyeri | 10.09.19

Lena Megyeri reflects on the crisis of objective in contemporary dance at Vienna's contemporary dance festival.

5 min

Luke Pell’s library event In the Ink Dark.

article

Radical empathy and real engagement: Take Me Somewhere 2019

Róisín O’Brien | 03.09.19

Dance artists at Glasgow’s genre-crossing festival of experimental performance take you beyond performance itself

5 min

Naturalistic movement and spoken word: Gunilla Heilborn’s The Ordinary and The Wonderful.

review

Gunilla Heilborn: The Wonderful and The Ordinary

Emily May | 30.08.19

A work in which the ordinary surpasses the wonderful leads to wonderings about words

2 min

Local performers from Berlin in Oona Doherty’s Hard to be Soft

review

Oona Doherty: Hard to be Soft – A Belfast Prayer

Annette van Zwoll | 28.08.19

An attempt to heal the trauma of the collective Belfast body produces very mixed results

2 min

Local kids take the audience in hand in Francesca Grilli’s Sparks

article

Slow and gentle: Santarcangelo Festival 2019

Marie Pons | 27.08.19

Performances at the 49th Santarcangelo Festival stir our sense of being and embodiment

7 min

a kitchen tango lesson in Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together

article

Dance+: Happy Together

Anastasio Koukoutas | 23.08.19

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

Dismantling virginity: Teresa Vittucci in Hate Me, Tender.

article

Six of their sex: female dancemakers at ImPulsTanz 2019

Claire Lefèvre | 19.08.19

A choreographic variety of women’s work at ImPulsTanz Vienna

7 min

Janet Novás and Mercedes Peón in Mercedes máis eu.

article

Earth moves: contemporary roots at Sismògraf festival

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen, Clàudia Brufau | 16.08.19

The old made anew: three contemporary choreographers reworking folkloric heritage at Sismògraf Festival

9 min

Enrico Ticconi in Kat Válastur’s Rasp Your Soul

article

Julidans NEXT, Amsterdam: performers steal the show

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 15.08.19

Julidans NEXT offers new opportunities for both artists and audiences

6 min

Ana Kreitmeyer / Sonja Pregrad (Croatia): Out There and In Here, at Antistatic Festival 2019, Sofia, Bulgaria

article

Vote for dance: Antistatic Festival 2019, Bulgaria

Yasen Vasilev | 13.08.19

The 12th Antistatic Festival called a #VoteForDance – but how did the performances poll with our reviewer?

8 min

More guided tour than stage performance: Mette Ingvartsen in 69 Positions.

article

Hack me tender: Mette Ingvartsen’s Red Pieces

Anna Kozonina | 09.08.19

Orgies, utopias and joyful existence in Mette Ingvartsen’s Red Pieces

8 min

Joe Alwyn and Rachel Weisz in Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite (2018)

article

Dance+: The Favourite

Róisín O’Brien | 06.08.19

In place and out of time: dance anachronisms in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite (2018) are part of a fickle world

4 min

Enrico Ticconi and Ginevra Panzetti, pointing fingers in dance film Actio (2102)

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Already there? An interview with Ginevra Panzetti & Enrico Ticconi

Emily May | 18.07.19

Italian choreographic duo Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi on powerplay and physical rhetoric – past and present

5 min

Rimini Protokoll’s Uncanny Valley at Spring Utrecht 2019

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SPRING Utrecht 2019: ‘In many ways, the future is already here’

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 04.07.19

Name it, hashtag it, experience it… The SPRING festival in Utrecht dives into dance, performance, installation, god, politics, gender – and the future

8 min

The three children begin their dance performance in Yorgos Lanthimos's 2009 Dogtooth

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Dance+: Dogtooth

Anastasio Koukoutas | 02.07.19

The distorting mirror of dance reflects an intimate reality of adolescent vulnerability in Dogtooth (2009)

4 min

Perfomers in Sofia Mavragani’s Afterwords, showing illuminated mouths

review

Sofia Mavragani: Afterwords

Anastasio Koukoutas | 27.06.19

Mouth movement makes for an intriguing choreographic experiment, but Anastasio Koukoutas doesn’t quite swallow it

