About Julidans
Julidans is the festival for international contemporary dance
During the festival, dance spreads across Amsterdam. Besides Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, you’ll find Julidans at Theater Bellevue, Frascati, Bijlmerpark Theater, Meervaart Theater, Podium Mozaïek, Vondelpark Openluchttheater, Brakke Grond, the Stedelijk Museum and at surprising spots around the city.
History
Together with the choreographers of its early years (Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wim Vandekeybus, Maguy Marin, Marie Chouinard and Alain Platel, and later Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Akram Khan and Dave St. Pierre), the festival has come of age. It has grown into an internationally renowned event that each year gives audiences a broad view of what’s happening in contemporary dance right now: emerging trends, new makers, contrarian approaches, bold mavericks and iconoclasts. Great Masters and Enfants Terribles, as Julidans calls them.
Julidans has always had a soft spot for makers who work not (only) from form, but first and foremost from a personal and/or social motivation, often across disciplines. Their performances are theatrical, or sit where disciplines meet. Julidans keeps looking for choreographers who show new forms, take on different themes and make us see today’s world from an unexpected angle. It is the dance maker who gives form its expressive power: someone who happily mixes and matches forms from different eras and cultures, breaks open formal rules, colours outside the lines and creates new, hybrid forms.
“Makers from cultures all over the world offer us a different perspective and broaden our horizons.”
Julidans keeps a close eye on developments in international contemporary dance, because the field never stands still. The internet, social media, greater mobility and, especially in recent years, migration have put a huge variety of dance styles within reach. Traditions, rituals and personal stories from different cultures blend with classical dance, urban, tango, lindy hop and contemporary styles.
Makers from cultures all over the world offer us a different perspective and broaden our horizons, with dance, which needs no words, as the ideal medium. Thanks to them, Julidans can put together a programme that gets people talking every year. Julidans keeps an open mind while doing so. It doesn’t tie itself to one theme or strict criterion, and doesn’t rule out in advance performances that are innovative in a different way.
Contrarian, unconventional choreographers are also regulars at Julidans. These mavericks push boundaries: of form, and sometimes of good taste too. They provoke us and turn our expectations upside down. Often there’s a deeper layer behind their provocations. Either way, they get people talking. Think of Florentina Holzinger, Ali Chahrour, Marcela Levi & Lucía Russo, Tânia Carvalho, Marco Berrettini and Latifa Laâbissi.
In recent years, Julidans has focused on so-called mid-career artists. They are the makers who show what contemporary dance stands for today. A mid-career choreographer has been active for around eight years and has developed a signature style of their own. They’re mostly independent makers, such as Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar, Olivier Dubois, Rachid Ouramdane, Dada Masilo, Lisbeth Gruwez, Euripides Laskaridis, Mette Ingvartsen, Jefta van Dinther, Christos Papadopoulos and Pere Faura. Julidans gives these makers a stage, and it doesn’t stop at presenting their work: co-producing is a fast-growing part of what the festival does.
Fixes I made to the source: “Julians” is now “Julidans” and “Latifa Latifa” is now “Latifa”. I also used the usual spellings Lucía Russo, Tânia Carvalho and Euripides Laskaridis. Change them back if the original Dutch text spells them differently on purpose.