TANZ Bremen 2008
International Festival for Contemporary Dance
March 1st - 9th 2008
Words of Welcome
Bremen has a long tradition of contemporary dance. Names like Johann Kresnik, Susanne Linke and Urs Diedrich are
closely related to Bremen. For this genre, Bremen has served as a place of inspiration for many years. This has had a
lasting effect – both on the artists as well as on the city. I am very happy that it has been possible to continue the
festival TANZ Bremen.
Together with the Internationale Tanztage Oldenburg, which will take place every other alternate year, dance lends our
metropolitan region Bremen-Oldenburg a new face. I am looking forward to the manifold artistic positions on the topic of
identity and wish all the participants much success as well as an open-minded and interested audience.
Jens Böhrnsen
Mayor
President of the Senate of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen
Since the last festival three years ago, Bremen’s profile as a dance city has gained remarkably. The Federal
Cultural Foundation funds through Tanzplan Germany the regular Northern German Dance Meetings. Henceforth every year in
March, exciting productions from all over the world will be alternately invited to Bremen and Oldenburg. The Tanztheater
Bremen and the Tanzcompagnie Oldenburg have joined together in a much acclaimed co-operation under the umbrella name
nordwest and never before have so many independent Bremen choreographers been able to produce new work in spite of
sparse funding.
One world premiere, one European premiere, four German premieres and no less than seven world premieres of companies
from Bremen make TANZ Bremen 2008 a major not-to-miss event. This year’s program focuses on two core themes: one
geographical and one political.
The first is dedicated to our neighboring country France. From the 1980’s on, an extraordinary and highly independent dance scene developed there, whose verve and distinctive aesthetics went gone on to influence dance worldwide. Two provocative classics of that generation are Régine Chopinot and Jean-Claude Gallotta. At this year’s festival, they come up against the young rebels of today: Hamid Ben Mahi and Jean-Baptiste André have opened up their avant-garde choreographies to hiphop and the Nouveau Cirque. The world premiere of a co-operation between steptext and the French musical duo ANDA symbolizes the bridge between Bremen and France.
The festival’s second theme is a matter of content: dance as an eminently political and social art form. Many productions deal with questions of identity and origin, poverty and racism in a globalized world in which the perception of reality is shaped by television and the internet instead of by one’s own experience. The Brazilian Compagnie Membros criticizes the prisons of their home country for mirroring a society marked by violence, ostracism and squalor. Olga Pona takes a stand against social injustice in Russia. And the Dutch company T.R.A.S.H. presents a destructive world out of joint.
Political positioning goes hand in hand with stylistic diversity and openness. Pop music and acrobatics have as a matter of course found their way into contemporary dance and enlarged its repertoire of movements. The fantastic minimalism of the Canadian Daniel Léveillé stands beside the audacious intimate play of the Swiss compagnie drift, Gilles Welinski’s profound solo next to the breathtaking spectacle of Les Ballets C. de la B., the humorous reflections of Jonathan Burrows und Matteo Fargion next to an enchanting dance piece for children by DE LooPERS. Today, nobody can tell which direction contemporary dance will take next. The festival TANZ Bremen 2008, however, will prove once more that it is moving along, very vigorously and full of ideas. And this in itself is truly worth seeing live.
Sabine Gehm
Artistic direction
Honne Dohrmann
Artistic direction