2 min

Lenio Kaklea, holding mirror on stage in A Hand's Turn

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Caught in the act of seeing

Anastasio Koukoutas | 25.06.19

Look, then look again. Anastasio Koukoutas on altering visions in three contemporary dance pieces from Greece

10 min

Performance of Nicole Beutler’s Metamorphosis. Photo © Anja Beutler

review

Nicole Beutler Projects: 8: Metamorphoses

Jordi Ribot Thunnissen | 19.06.19

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

Cath Carver | 06.06.19

Andres Arochi’s short film uses dance to revisit Luis Barragán’s masterpiece of modernist architecture

3 min

At Rakete festival, Lau Lukkarila spells… Trouble.

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Rakete Festival 2019: from Mama to Mother Earth

Claire Lefèvre | 29.05.19

At the intersections between the personal and the panoramic – a new generation of dance artists at the Rakete Festival, Vienna

6 min

All Eyes On… by Teresa Vittucci. Photo © Nelly Rodriguez

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Queer Darlings 2019, Sophiensaele Berlin

Annette van Zwoll, Evgeny Borisenko | 02.05.19

Camgirls and drag queens, chatrooms and cabaret: two surprising pieces from a festival of feminist and queer performance

7 min

Zoltán Vakulya (front) and Albert Quesada, OneTwoThreeOneTwo. Photo © Benjamin Sommabere

review

Albert Quesada & Zoltán Vakulya: OneTwoThreeOneTwo

Alexandra Gray | 23.04.19

An experiment in choreography and staging that is definitely ‘not flamenco’ – but neither is it something else

2 min

Hugo/Robyn Le Brigand in Sans Culotte, a ‘solo for two butt cheeks and one anus’. Photo © Franzi Kreis

article

Imagetanz 2019

Claire Lefèvre | 17.04.19

Up close and personal with a lot of orifices at Vienna’s 30th Imagetanz Festival

7 min

Dance scene from Norodom Sihanouk’s 1969 Cambodian film, La Joie de Vivre.

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Dance+: La Joie de Vivre

Ka Bradley | 15.04.19

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

Alfredo Miralles | 06.04.19

‘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

Annette van Zwoll | 06.04.19

Quantum leaps in time… a mysterious world holds on to its secrets

2 min

Léa Tirabasso’s The Ephemeral Life of an Octopus.

review

Yukiko Masui / Léa Tirabasso

Ka Bradley | 25.03.19

A double bill that contrasts mental anguish with physical recklessness

2 min

The Symptoms’ 2017 revival of You Trash! in Budapest

article

Trash aesthetic:
Meet The Symptoms

Lena Megyeri | 14.03.19

What is waste? Who is trash? Réka Szabó and Dániel Szász of The Symptoms speak about recycling a street performance

7 min

Susie (Dakota Johnson) in the first dance scene from Luca Guadgnino’s Suspiria (2018)

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Dance+: Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria

Jelena Mihelčić | 01.03.19

Toil and trouble brews in a cavernous, covenous dance company

3 min

Maya Jilan Dong in Whip (Akram Khan Company, Portraits in Otherness). Costume design by Marie Cantenys.

WATCH

At work: Marie Cantenys

Marie Pons | 13.02.19

‘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

Ka Bradley | 12.02.19

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

Sanjoy Roy | 29.01.19

The 2018 Taiwan Dance Platform was ‘made in Asia’, but even more international in scope

8 min

Keira Knightley and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina

article

Dance+: Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina

Lena Megyeri | 22.01.19

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

Marie Pons | 15.01.19

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

Marie Pons | 10.01.19

Icelandic choreographer Bára Sigfúsdóttir on working between reality and imagination

6.5 min

The young women in Rita Góbi’s Snapdragons. Photo: Gábor Dusa

translation

Pal Frenák: W_all / Rita Góbi: Snapdragons

Lena Megyeri | 08.01.19

6 min

String Section by Reckless Sleepers, at DanceLive Aberdeen.

