Following three successful festivals in 2008, 2010 and 2012, this biennial event, co-produced by DanceXchange and Birmingham Hippodrome, once again features an eclectic and jam-packed programme—with unique international collaborations, premières, new commissions and a range of participatory opportunities in venues across Birmingham and the West Midlands.
As in previous festivals, IDFB 2014 brings many of the city’s arts organisations and venues together to work in partnership and celebrate the region’s collective and vibrant cultural scene. These venues include Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Warwick Arts Centre and the Crescent Theatre.
Less conventional venues will host social dance events throughout the festival, culminating with a four-night outdoor finale B-Town in Victoria Square featuring street dance and music performers in a b-boy dance spectacle—battling across multiple stages in the heart of the city.
24-26 April, Birmingham Royal Ballet will kick off the 2014 festival at the Crescent Theatre with two mixed bills featuring world premières of new works by young, emerging choreographers and heritage pieces by one of the choreographic greats of the twentieth century: Kit Holder's Quatrain and Alexander Whitley's Kin and Sir Frederick Ashton’s Le Rendezvous and Façade.
IDFB 2014 highlights at Birmingham Hippodrome will include Sylvie Guillem, Sadler’s Wells’ Breakin Convention, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s m¡longa, as well as New Adventures and RE:Bourne's new production of Lord of the Flies, Swiss Company Alias’s Sideways Rain, and Vancouver’s Kidd Pivot led by Crystal Pite will perform Tempest Replica.
Combining live music with dance, the festival will work for the first time with Birmingham’s Symphony Hall to create Concert Dansé, an ambitious reimagining of Duruflé’s Requiem performed by Birmingham-based choir Ex Cathedra alongside Québécois dance company Cas Public and a cast of over 50 UK musicians and dancers on Friday 2 May.
In DanceXchange’s studio theatre The Patrick Centre, Luca Silvestrini’s Protein will explore themes of identity in Border Tales, working with Egyptian and Lebanese artists Mickael ‘Marso’ Riviere will present a double bill, and South Asian dance artist Aakash Odedra will première a collaboration with Ars Electronica from Austria.
Elsewhere in the city and wider region, Birmingham Repertory Theatre will host Canadian circus company Les 7 Doigts de la Main’s new show Séquence 8, and Irish company Fabulous Beast will perform their version of The Rite of Spring & Petrushka at Warwick Arts Centre.
This year, the festival will also include the opportunity to celebrate the best of the Midlands’ youth dance companies at MY (Midlands Youth) Dance Festival in Ruddock Performing Arts Centre at King Edward’s School, Edgbaston.
And new for IDFB 2014 is a weekly opportunity to ‘paint the town red’ with a series of social dance events open to all, in a range of styles including swing and lindy-hop, tango, capoeira, jazz fusion and house. Spaces across Birmingham will throw open their doors to host weekly public gatherings such as a Brazilian street party, a midnight tango milonga and a footwork fusion dance night.
As part of his international residency for IDFB 2014 choreographer Corey Baker from New Zealand will work with members of the public and professional dance artists to perform a ‘Haka day out’ based on the traditional Māori war dance.
Concluding this year’s IDFB Birmingham’s Victoria Square will be a major free outdoor performance: B-Town. International and pioneering performers from the worlds of street dance and music unite to present a b-boy dance spectacular battling across multiple stages in the square.
For festival listings, a full video and photographic archive of previous years, visit www.idfb.co.uk