Press release: SPRING PERFORMING ARTS FESTIVAL 2026: INTERNATIONAL THEATRE AND DANCE PERFORMANCES IN UTRECHT

Artistic director Grzegorz Reske: “This year’s theme is about stretching the boundaries of our bodies and minds, and how we are collectively stronger than alone. Familiar themes in this year’s performances are therefore collaboration and community.”

Established names

In addition to young, emerging artists, SPRING Festival also features established names such as:

• The iconic British collective Forced Entertainment has spent more than 40 years exploring how pop culture and digital technologies shape our society. During SPRING 2026, they present Everything Must Go: using AI voices and razor-sharp lip-sync, the performance examines how technology and society evoke desires within us, and how these relate to what we truly want.

• The unique collaboration between two highly acclaimed French artists, Théo Mercier and François Chaignaud, comes to Utrecht for the first time after 10 years of international touring. Radio Vinci Park is a choreography between a singing dancer, a motorcycle stunt performer and a harpsichordist.

• Toshiki Okada, one of the most important contemporary playwrights and directors from Japan, returns to Utrecht in a new collaboration. Together with Hana Sakai, former principal dancer with the National Ballet of Japan, he performs Giselle: A Summary, a fresh perspective on the ballet tradition.

• The internationally celebrated DANCE ON ensemble, known for working with iconic choreographers, while also inviting emerging talent, joins Finnish choreographer Milla Koistinen to create SWEAT (anthem), a dance performance about resilience and endurance.

GIGANTIC INSTALLATION ON THE NEUDE

Australian artist Luke George and Singaporean artist Daniel Kok construct an enormous rope-based artwork on the Neude in Utrecht over ten days, together with various local communities and festival visitors. Rope aerialists, Moroccan carpet weavers or Shibari bondage experts—each day, a different community with a connection to rope contributes to the structure, titled Home Bound. They share not only their skills but also their experiences and histories, weaving not just an artwork but a social fabric of stories.