Picture credit: Colours International Dance Festival/Simon Wachter

Choreographer and Dancer Eric Gauthier (who might be known so some of you from former posts about his shows at Theaterhaus like Alice! (link)) is the creative brain behind Colours International Dance Festival. He brought it to Stuttgart in 2015 for the first time and overnight it became one of the most beloved festivals in town. And now, in 2017, it’s back! Check out this amazing teaser video! 😀 Do you recognize the places in Stuttgart, where the two guys are dancing?

At Colours International Dance Festival contemporary dance companies from all over the world meet in Stuttgart between July 6 and 23. Styles and formats range from ballett to dance theatre, from circus to performances, from traditional dances to tap dance or breakdance. But the festival is not only about the professional performances. Actually, we’re not supposed to sit and watch all the time but to get up and be moved by colours ourselves!

There will be high-profile participation activities in the Stuttgart city centre, too: On June 30 the market square in front of the city hall will become a huge dance floor, starting at 4 pm. Eric Gauthier, members of his and the international dance companies and the one or other surprise guest will spend three hours getting his city into the groove. The goal is to get EVERYBODY moving, not just enthusiastic amateur dancers but also older people and children, wheelchair users and those normally devoted to passively looking on. I have participated the warm-up in 2015 and it was amazing to see so many people dancing together in the middle of the city. If you want to get an idea of what this special event looks like, check out my post about it from 2015 (link).

In addition to the performances, Colours International Dance Festival offers an extensive supporting programme with workshops by international choreographers, many of whom are part of the festival line-up. Levels range from professional to amateur, with a particular focus on people who just enjoy dancing. In 2015 I participated in the workshop “Dance for everybody” and had a blast! In only three hours Eric Gauthier made us perform like pros in a choreography he came up with during the workshop. It was amazing. In my post from 2015 about the workshop you get a glimpse of how it looked like (link).

And these are some more of my personal highlights of Colours International Dance Festival 2017:

• The surreal, multimedia performance by AΦE: WHIST (link) where the audience will be wearing virtual reality headsets.
• The COLOURS KIDS DAY (link)  on July 23 at Wilhelma where young dance enthusiasts learn how to move like certain animals.
• The open rehersals of “Eric Gauthier Dance Company/Meet the talents” (link) that will be held between July 11 and 16 from 6 to 9 pm at Theaterhaus. Entrance is free!

Colours International Dance Festival is definitely one of my favorite events of the year! I can’t wait for it to start!

Have you participated in the festival in 2015? How did you like it? And do you plan to watch the one or other show this year? If you, which one(s)?

More information about:

Colours International Dance Festival

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We were 30 people in the workshop Dance for everybody. Some were semi-professional dancers, others (like me) were there for fun. And fun we had! Eric is a very relaxed guy and an entertaining coach. It was interesting to see a pro like him at work. He came up with a choreography for us during the workshop. We tried something, if it looked good, we adopted it, if it looked bad, he thought of something else.

I think we did quite well even though we lost it as soon as he stopped leading and guiding us… Oh well, I think we might need one or two more rehearsals but then we should be ready for the big stage! ;-P

Tan

It was great to see that also non-professional dancers like us can successfully perform a choreography that looks quite nice after three hours of practising. It all depends on having the right teacher . So thank you Eric for a fun afternoon and a great workshop!

Now I am even more excited to see some of the international dance companies at Colours! I got invited to see three performances: “Kamuyot” – performed by Gauthier Dance, “m¡longa” – from the Flemish-Moroccan star choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and “Blue Love” by the Shaun Parker Company. Stay tuned for more!

More information about:

Colours – International Dance Festival

Theaterhaus Stuttgart (only in German)

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Despite the grey sky hundreds of ballet – and Eric Gauthier – junkies made their way to Marktplatz, right in front of the city hall, to take part in the free mini workshops and watch short extracts of the performances that will be held at Theaterhaus from the 25th of June to the 12th of July.

I wasn’t sure if workshops with such a large crowd would work well – but they did! Stuttgart was truly moved by colours! No matter if it was Hip Hop, Bollywood or classical Ballet, everybody was participating! Only the tango lesson was a bit too tricky for some of us…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YgIBxerrUI]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdUFMuqXwYs]

It was so much fun dancing in such a large crowd. It wasn’t that hard, either. Plus, dancers from Eric Gauthier’s dance company were everywhere and if you couldn’t follow what was going on on the stage or the big screen, you could look at them.

Next to the workshops there were performances of the international dance companies that will participate in the festival.

My favorite at the Colours International Dance Festival 2015 pre-opening event at Marktplatz was the “football ballet”. Yep, you read correctly. A slow motion scene from a football match, VfB Stuttgart against Borussia Dortmund , where Stuttgart gets a free kick. Sososo good! Eric Gauthier plays the referee who has to deal with cheeky players that hit each other behind his back and stuff like that. Very, very funny

After the great Colours International Dance Festival 2015 pre-opening event at Marktplatz I am even more excited about the festival. I got tickets for three performances: “Kamuyot” – performed by Gauthier Dance, “m¡longa” – from the Flemish-Moroccan star choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and “Blue Love” by the Shaun Parker Company. Plus, I will participate in a workshop held by Eric Gauthier: “Dance for everybody” – and after the short workshops at Marktplatz, I think this will be really, really good! Hurry up if you want to see some performances as well, most of the shows are sold out already!

More information about:

Colours – international Dance Festival

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