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Press release: SPRING Performing Arts Festival 2026 explores the boundaries of bodies and minds
Announcement of the first performances and festival theme
From May 14 to 23, Utrecht will welcome the 14th edition of SPRING Performing Arts Festival. For ten days, the city will be filled with urgent, innovative international theatre and dance performances, art installations and more, in theatres, but also in unexpected outdoor locations in the city, such as the Neude and Central Station. The first performances and the festival theme have now been announced. The theme: “Extended Bodies/Expanded Minds”, focuses on the boundaries of body and mind: how far can they be stretched and what does that do to us?
Artistic director Grzegorz Reske: “As humans, we are constantly striving to perform better, reach higher and increase our capacity. But at what cost? Does this individual quest still give us the feeling that we are part of a larger whole? Recurring themes in this year’s performances are cooperation and community. Time and again, it turns out that the collective body is stronger than the individual body, and the collective spirit more powerful than the individual.”
For example, Australian artists Luke George and Daniel Kok are building a giant rope artwork on the Neude in Utrecht in ten days with various local communities and festival visitors. Utrecht scouts, Moroccan carpet weavers or Shibari bondage experts; every day, a different community with a connection to rope participates in the construction of the structure called Home Bound. They share not only their skills, but also their experiences and histories, spinning not only a work of art but also a social fabric of stories.
OPENING DAY May 14: Sung Im Her & She She Pop/Sandbox Collective
The opening night of SPRING 2026 features female and feminist artists, with performances that are being shown in the Netherlands for the first time. Award-winning South Korean artist Sung-Im Her presents two works: in Everything Falls Dramatic, with dancers from the Korea National Contemporary Dance Company, Her explores the themes of loss, transience and decay. Through repetitive, physical movement, the choreography refers to loneliness, solidarity and the fleeting moments that shape life, revealing the tension between what is present and what is disappearing.
Her’s second performance, Tomorrowisnowtodayisyesterday (TiNTiY), explores the impact of social media on body and mind. Set to a club-like soundtrack, the dancers make exaggerated movements that reflect oversharing, oversaturation and the blurring of individual and collective identities.
Two feminist collectives come together for WAIT TO BE SEATED: She She Pop from Berlin and Sandbox Collective from Bangalore meet on stage to explore the laws of hospitality. Who protects these unwritten laws, and against what? What remains when we abandon formality? What if gender, race and colonial history are also at the table? What can we actually expect from each other – and how do we say no? From opposing positions in the Global East and Global West, the collectives challenge the rules of hospitality as they search for ways to find common ground.
Picture: Everything Falls Dramatic – Sung Im Her, made by Geun Woo Choi.
SPRING HITS THE STREETS
In addition to the rope artwork Home Bound on the Neude, SPRING presents work at various locations in public spaces: the Japanese collective Orangcosong presents Engeki Quest, a walking project to explore the city, and IslandBar, a storytelling performance in Utrecht cafés. Maarten Heijnens’ performative installation The Meeting, in the pop-up at Utrecht Central Station, is about closeness or distance between people and proposes an alternative way of meeting each other in a more intimate way.
Picture: Home Bound – Luke George and Daniel Kok, made by Gregory Lorenzutti, part of AECFest.
FESTIVAL WITHIN A FESTIVAL: ASIA-EUROPE CULTURAL FESTIVAL
During the 2026 edition, SPRING and its partner Asia-Europe Foundation will present the Asia-Europe Cultural Festival (AECFest) within SPRING; a festival within a festival. The collaboration between ASEF and SPRING stimulates cultural exchange, strengthens international connections and creates space for dialogue between Asian and European communities. The AECFest programme is a specifically selected strand within the larger SPRING festival programme and will be announced alongside the full programme on March 16.
Tickets will be available for purchase via our website from March 26.
Picture: WAIT TO BE SEATED – She She Pop & Sandbox Collective, made by Benjamin Krieg.
