Although International Dance Festival Birmingham2010has now finished, over the next few months we will be updating this blog with updates on what some of this year’s festival performers are up to, recommend some more fantastic international dance to see in the UK, and give a sneak preview to some of the exciting plans we have for future festivals.
Our Facebook group is still very active and we’re really pleased to see our fanbase grow to more than 1,000 fans! So, if you’re a dancer or someone who just simply loves dance, please visit our page, like it, and tell your friends about it. If you want to see our photos, check out our Flickr page and for videos, we have a YouTube channel.
Curated by Eckhard Thiemann, IDFB 2010’s Outspoken Weekend saw an array of new performances, talks and workshops by Arab artists from Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Morocco.
The weekend kicked off with a diverse Triple Bill at The Patrick Centre, Birmingham Hippodrome, featuring works from Ahmed Khemis, Salah El Brogy and Muhanad Rasheed (Iraqi Bodies). We managed to catch up with Ahmed and Salah to have a chat about their work and a bit about their dance history.
Next up, we welcomed The Assassination of Omar Rajeh, a piece covering the political killings of journalists in Lebanon. Dancer/choreographer Omar Rajeh of Maqamat Dance Theatre talks about his work in the video below:
A Double Bill at Ikon Eastside featured Meryem Jazouli’s Kelma (The Word), based on the life and poems of famous Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, followed by Iraqi Bodies’ Insomnia, created in Iraq in 2005.
Aataba (The Threshold) was performed at The Patrick Centre and below, Moroccan choreographer Taoufiq Izeddiou talks about this work.
Nacera Belaza’s Le Cri, a physical and emotional tour de force and combined Arabic chanting, Maria Callas vocals and disco beats, and Les Sentinelles , an exclusive preview prior to its premiere in Paris, brought the weekend to a thrilling close.
Our IDFB Outspoken Weekend was supported by The British Council. It was also one of the outstanding projects granted the London 2012 Inspire mark, the badge of the London 2012 Inspire programme which recognises exceptional and innovative projects inspired by the 2012 Games. Find out more about the Inspire Mark here.
First of all, the bad news is that the curtain has come down on another International Dance Festival Birmingham.
The past four weeks have seen over 100 performances in more than a dozen venues and more dancers than we’ve been able to keep track of. Then there were the classes, workshops, open rehearsals, talks, installations and films.
The organisers are now going to breathe a sigh relief, get on with tying up the last few loose ends and maybe (maybe) start thinking about doing it all over again in 2012.
The good news is that we’re still collecting together photos, videos and memories from the festival and will be presenting them here (and on Flickr and Facebook) over the next few days. So we’re not done quite yet.
While we’re doing that, you can fill out our survey and maybe bag yourself a prize. It’d be good to get your thoughts. You can also leave comments under the individual event pages if you like.
For now, thank you for being a part of the IDFB 2010!
