We have launched a new frame in which to share and value expanded approaches to learning, collaboration and performance – an International Festival of Learning – IFL- which emphasizes and celebrates learning through dance itself. With IFL our intention is also to support and further international exchange, which was always so central to earlier programmes at Independent Dance such as WinLab and vital to the dance ecology overall. With support from Arts Council England, the first edition of this festival took place in July 2021.
Woven into the first edition was a theme of Dance, Intimacy and the Civic, asking how embodied relational dance practices meet with and have relevance to wider contexts. As part of the festival we launched a new series of talks in partnership with Sadler’s Wells and University of Roehampton, focused on this civic theme and continuing into 2022.
We were thrilled to welcome the following artists programmed in IFL.1:
Dinis Machado (Sweden/Portugal), Chinasa Vivian Ezugha (UK/Nigeria), Nita Little (USA), Margarita Zafrilla Olayo (Spain/UK), Vanessa Grasse (IT/UK), Akeim Toussaint-Buck (Jamaica/UK). We were also delighted to launch the publication of Independent Dance’s guest edition of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training issue developed over two years with contributions from 20 artists and writers from around the world.
The second edition of the International Festival of Learning will run 3 – 16 December 2022; please visit again soon for details of the full-line up and to book.
