Utrecht is counting down to the ten-day SPRING festival

Artistic Director Grzegorz Reske: “This year’s theme, Extended Bodies/Expanded Minds, is about pushing the boundaries of our bodies and minds, and how we are stronger together than we are alone. Recurring themes in this year’s performances are therefore collaboration and community.”

6 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PROGRAMME

Home Bound: Australian Luke George and Singaporean Daniel Kok are spending ten days on Utrecht’s Neude square building a massive rope sculpture with various local communities and festival visitors. Circus performers, Moroccan carpet weavers or Shibari bondage experts; every day, a different community with a connection to rope takes part in the construction project called Home Bound. They share not only their skills, but also their experiences and histories, creating not just a work of art but also a social tapestry of stories.

SWEAT (anthem): The internationally acclaimed DANCE ON Ensemble has collaborated extensively with iconic choreographers, but also invites up-and-coming talent to work with them. Together with Finnish choreographer Milla Koistinen, they created SWEAT (anthem), a dance performance about resilience and endurance.

LILITH.AEON: A 60-minute immersive experience that blends dance and AI. The audience moves around a huge LED cube, with their movements shaping the performance of Lilith, a virtual being caught between death and digital rebirth. Every performance is unique and creates a live dialogue between human and machine.

No Man’s Land: Together with performer Wajdi, the Lebanese-Palestinian artist alaa minawi journeys through the histories of Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine, among other places, and explores the no man’s land; a space between two worlds where the imagination can breathe again. This is the second part of his series on Arab Futurism, a movement that reimagines the future from a present that no longer functions.

Engeki Quest: Explore Utrecht on foot with Engeki Quest, a flâneur-style adventure guided by an adventure book. On your own, you’ll step into the shoes of fictional characters, discover hidden streets, stories and meeting places, and experience the city in a whole new way.

SHRINE: An immersive theatre performance by Dutch artist Khadija El Kharraz Alami, in which grief, anger and resistance converge within a ritual space. After her mother is brutally murdered by systems perpetuated by people and power structures, the daughter seeks refuge with the Jinns, non-human beings in a parallel world.