Regional Focus at DANCE 2023

DANCE is placing an emphasis on specific regions, namely Eastern Europe, Taiwan, and Montreal.

For the focus on Eastern Europe, Nina Hümpel has invited to Munich three young, up-and-coming artists from Lithuania - Agniete Lisičkinaitė, Dovydas Strimatis, and Lukas Karvelis – who will perform their committed works in public spaces in Munich and at the venue HochX. As part of this focus, the Polish choreographer Maciej Kuźmiński will present the piece Every Minute Motherland with his company and refugee Ukrainian dancers; the piece has to do with the experiences of escaping as a reaction to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, and will be supplemented by filmed documentations and conversations with artists. The global ecology crisis is examined by the Czech choreographer Věra Ondrašíková in her piece Witness, which deals with the relationship between humans and nature.

The festival will also focus on cultural identities and aesthetic specifics from Taiwan. The Tjimur Dance Theatre will present traditional songs and dances of the Paiwan people, an indigenous people in Taiwan; they will use experimental choreographic methods and a contemporary aesthetic in their performance on the stage at Freiheitshalle. This guest performance will be supplemented by a documentation on this unusual dance company, traditional dances, a discussion format, and the video installation La XXX Punk by indigenous Taiwanese artist Fangas Nayaw. In the public space in front of Fat Cat the solo performance FreeSteps-NiNi by the Taiwan project HORSE will convey the magic of the moment, but also the political insight that there is no guarantee a public space is a safe place.

Along with the productions from Montréal of Catherine Gaudet and Marie Chouinard, the Canadian artists Andrew Tay and Stephen Thompson will perform Make Banana Cry, a subversive catwalk show, which critically and with relish examines the Western idea of Asian culture and society.