5th COLOURS International Dance Festival: The summer of dance 2025 in Stuttgart
After a longer-than-usual wait of three years, the biennial COLOURS International Dance Festival, produced by Theaterhaus Stuttgart, makes its return, from now on also to the familiar rhythm of odd-numbered years. A prospect that is certainly welcome in times like these, carrying the promise of 18 days full of dance and artistic happiness. After all, that’s what the 15 stage programmes, including two world premieres as well as four European and two German premieres stand for.
Cutting-edge contemporary dance – that is the shortest way to describe COLOURS. The name of the festival conveys how this mission is to be accomplished. It is the diversity of styles and international trends that are represented here. Accordingly, programme director Meinrad Huber is always on the lookout for new choreographic perspectives and positions.
If there is a common thread running through the multifaceted COLOURS 2025 programme, then it is this: the longing for community, which is almost palpable in most of the pieces and finds its expression in choreographies that intensely evoke togetherness and the harmony of a group. They achieve this in ways that are as different as the artists themselves. Nevertheless, the focus of the selected productions is always on the intense physicality of dance.
The 2025 line-up once again features an exquisite mix of world-famous names such as Eastman | Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (BEL), Hofesh Shechter Company (UK) and Compagnie Marie Chouinard (CAN), in combination with productions by established companies such as Gravity & Other Myths (AUS) and Dorrance Dance (USA). The COLOURS palette is completed by rising stars in the dance world, including Botis Seva | Far From The Norm (UK), OtroLado Dance (CUB), Marco da Silva Ferreira (PT), Côté Danse (CAN), Compagnie Virginie Brunelle (CAN), Shahar Binyamini (ISR) and Compagnie Amala Dianor (FR). Additionally, during a three-week COLOURS residency, Sofia Nappi and her company KOMOCO (IT) will lay the foundations for a new piece – which is expected to be on the programme at COLOURS 2027.
The hosts from Theaterhaus Stuttgart will be taking part in COLOURS with two new full-length productions. Gauthier Dance will open the festival with the Akram Khan bill Turning of Bones, consisting of the eponymous world premiere, the duet Mud of Sorrow and scenes from iTMOi (In the Mind of Igor), Jungle Book reimagined and DESH. The new artist in residence Barak Marshall contributes the world premiere Barker with the Gauthier Dance JUNIORS – a dance theatre piece for all generations, conceived for the Theaterhaus Sports Hall and for mobile use in schools as part of the outreach initiative MOVES FOR FUTURE.
The second important pillar of the festival is the extensive COLOURS in the City programme. In addition to the established participatory formats COLOURS Playground on Stuttgart’s central square Schlossplatz, the COLOURS Family Day in cooperation with Wilhelma – Zoological-Botanical Garden Stuttgart and the COLOURS Pop-Ups with “animator“ Eric Gauthier in the city districts, there will also be a new series in 2025. With the COLOURS Collaborations, the festival pays flying visits to renowned Stuttgart partner organisers and events, in the form of short shows in varying artistic constellations.
COLOURS Dance Festival will take place June 26 to July 13, 2025. The programme is still in the making. Visit https://www.coloursdancefestival.com/en for the latest information.
COLOURS 2022 Pop Up, Photo credit Jeanette Bak