Conceived as a counterbalance to the intensive Springback Academy review-writing programme, Springback Assembly was initially designed as a space for reflection and for honing skills. It has since developed into a thinktank where writers of different Springback generations debate diverging outlooks and grapple with wider issues surrounding the watching and making of movement today.

At heart, Springback Assembly is an encounter – with other members of the Springback network, with a place, and with our hosts and guests. After Reykavik (Ice Hot 2018), Reggio Emilia (NID 2019), Oslo (CODA 2021), Brussels (In Movement 2022), Bergen (Oktoberdans 2022), Rovereto (Oriente Occidente 2023) this year’s Assembly took place from 26–29 September in Budapest, Hungary, and was co-ordinated by Lena Megyeri with support from Oonagh Duckworth.

Lena invited guests Ádám Bősze (a TV presenter who gave us a musical mystery tour about town), choreographer Réka Szabó of The Symptoms, who told us her new work with inclusive dancers, Noémi Herczog of Színház theatre magazine, as well as dance artists Gyula Cespedes (how led a dance jam) and Gergő D. Farkas (who spoke from experience about contemporary dance and Hungarian politics).

In addition, we saw three wildly differing performances: Catherine Gaudet’s Les Jolies Choses at Trafó House, Beatrix Simkó and Zoltán Grecsó’s #Orpheus#Eurydice at Theatre MU, and The Wind Gate by Artus at the National Dance Theatre – and had two round-table discussions, one on political systems, the other on the idea of translation.

Following the well-received publication outcomes from Oktoberdans 2022 and Oriente Occidente 2023, we have once again produced a special ‘supplement’ not to document the event but as a series of open-ended responses to the encounter. Among them, you can find two takes on looking back, via the myth of Orpheus, and two more on the contrast – or is that confluence? – between structure and freedom. You can also read about the traitorous translator and dance as a language, a defence against defunding, the runway vs the railway, and how to clap in Hungarian. But you know what ran through pretty much everything? Politics.

Sanjoy Roy
Editor