Projects
Moving Borders: ARK (2020-2021)
Partners in the Moving Borders network are Hellerau – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste (Dresden), Ringlokschuppen (Mülheim an der Ruhr), Le Maillon (Strasbourg), Teatro Municipal (Porto), Onassis STEGI (Athens), Performing Arts Institute Warsaw (Warsaw) and SPRING Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht). Together we produced the project ARK by the British emseble of artists and producers Quarantine. ARK is about boundaries within a city and was developed by Richard Gregory (Quarantine). Richard Gregory also directed the big project What Is the City but the People? (2017), produced by BAK, Centraal Museum and SPRING on Jaarbeursplein.
Festivals in Transition: Urban Heat (2015-2018)
Urban Heat is a joint project of 13 partners from the Festivals in Transition network, which is supported by the European Union’s cultural program Creative Europe. Urban Heat was a project in which 22 artists intensively researched the relationship between art and activism. SPRING presented a number of productions that emerged from the network and added several other productions that emerged from a strong political impulse. Examples include Rima Najdi’s research into the ways in which borders are constructed, Think Much. Cry Much. and Janez Janša’s Name Readymade, a classic of European activist theatre. Many of these performances took place in the public space and/or invited participation.
Partners in the Urban Heat project are: SPIELART festival (Munich) // Krakowskie Reminiscencje Teatralne (Krakow) // International Festival of Contemporary Theater Homo Novus (Riga) // LIFT (London) // Baltic Circle International Theater Festival (Helsinki) / / Saal Bienaal (Tallinn) // Bunker – Festival Drugajanje (Maribor) // Lokal – International Theater Festival Reykjavik (Reykjavik) // Centrale Fies – Drodesera (Dro). Associated partners: Alkantara Festival (Lisbon) // Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (Cairo) // Reykjavik Dance Festival (Reykjavik) // SPRING Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht).
[DNA] Derpartures and Arrivals (2016-2018)
The aim of [DNA] was to contribute to the development of contemporary dance in Europe and to build bridges between art education and the professional field. [DNA] provided training, research, creation and presentation of work to a large group of young European dancers and choreographers from all regional and social backgrounds. [DNA]’s predecessor, Départs, had been selected by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture as a ‘success story’, a project that ‘distinguished by its impact, contribution to policy making, innovative results and/or creative approach’. Partners in the [DNA] project were: Alkantara (Lisbon), Center de Développement Chorégraphique (Toulouse), Hellenic Festival (Athens), Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Kunstencentrum Vooruit (Ghent), MDT (Stockholm), New Theater Institute of Latvia (Riga), PACT Zollverein Choreographisches Zentrum NRW (Essen), Station Service for Contemporary Dance (Belgrade), Trafo House of Contemporary Arts (Budapest), Zodiak Center for New Dance (Helsinki) and SPRING Performing Arts Festival.
Departs (2013-2015)
The Départs network consisted of PARTS Brussels, Alkantara Lisbon, CDC Toulouse, HAU Berlin, Vooruit Gent, NTI Riga, PACT Zollverein Essen, Station Service for Contemporary Dance Belgrade, MDT Stockholm, Trafo Budapest, Zodiak Helsinki and SPRING Performing Arts Festival. It provided support to young choreographers across Europe. SPRING co-produced and presented work by Ula Sickle and Jeremy Wade.
Festivals in Transition: Global City Local City (2013-2014)
SPRING is co-organizer of the Festivals in Transition network with the project “Global City – Local City”. The network consists of Spielart München, Baltic Circle Helsinki , August Dance Tallin, Bunker Ljubljana, Homo Novus Riga, LIFT London (with UK Capital of Culture Derry – Londonderry), Alkantara Lisbon and SPRING Performing Arts Festival. With this network, SPRING organized research weeks about urbanism for fifteen artists and eight programmers in nine Citylabs. The series started in September 2012 in Utrecht with a lab set up by Expodium. The two artists nominated by SPRING, Lotte van den Berg and Julian Hetzel, were able to make a large number of new contacts and were invited by some of the participating cities to present their work in London, Munich and Riga. Work by foreign artists from the network was shown during SPRING 2014.
Second Cities – Performing Cities (2013-2014)
The EU network ‘Second cities – Performing cities’ consisted of Hellerau Dresden, Kaserne Basel, Teatr Laznia Nowa Krakow, Theater de Poitiers Scene Nàtional, Le Maillon Theater de Strasbourg and SPRING Performing Arts Festival. The topic was: How do we want to live in the future? Performing arts for a new European public in urban, social and digital space. Works by Dries Verhoeven (NL) and Ligna (DE) were (co)produced with this network. A partner meeting took place during SPRING 2013. In 2014, the British artist Ant Hampton made a production from this network that was inspired by the Dom and Domplein in Utrecht.
