This SPRING edition there are different context programs that you can visit next to the regular performances.

Between my name and me

Michikazu Matsune’s ongoing project Between my name and me is based on the simple idea of asking people to share small episodes about their own given names. Full of unspectacularly spectacular anecdotes, these personal stories evolve into a collective portrait of diverse individuals. The project is currently in progress with an aim to result in an installation, book and performance, that features name-stories of 100 people from various cities in the world. Sign up here for a conversation with Michikazu.

Playful Robots

Playful Robots is an interactive installation where participants can interact with robots through movement. Inspired by rule-based dance improvisation, this installation offers the visitor the opportunity to engage in three games with two Pepper robots. No previous experience is required, just the willingness and curiosity to explore how we can move with and alongside machines. Would you like to dance with a robot? Sign up here!

Landing on Feathers

Jija Sohn and Aleksandra Lemm are currently working with Julia Reist on a second instalment of the Landing on Feathers project, in which they continue their exploration of inclusivity and compassion in interhuman relationships and in society. During SPRING Performing Arts Festival they will be sharing their research with the audience and create a very special safe space where the audience is invited to reflect and exchange about care, proximity, and our relationship with the other. Together they aim to discuss all forms of impairment, challenge or discomfort. Are you interested? Click here for more information and sign-up options.

OPEN EXPERT TALKS

OPEN EXPERT TALKS are in-depth conversations on urgent themes of the SPRING festival. The moderator will talk to artists of the festival. The Talks are there for the curious listener, the critical connaiseur, the student and the professional. They are well combined with visiting performances but you can also visit them separately. The Talks are free of charge and open to everybody.

Feminist Voices

Marina Otero opens SPRING with a powerful feminist statement and that’s not the end. Only in the first weekend work of Khadija El Kharraz Alami, Boukje Schweigman, Mette Ingvartsen is presented. Works that relate to feminism in diverse ways. Under guidance of moderator Arianne Perez-Koeleman, teacher at Utrecht University, Boukje Schweigman and Khadija El Kharraz Alami will talk about the relevance of feminism for their work and vice versa. Read more about Feminist Voices here.

Performing Radical Economies

This year at SPRING you can experience a provoking experiment with radical economies. Studio Julian Hetzel’s new project There Will Be Light repurposes his own cultural funding as a basic income given to one person for one year. In other words: someone will receive €15.000. Something for nothing. Taking this project as a point of departure, we open the discussion around wealth distribution and Universal Basic Income with Julian Hetzel, Denise Harleman from Collectief Kapitaal and Evelyn Wan, Assistant Professor in Media, Arts, and Society in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. We welcome anyone to join and think with us. Sign up here!

Postcolonial Performances

How do you, as a theater director, deal with the colonial past and its resonance in the present? How do you work as an antroplogist-choreographer and prevent cultural appropriation? Under the guidance of moderator Amal Alhaag (curator and researcher) makers Choy Ka Fai, Eko Supriyanto and Sadiah Boonstra (curator and historian) will enter a dialogue. Eko and Sadiah will participate via an online connection. At the end of the talk, there will be a viewing of a short documentary Antara Dua Bulan van Arnaud Kokosky Deforchaux and Beyond Walls about the visit of Eko and the dancers of IBUIBU BELU: BODIES OF BORDERS to SPRING in Autumn 2021. You can register for this TALK here.