Danced nature in the Festspielhaus: top-class performances in Hellerau

The European Center for the Arts in Dresden-Hellerau will kick off the new 2024/2025 season with international guest performances at the "Heller Sommer" on 23 August. The Lyon Opera Ballet and the Cloud Gate Company from Taiwan will imitate nature, while the climate-neutral dance production "Join" will also be performed with the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company and the Dresden Palucca University of Dance, as the artistic director announced on Friday. The season is dedicated to the connection between art and nature, questions of autonomy and self-determination in social contexts, media and digital influences on spaces, consciousness and perception.

According to the announcement, guests on stage at the Festpielhaus include Sasha Waltz and the performance collective She She Pop. The 2nd Hybrid Biennale #space is dedicated to the topic of spaces in the digital age with, among others, the Dresden Symphony Orchestra and Toshiki Okada, while the Dresden Days of Contemporary Music 2025 will feature pioneering musical experiments. Hellerau invites you into unique new worlds, said Artistic Director Carena Schlewitt. "The connection with our time and its questions, hopes and multiple crises is established through images, sounds and narratives and constantly creates new encounters."

Canadian dancer Luise Lecavalier returns to Hellerau with a new creation, while French choreographer Rachid Ouramdane makes his first guest appearance in Germany. Waltz and her ensemble will be exploring Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, and South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo will be reinterpreting Shakespeare's classic "Hamlet". The independent performing arts scene in Slovakia presents itself in the "Nebenan" series.