About julidans

Julidans once started modestly, as a summer programme with three performances in Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam. Together with the choreographers from the early years - Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wim Vandekeybus, Maguy Marin, Marie Chouinard and Alain Platel, and later also Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Akram Khan and Dave St. Pierre - the festival has come of age. The festival has developed into an event of international stature, offering the audience a broad view of contemporary dance every year. With emerging trends, new makers, out-of-the-box approaches, bold mavericks, and iconoclasts. Great Masters and Enfants Terribles, in Julidans terms.

Julidans has always had a preference for makers who do not work (only) from form, but first and foremost from a personal and/or social motivation, and often in a multidisciplinary project. Their performances are theatrical or at the intersection of disciplines. Julidans is always looking for choreographers who show us new forms, broach different themes, and make us look at today's world from a surprising perspective. It is the dance maker who gives form its power of expression, who cheerfully mixes and matches forms from different times and cultures, who breaks open formal laws, thinks outside the box, and creates new, hybrid forms.

Julidans closely follows developments in international contemporary dance. Because there will always be movement. The Internet, social media, increased mobility and, especially in recent years, migration have brought an enormous diversity of dance styles within reach. The traditions, rituals and individual stories from different cultures are mixed 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 view, with (non-language) dance as the ideal medium. Thanks to them, Julidans is able to put together a high-profile programme every year. Julidans keeps an open mind. Does not pin itself down on one theme or one obligatory criterion, nor excludes in advance performances that are innovative in a different way.

Unconventional choreographers who go against the grain are also regular guests at Julians. Mavericks who push the limits. Of forms, and sometimes of good taste as well. They provoke us, turn expectations upside down. Often, their provocations also conceal a deeper layer. In any case, they loosen tongues. Think of Florentina Holzinger, Ali Chahrour, Marcela Levi & Lucia Russo, Tania Carvalho, Marco Berrettini, Latifa Laâbissi.

In recent years, Julidans has focused on the so-called mid-careers. They are the makers who show what contemporary dance stands for today. A mid-career choreographer has been active for about eight years and has developed a signature of their own. Independent creators mostly, such as Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar, Olivier Dubois, Rachid Ouramdane, Dada Masilo, Lisbeth Gruwez, Euripides Laskarides, Mette Ingvartsen, Jefta van Dinther, Christos Papadopoulos, Pere Faura. Julidans gives the stage to these makers. It does not stop at just presenting; co-producing is a rapidly growing function of the festival.

Never stop dancing!