Dance Week Festival

DANCE WEEK FESTIVAL is one of the most important and the largest dance festival in the region, to be held in its anniversary year for the 25th time between May 26 and June 3 in Zagreb and in Rijeka. In this 25th edition the Festival will present 13 choreographers and companies from 12 countries among which will be one of the foremost creators in today’s choreographic world – Wayne McGregor; as well, a selection of Croatin choreographic work is included.

The Festival’s 25th edition will present 13 contemporary works from around the world along with a selection of Croatian creations. A special attraction of this festival edition is the  work Entity produced by British Random Dance Company and choreographed by Wayne McGregor. This work was only recently premiered in London on April 10, and its author is one of the world’s leading creators of contemporarby ballet, also the house choreographer of british Royal Ballet the first ever contemporary dance artist appointed to this position.

McGregor and his  Random Dance Company, were presented at the Festival in the early stages of his career (1999 – 16 Dance Week Festival), and again in 2003 (20 Dance Week Festival). Along this company there are three more names that the local audiences will recognize and welcome back : one of Canada’s foremost dance makers Daniel Leveille, Belgian company Thor with choreographer Thierry Smits whom we first met in 1998; and Paulo  Ribeiro, former artistic director of Gulbenkin Ballet whose own company was featured at the 14th edition of Dance Week Festival.
Along the above mentioned names, the Festival will feature in this year’s selection the increasing trend of incorporating dance with multimedia and its multidiciplinarity of expression, featuring names that are currently at the forefront of these developments. Presented will be two Bessie award winners – australian comany Chunky Move which fuses in a magical way dance with contemporary technology; and, american choreographer originating from Puerto Rico – DD Dorvillier who aside from technology makes use of film, sound scapes, text and scupltures. As part of the main stage events the Festival will also feature a project which was presented as an idea at last year’s Festival – Brothers Karamazov made in China by Slovenian choreographer Mateja Bučar.

Multimedia and pushinb boundaries of dance expression is of interst to several emerging choreographers also awarded recently at various festivals around the world:  Hiroaki Umeda fuses urban dance with japanese Butoh; also featured are the winner of RFI  Découvertes Danse, Ketlly Noel, and winner of Giovani Danz’Autori recently also presented at Aerowaves – Simone Bertozzi.

Alongside the tradition of featuring Croatian dance makers throgh the Croatian Choreographic Platform, the selection of works includes artists that originate from this region and are making their successful mark on the European stages such as Jasmina Prolić and last year’s double awardee from ImpulsTanz -   Ivana Müller.
The Platform will feature works by Sanja Tropp Fruhwald (Something to do with death), Žak Valenta (Utjelovljenje), Andrea Gotovina (Plavi petak), Aleksandra Janeva (Ozbiljne serije), i Selma Banich / OOUR (Chew).

Tickets to 25 Dance Week Festival are on sale as of May 15, while ticket reservations as well as additional details related to specific performances are available through the Festival web site:  www.danceweekfestival.com, Information can also be sourced through YouTube, MySpace and Facebook channels.

This year’s festival was made possible through the support of the  Croatian Ministry for culture, Office of Cultural Affairs, City of Zagreb, Office of Cultural Affairs City of Rijeka, French Institute in Zagreb, the French Embassy in Croatia, the Embassy of Portugal in Zagreb, the Italian Cultural Centre in Zagreb, the Canadian Embassy in Zagreb, Canada Council for the Arts, the Embassy of the Netherlands in Zagreb,  the Japan European Fund, the British Council and Pro Helvetia. The Festival is partnering with the Prostor Plus Society for the delivery of program in Rijeka.

Dance Week Festival is the major project by the Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance. The Festival has through its 25 year history presented well over 500 internationally acclaimed dance artists as well as producing over 50 works by local choreographers contributing to the maturing of the Croatian contemporary dance scene.