tanz nrw 23 – Festival for Contemporary Dance

From 3 to 8 May, eight international programme and festival directors, producers, choreographers and institution directors from the field of contemporary dance travelled to Wuppertal to visit the NRW-wide festival programme. The biennial festival tanz nrw, organised by nrw landesbüro tanz, took place for the ninth time in 2023 and offered an insight into current developments in the dance scene in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The guests from Egypt, Brazil, Finland, Jordan, Latvia, North Macedonia, Taiwan and Hungary attended festival events in Düsseldorf, Essen and Krefeld during their stay. As part of additional meetings with participating artists and companies as well as on-site meetings - for example at PACT Zollverein in Essen, tanzhaus nrw and Ben J. Riepe in Düsseldorf - the participants had the opportunity to exchange ideas with important production houses in NRW and the local dance scene. The guests also visited the German Dance Archive in Cologne, where they met with director Thomas Thorausch, Heike Lehmke, head of nrw landesbuero tanz, and choreographer Reut Shemesh. In Wuppertal, the guests were given background information on the new Pina Bausch Centre by the coordinator of the preparatory phase, Bettina Milz, and accepted an invitation from the Tanztheater Pina Bausch and its artistic director Boris Charmatz to attend an exclusive rehearsal of "Liberté Cathédrale" at the Mariendom in Neviges.