International Dance Festival Birmingham is coming to the city for the second time, running for four weeks in 2010. The first festival in 2008 was a huge success, seeing 60 performances from 20 countries take place in venues across the city showcasing a range of dance styles from the popular to the cutting edge. We spoke to festival co-director, David Massingham, about his hopes for next year’s dance explosion.

The inspiration for the International Dance Festival came from the 2002 industry conference British Dance Edition. Delegates were impressed by the city’s infrastructure of dance venues teamed with a diverse number of established dance organisations in the region. The idea of bringing Birmingham’s dance resources to the world’s attention was floated and the International Dance Festival Birmingham was born.

Co-Director of the festival David Massingham taking part in the closing Salsa at Sunset event in 2008

David Massingham, artistic director of DanceXchange, is also co-director of International Dance Festival Birmingham along with Stuart Griffiths, chief executive of Birmingham Hippodrome. Massingham nurtured the first seeds of the festival and saw it grow into one of the biggest dance festivals in the world – putting Birmingham on the map as a stage for groundbreaking and exceptional dance.

Last year’s festival attracted some 25,000 people from all over the UK and used venues across Birmingham including the Town Hall and Victoria Square, with 60 performances over four weeks. Alongside the shows, professional workshops and educational sessions encouraged newcomers to experience dance activities and develop dance partnerships. The economic impact on the city was huge, bringing an estimated £4.3 million to Birmingham.

With plans for the 2010 festival well underway, Massingham is already looking to fresh commissions for 2012, hoping to help the festival grow deeper into the city while maintaining its international scale. Using the festival to put Birmingham at the centre of the global dance map ties in neatly with the Hippodrome’s plans to make the city a national centre for dance. He said:

“It felt natural that a new dance festival needed to be built for Birmingham. Although Birmingham had a lot of festivals I felt it could have a larger impacting festival.

“A big thing reason why it works in Birmingham, is that Birmingham is a multicultural city and dance is a non-narrative form in many respects – dance and a mixed society of people go together very well. Birmingham is also one of the youngest cities in Europe, and dance and youth also fit nicely together. The thinking behind this project, as well as the Hippodrome becoming a national centre for dance, is to bring together all these strands of thinking. The three companies together (Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Hippodrome and DanceXchange are all housed in the same building) make up one of the biggest dance hubs in the country – with only Sadlers Wells and Leeds. The dance festival is a shop window for the dance that does go on here.”

Birmingham is already home to a diverse range of dance styles – from ballet to bhang – and the festival hopes to capitalise on the city’s flourishing  and vibrant dance scene, while inviting companies from across the globe to come and perform and collaborate here.

“Dance festivals around the world usually focus on contemporary ballet,” Massingham said. “While there is a lot of contemporary in this festival, it will also have flamenco, ballet, folk dance, South Asian dance – all international projects or work – which gives the festival a focus and ethos that makes it unique. British artists who take part have an international angle for their work.”

The festival also aims to provide performances which cater for audiences who may have never stepped inside a theatre, as well as those who consider themselves dons of dance. Massingham wants to challenge preconceptions about what dance is or can be. He said:

“Some people think dance is a niche thing, but we wanted to blow that idea out of the water. The 2008 festival set out to be mainstream at times – with bigger events such as Havana Rakatan at the Hippodrome and Watch This Space in Victoria Sqaure – and at other times there were performances for small audiences such as Saburo Teshigawara dancing on a field of glass. This festival needs to see small niches as part of a big festival.

“Some people don’t buy tickets for theatres but do want be in a lively city and to see events. Taking dance out onto the streets, out of its institution buildings, and making it available to everybody is what we want to do.

“Dance covers many things and as long as there’s dance in it, it can be part of our festival.

The 2010 festival will include new work alongside productions that have been successful elsewhere – and it also hopes to engage better with other cities in the region, such as Stoke, Coventry, and Wolverhampton.

Performances are still in the process of being finalised and the programme is due to launch later this month – so watch this space.

Excited about next year’s programme, Massingham said:

“We hope that audiences who might go and see one thing will then go and try something else. We’re trying to go deeper into the city and make sure we’re on the world stage; putting Birmingham on the map as a dance destination. London is amazing but we can do it too.

“We’re being bold and will get bolder with commissioning as we get more established. We value the audiences and once the message gets out about the 2010 festival  we hope people will come from all over.”