International Dance Festival Birmingham (IDFB) one of Europe’s biggest dance festivals, co-produced by DanceXchange and Birmingham Hippodrome, returns for its fourth year. The festival “officially launched” yesterday afternoon.
In less than three months’ time, this award-winning biennial celebration of dance, returns to the city from Thursday 24th April 2014 – Sunday 25th May for over four weeks of world premieres, unique collaborations, community events, outdoor spectacles and world-class performances.
With more theatre shows than in previous years, featuring some of the biggest names in dance, and some of the most hotly tipped rising choreographic stars IDFB 2014 will showcase the best international dance in venues and outdoor spaces across the buzzing festival city of Birmingham.
I must admit I have never been to an IDFB event – but from looking through the programme and reading a bit more about what’s going on, I can see that there is a lot happening that will appeal to a lot of tastes and curiosities. I like the look of this:
Students from BCU’s School of Architecture have been working with DanceXchange to imagine how disused or unloved corners of Birmingham could be transformed into performance spaces.
See the results in an exhibition which aims to kick-start regeneration and community development projects across the city. On Thursday and Friday look out for pop-up performances by Birmingham Ormiston Academy dance students, inspired by the architectural designs. The exhibition forms part of Birmingham Made Me 2014.
Have a look through the IDFB website for more information and for other events.
Sidenote: The new IDFB website is rather nice. when it’s not in festival mode, it functions as an archive of past events. Very cleverly designed by Birmingham based Supercool.