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DanceLive Aberdeen, Scotland

Róisín O’Brien | 03.01.19

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

Anastasio Koukoutas | 11.12.18

An intoxicating scene from Leos Carax’s Mauvais Sang embodies the headlong rush of youthful love and the mystery of its memory

3 min

A composite body in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Babel. Photo © Maarten Van Den Abeele

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Polyphony, playing and politics: the many voices of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

Sanjoy Roy | 06.12.18

On voices, parts, and playing parts in the many-limbed choreography of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

8 min

Eisa Jocson’s Princess. Photo © Jörg Baumann

article

Oktoberdans, Bergen: minorities dance for a majority audience

Yasen Vasilev | 29.11.18

Two programmes at Scandinavia's largest dance platform navigate the exclusivity of an ‘inclusive’ mindset

9 min

El Conde de Torrefiel in La Plaza. Photo © Els De Nil

article

Towards the ‘ironic spectator’

Anastasio Koukoutas | 27.11.18

Apathy as activism: what has become of political art and a politicised audience?

10 min

review

Ivo Dimchev: Som Faves

Alexandra Gray | 22.11.18

A maniacal movement manifesto upends audience expectations in a one-off performance at London’s Chisenhale Dance Space

3 min

Conformity scene from Dead Poets Society

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Dance+: Dead Poets Society

Stella Mastorosteriou | 20.11.18

Show, don’t tell! A teacher’s lesson on conformity from an embodied perspective

3 min

One body inhabited by many: Calixto Neto’s oh!rage

article

Black and blue at Festival Les Plateaux

Marie Pons | 15.11.18

Choreographers Ana Pi and Calixto Neto take on ‘black dance’ on their own terms

6 min

Igor Urzelai and Moreno Solinas, Idiot-Syncrasy

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Favourite jumper: Igor & Moreno, Idiot-Syncrasy

Ka Bradley | 13.11.18

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

Daniel Pitt | 06.11.18

On the appeal and the achievement of the one-shot music video

6 min

screenshot of Christian Bale In American Pscyho Hip to be Square scene

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Dance+: American Psycho

Róisín O’Brien | 30.10.18

Is that a raincoat or are you just glad to see me? Róisín O’Brien on the choreography of a murder

3 min

Photo of Nora Chipaumire: Portrait of Myself as My Father

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Tanz im August talkabout #2: portrait of myself as my father (Nora Chipaumire), The Waves (Noé Soulier)

Evgeny Borisenko, David Pallant, Annette van Zwoll | 25.10.18

Springback’s Berlin Three discuss patterns and parentage in two very different pieces at the Tanz im August season

9 min

‘Double You’, a project idea from the London Dansathon event

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Dansathon: an international dance hackathon

Sanjoy Roy | 16.10.18

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)

Annette van Zwoll, David Pallant, Evgeny Borisenko | 12.10.18

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

Sanjoy Roy | 02.10.18

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

Oonagh Duckworth, Francesca Pinder, Yasen Vasilev | 25.09.18

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

Michikazu Matsune, Elizabeth Ward and Frans Poelstra in Matsune’s All Together.

review

Michikazu Matsune: All Together

Claire Lefèvre | 20.09.18

Recollection, reflection and re-enactment make for a memorable evening in Michikazu Matsune’s new piece about people both present and absent

2 min

Abigail Breslin in the dance scene from the 2006 movie Little Miss Sunshine

article

Dance+: Little Miss Sunshine

Anna Kaszuba | 18.09.18

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

Evgeny Borisenko | 14.09.18

A workbook choreographic exercise builds to a surprisingly exhilarating finale in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s new Six Brandenburg Concertos

2 min

composite of YouTube thumbnails for Nuria Guiu Sagarra’s Likes and Premier Stratagème’s Forecasting

article

Shape of YouTube

Jelena Mihelčić | 12.09.18

Two widely viewed danceworks beg the questions: how does YouTube shape dance? And how do you shape YouTube?

