Holland Dance Festival's 20th Edition: A Dizzying Blend of Noir and Exuberance
The Holland Dance festival marks its 20th anniversary with an audacious programme that swings from nightmarish urban terror to airborne exuberance, captivating audiences with a mix of disturbing and delightful performances. This milestone edition showcases a diverse range of choreographic works, highlighting the festival's commitment to pushing artistic boundaries.
Nederlands Dans Theater's Horses: An Urban Nightmare Unfolds
In Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau's Horses, suited dancers swing around streetlights on a squalid, mean stage, evoking a film noir that has caught fire in the projector. The production, part of Nederlands Dans Theater's double bill Wildsong, begins with house lights up and a solo suggesting hunter and hunted, before plunging the auditorium into darkness. Max Glaenzel's set, lit by Tom Visser, features vaudeville vignettes of peril, with Andrzej Panufnik's unsettling strings heightening the intrigue. The choreography tests dancers with limbs that won't behave, culminating in a surprising tribute to human ingenuity as lost souls construct a shelter from beams, set to Caroline Shaw's balmic And the Swallow.
Kid in a Candy Shop: A Kaleidoscopic Contrast
Paired with Horses, Belgian choreographer Jan Martens' premiere Kid in a Candy Shop opens to Julia Wolfe's propulsive music, with dancers caught in spectral slow motion before gathering speed. The piece features huge projections from F Percy Smith's 1910 film The Birth of a Flower, with snowdrops and roses blooming kaleidoscopically on screen. While some sequences fizz with precision, the overall result lacks the intended fun, though the floral motifs and candy-colour costumes add visual flair.
Inclusive and Activist Works: Compagnie Tiuri's Powerful Statements
Elsewhere at the festival, Compagnie Tiuri's Please Hold My Hand, crafted by artistic director Jordy Dik, delivers a resonant dance-theatre response to femicide statistics. Set within a boudoir-style safe space, the piece blends tender rituals with violent episodes, using red petals to evoke smeared blood. Dik's work cleverly plays with romantic cliches, transitioning to coercive control, and includes an activist coda with global violence statistics. His short piece Live, Live, All We Can Do Is Live is featured in the HubClub programme, an inclusive cabaret-style platform.
HubClub: Wit and Invention in Short Works
The HubClub programme, presented by Introdans, offers an irreverent cabaret of five short works, including Fernando Melo's The Longest Distance Between Two Points. Using planks as partners and stages, this piece becomes a parable about division and confined identities, set to Steve Reich's percussive music. Inbal Pinto's contributions, Salty Pink and Boulevard of Broken Dreams, showcase quirky choreography with troubling undercurrents, while Conny Janssen's Manoeuvres provides an irresistible escapist tea break set to golden oldies.
Gauthier Dance's FireWorks: A Spectacular Finale
Gauthier Dance's FireWorks, relaunched for the festival's jubilee, delivers an exuberant if inconsistent evening of over a dozen short works. Artistic director Eric Gauthier introduces the show with crowd-pleasing concepts, culminating in an eye-popping Bolero performed on trampolines. Andonis Foniadakis' choreography transforms into a tongue-in-cheek exercise class, with each dancer's bounce accentuating Ravel's sultry rhythms. The programme also features diverse pieces, from Dominique Dumais' pulsating corps to Johan Inger's haunting duet A Thousand Thoughts, showcasing the festival's eclectic spirit.
The Holland Dance festival runs until 21 February, with many performances set to tour, continuing its legacy of innovative dance and theatre.
