PREVIEW | Birmingham International Dance Festival 2018.
 |
| AIR by Compagnie Didier Theron. Hiroshi. |
Birmingham's award-winning International Dance Festival is returning to the city between 1-24 June 2018. For the month of June you'll be able to see fantastic dance from across the world take over the city's theatres as well as Birmingham's streets and squares. There's show-stopping performances from dawn until dusk and 2018 proves to be just as big and exciting as ever!
Not only does this festival bring the best of international dance to Birmingham but also provides a platform for local talent to get involved too. This year's programme will attract new visitors to the city, inspire the local people to see Dance and will definitely be exciting for the audiences and participants too!
This year's programme is inspired and curated around the themes of imagination and digital art and reflects on the diversity of dancers' bodies. Work will be presented that shows choreographic practice at its best and pushes the boundaries around dance as a contemporary art form.
Not only does the festival offer a fantastic performance programme but there will also be a series of professional and industry events, debates and workshops, creating a valued and important space for dialogue, collaboration, as well as skills development to take place.
Their festival website BDIF will give you all of the information you need to find out more about the festival and whats on offer.
Here's six performances you do not want to miss at the BDIF in June!
Morning Gloryville will open the Festival Square on 1 June as part of the Outdoor Performance highlights available during the festival. They are the original morning ravers. The event, part exercise craze, and part mass party. This city premiere is in collaboration with firm favourites from the local music scene and a big headline DJ to be announced soon. This looks like so much fun!
Birmingham Dances will take place on the opening weekend 2 and 3 June will kick-start the outdoor festivities with a special programme of performances, participatory activities and playful interactive installations. There's an interweaving of dance, fitness and movement activities from local talent. Featured spectacles including Marawa The Amazing and her Amazing Majorettes, with much more still to be announced.
Over the weekend of 8-10 June the finale of the Victoria Square will take place, bringing together the best of outdoor national and international talent. D-Construction, a high octane hip-hop dance performance with a powerful beat by Compagnie Dyptik, challenging our ideas around borders, questioning the profound nature of social links in the public space. What unites us? What separates us? To what extent are we able to question terrorities, borders and instutions?
 |
| Dyptik - D-Construction |
Theatre Programme Highlights includes work from Company Wayne McGregor, this work is rarely seen outside of London and Atomos is not a performance to be missed. This piece is a gorgeous exploration of movement, film, sound and light. It even includes a part where the audiences experience a dance performance in 3D.
Something different for the festival and something which shakes up the notion of what can be presented on a traditional stage. On 14 June ISH Dance Collective will bring vert ramps and extreme sports to the stage of Birmingham Hippodrome in Elements of Freestyle. You won't want to miss this UK premiere! A unique, dynamic fusion of live muisc, dance and theatre fused with break dance, inline skating, free running, skateboarding, BMX and freestyle basketball.
The 2018 festival focus is diversity of dancer's bodies and you won't want to miss Candoco Dance Company present their double bill. The company is celebrated for their cutting edge work that challenges and broadens the perceptions of art and disability. They'll make a visit to the city on 13 and 14 June at the Midlands Art Centre. Their double bill has been choreographed by Yasmeen Godder and Hetain Patel and is definitely going to be a gorgeous double bill of choeography.
 |
| ISH Dance Collective. |
 |
| Atomos, Wayne McGregor |
Do not miss out on the Birmingham International Dance Festival when it comes to the city during June!