It was good too – the bit where the Town Hall crumbled was pretty spectacular and I’m a big fan of Circa from when they performed as part of the 2010 festival. Of the videos on YouTube, this one of the building projections is alright and gives you an idea at least. In fact it makes it look darker than it was – Birmingham has a serious light pollution problem.

Katja Ogrin probably has the best collection of photos from the event that I’ve seen so definitely check those out. The IDFB blog has collected together some of the various reactions and photos from audience members. I’ve just been trawling Flickr for some more pics – here are some choice ones:

Wings of Desire // Victoria Square Preparation by IDFB

Wings of Desire. Birmingham. by Imagine Bill

Wings of Desire by Imagine Bill

Wings of Desire by Imagine Bill

Wings of Desire by Peter Reynolds3636

Angel by fatedsnowfox

Wings of Desire by Peter Reynolds3636

Wings of Desire by fatedsnowfox

On the left: David Massingham, Artistic Director of DanceXchange and co-director of IDFB. On the right: Goldie.

It’s for Wings of Desire, a big outdoor spectacular that’s taking place in Victoria Sq in mid-May, that will also feature:

• 2 Faced Dance Company, who are based in Hereford and do amazing contemporary dance/breakdance stuff (have a look at this vid)
• CIRCA, who left me slack-jawed with amazement when I saw them perform at IDFB 2010 (check this out)
• Seeper, who do that cool architectural projection mapping stuff (among other things)

Basically, if this is anything less than incredible I’ll eat my hat.

More info here.

There’s a good round-up of what’s being planned over on West Midlands Dance.

There’s plenty of good stuff lined up, but the bits that made me nudge the person next to me and go ‘huh, that’ll be interesting’ were:

• Wings of Desire (the big dance spectacular in Victoria Sq), with Circa and 2FaCeD DaNcE Company
• Dave St-Pierre Company – Un peu de tendresse bordel de merde! (which generated a tonne of controversy in London a couple of months ago)

I like IDFB. It was probably the first one, back in 2008, that got me interested in dance in the first place. I then worked on the 2010 festival and managed to pack in 18 shows over the course of its month-long run. This one looks like being another good one.

At this point I should chuck in a disclaimer that I’ve been working with the festival’s organisers for a year or so on how they approach things online. However, that does mean that I’ve got a bit of a clue about what the line-up includes. Which is nice, because there are any number of ways of slicing and dicing a festival’s programme – this is my attempt to group it up a bit.

There’s more going on than I’ll mention here so see the IDFB website’s What’s On and Taking Part pages for the whole caboodle.

Local stuff

• Rosie Kay Dance Company – 5 SOLDIERS The Body is the Frontline – Rosie’s based in Birmingham and this is a new commission which will explore the physical toll taken by war
• Colin Dunne – Out of Time – Colin was born in Birmingham, was nine times world Irish step dance champion and also principal dancer in Riverdance. This is his first full-length solo work
• DX Productions & Two’s Company – Funny Bones – something for the kids: a brand new in-the-round double bill of contemporary dance for over 5’s.

Big ticket items

• Akram Khan Company – Gnosis. See pic above.
• Mark Morris Dance Group – L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. This has had more 5 star reviews than I’ve had hot dinners.
• Ballet Nacional de Cuba – Magia de la Danza and Giselle.
• Outspoken Weekend. Something you won’t see anywhere else – a season dedicated to new performances from Arab artists, 8 shows in all (see the What’s On page for the lot)

Something a bit different

• Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui/Sadler’s Wells London – Sutra. 17 Shaolin monks. A set designed by Antony Gormley. Sharp suits. Nuff said.
• C!RCA – Circa. Described as ‘a thoroughly new circus’. This was a big hit at last the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
• Chris Haring – Running Sushi. I don’t know much about this other than that it’ll be at Ikon Eastside and the order of the 12 performances will be chosen by audience members who picking sushi off a plate

Free stuff

For IDFB 2008, Victoria Square was taken over by two stages, gantries, firecracker-stuffed cars and three dance companies. It was so good I went twice. This year we’re told that:

contemporary dancers will form a brand new dance company collective alongside Russian, Spanish, Indian and African folk dance groups, all moving to the turbo-folk Gypsy and Balkan beats of Birmingham’s very own band The Destroyers

The event’s called UTOPIA and will be performed a few times over the Bank Holiday weekend of 1-3 May. In the words of the choreographer:

There’ll be bits of furniture all over the place and basically it’ll look like 40 people, plus the band, have attacked the square

Which sounds pretty good. As does Waves, which is right up my street. Wander past the Hippodrome between 8-11pm from 22 April to 5 May to see/play with that.

Put Your Foot Down is the final showpiece on 15 May – an afternoon of free performances and dance demos, with a mass synchronised hip hop/street dance routine lead by Salah, a hugely popular hip hop artist from France, in St Martin’s Square, Bullring.

Taking part

There’s also a whole bunch of workshops and classes you can get involved in.