3-16 July 2005
Leidseplein

Dance in all its diversity is represented at this cutting-edge international dance festival – the only dance festival in the Netherlands that takes place in summer – which features both established performers and emerging talent. For two weeks, the Leidseplein is the heart of international contemporary dance as Julidans welcomes dancers and companies from as far off as Japan, Iran and Algeria. Complementing the festival are screenings of dance films.

Julidans 2005 opens with d’avant, a production that restricts itself to a special occasions only. It is a joint project of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet, Luc Dunberry and Juan Kruz de Garaio Esnaola – dancers who have more than earned their laurels with C. de la B., Sascha Waltz and DV8. The production is the upshot of the four makers’ fascination with mediaeval polyphonic chant. Julidans is extremely happy that this very special performance is coming to Amsterdam. La Liberation wrote: “Never before were dance and singing so impressively combined.”

Wim Vandekeybus, rightly considered a ‘Julidans icon’, created Les porteuses de mauvaises nouvelles in 1989. Fifteen years after the event, Vandekeybus revives the performance with a group of young dancers. During ‘Tamtam’ in Stadsschouwburg a preview of the rerun met with great success. The performance during Julidans is at the same time the finale of their European tour, which makes it your last chance to see this great classic.

Controversial and provocative South-African choreographer Robyn Orlin has in the last twenty years been exploring the boundaries of dance. And again in her choreography We must eat our suckers with the wrappers on. It shows Orlin wrestling with the theme of Aids and the toll in human lives the disease claims, but she manages to make it into a cheerful, powerful love story. “Laughter is the best medicine, they say, and if they are right Robyn Orlin is a very fine doctor.” (The Evening Standard).

Krisztina de Châtel wonders why we consider ‘art’ a dancer who helps a ballerina to float in the air, and not a dustbin collector who throws a bin bag into the air. In the project Zooi, with real Amsterdam dustmen in Leidseplein, De Châtel shows to what an extent beauty and quality dance is a hidden aspect of their daily work. Small choreographical interventions help to explore the boundaries between normal and not normal, between art and not art.

Helena Waldmann and six Iranian women made the performance Letters from Tentland, which was recently staged in Teheran causing a great deal of commotion. In a moving and gripping way the performance impresses upon us what it is like to go through life wearing a veil and not being allowed to dance. The tents of stage are symbolic of the chador, under which and through which individual expression turns out to be possible. The dancers illustrate this with bravura.

Julidans is one of the very few international dance festivals that consistently presents non-Western dance forms. Needless to say that it is impossible to think of the Festival without the component Global Dance. It is in this framework that, among others, the Japanese group Leni Basso and the Franco-Algerian choreographer Heddy Maalem have been invited. African groups, too, will again be well represented.

In the Urban Dance weekend there will be plenty of hip-hopping, breaking, rapping and battling. In Stadsschouwburg, Melkweg and Paradiso several Urban Dance performances have been planned from 8 to 10 July, including Back to Hip Hop from France and the popular Dutch group ISH. As has become a tradition you can do your own breaking and street dancing with Amsterdam Breakz in Vondelpark Open Air Theatre the same weekend (organised by Stichting Grap), where you can also attend workshops and watch showcases.

Jeugdtheater (Youth Theatre) De Krakeling is a new location for Julidans. In de weekends there will be special youth dance performances in De Krakeling by Via Katlehong from South Africa and others. They present pantsula, a form of dance that originated in the townships and that is related to hip-hop, Zulu dance and tap dance.

FreshDance is a wayward and provocative festival by and for young choreographers from all over Europe. They offer refreshing, adventurous dance and may well be invited to be on the regular programming of Julidans 2006. With FreshDance the organisers, DWA-dansproductiehuis and Julidans, breathe a new spirit into the old Aerodance.

As in previous years, Julidans works together with Cinedans. Cinedans is an international dance film and video festival. In view of last year’s tremendous success Cinedans is expanded with debates and seminars. A total of 120 films from 20 countries will be shown. The jury, consisting of Eddy Terstall, Ronald Ockhuysen, Anouk Van Dijk and Bruno Barat, picks the winner of the Cinedans Award. Cinedans takes place in De Balie on 8 and 9 July.

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