6 min

Rollerblading performers of Alex Baczynski-Jenkins's Us Swerve

article

[8:tension] at ImPulsTanz Vienna 2018

Claire Lefèvre | 08.09.18

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

Anna Kaszuba | 07.09.18

Doubt and disturbance come to a climax in Jo Bannon’s powerfully penetrating performance

2 min

Photo of Missing by physical theatre company Gecko

article

Beyond borders: Amit Lahav and Gecko

Daniel Pitt | 04.09.18

Gecko’s Amit Lahav talks to Daniel Pitt about straddling genres, insularity and internationalism in British theatre – and being pummelled with love

7 min

Screencap of Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, Love Man scene

article

Dance+: Dirty Dancing

Alexandra Gray | 30.08.18

Alexandra Gray on her first time watching Dirty Dancing – and why Baby’s first time on the dancefloor stays with her

3 min

Photo of Taneli Törmä in Sophie Bellin-Hansen’s bell-covered costume, for the second section of the triptych COVER

review

Taneli Törmä: COVER – A symphonic poem in three movements

Riikka Laakso | 16.08.18

A merger of choreography and sound installation, Finnish artist Taneli Törmä’s COVER sensitively explores the kinaesthetic experience of sound.

2 min

Photo of Rocío Molina, Lola Cruz and Síliva Perez Cruz in Grito Pelao

review

Rocío Molina: Grito Pelao

Clàudia Brufau | 30.07.18

They say that Mother knows best, but does she know how to turn that into a performance?

2 min

review

Gisèle Vienne: Crowd

Evgeny Borisenko | 24.07.18

Is dance raving mad to look to the rave scene for inspiration?

2 min

article

Danse Élargie 2018: big opportunities, bigger ambition

Anna Chirescu | 20.07.18

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

Miet Warlop’s Fruits of Labor at Potsdamer Tanztage 2018

article

Potsdamer Tanztage
or: 3 × 3 = 8

David Pallant, Evgeny Borisenko, Annette van Zwoll | 18.07.18

When does 3 × 3 = 8? When our three reviewers go to three performances each at Berlin’s 2018 Potsdamer Tanztage festival

10 min

Woman held up by others in Veza Fernández dance theatre Wenn Auge Mund Wird

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Bausch rebooted: Veza Fernández’s Wenn Auge Mund Wird

Claire Lefèvre | 16.07.18

Vienna-based Veza Fernández refracts Bauschian Tanztheater through a contemporary prism

5 min

article

Dance+: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Ka Bradley | 13.07.18

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

Giant pillow in An outdoor version of Pietro Marullo's Wreck

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Pietro Marullo’s WRECK: survival of the fittest in the age of austerity?

Yasen Vasilev | 16.06.18

Pietro Marullo’s ‘elastic performance’ is a staging of the struggle to survive in a precarious environment – and an example of it.

3 min

Oona Doherty in Hope Hunt (and the ascension into Lazarus).

review

Oona Doherty: Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus

Claire Lefèvre | 06.06.18

A riveting portrait of the disadvantaged white male that meshes beauty with damnation

2 min

Silhouetted women in Florentina Holzinger's Apollon.

review

Florentina Holzinger: Apollon

Róisín O’Brien | 06.06.18

Dance gets down and dirty – but is it worth the gross-out?

2 min

review

Katerina Andreou: BSTRD

Anastasio Koukoutas | 06.06.18

Can a solo dance piece create, on stage, that much needed room of one’s own?

2 min

3 men in Timothy and the Things in László Fülöp’s choreography Hunting

review

Timothy and the Things: Hunting (Vadászat)

Anna Dohy | 06.06.18

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

Jelena Mihelčić | 25.03.18

With witnesses, evidence and judgement – is a dance performance a bit of a trial?

2 min

Red picture of Ligia Lewis's Minor Matters

review

Ligia Lewis: Minor Matter

Louise Tanoto | 25.03.18

Black matters in Minor Matter, a powerful encounter with the myriad concepts of blackness

2 min

Luke Baio and Dominik Grünbühe in Aarhus, Denmark, 2017

WATCH

Dreams

Riikka Laakso | 25.03.18

‘We are dancers, we create the dreams.’ Albert Einstein

6 min

Audience and performers mix in Luke George's Public Action at Keir Choreographic Award

article

How to like dance

Luke Forbes | 25.03.18

Audience clubs are on the increase - why? Luke Forbes on his experience of a new workshop in Melbourne

8 min

View of mountains and sea of Hammerfest, Norway

article

The wilderness within

Sanjoy Roy | 25.03.18

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