8 to 18 May 2025 - tanz nrw 25

What a celebration: 10 unforgettable, inspiring and moving festival days lie behind us. In the anniversary edition of tanz nrw, 16 companies from North Rhine-Westphalia presented their current productions in 27 well-attended performances. Together with the audience, we used the Physical Introduction and tanz.backstage outreach formats to get in the mood for the performances and the many audience discussions gave viewers the opportunity to engage in direct dialogue with the artists.

It was a fantastic festival season with powerful performances, empowering encounters and bold artistic statements. We would like to thank all the artists, our partners for this lively alliance of dance, discourse and lived diversity - and, above all, the dance-loving audience! See you in two years.

In the middle of the festival, we received the news about the NRW Ministry of Culture's (MKW) cuts to the independent performing arts. The MKW not only wants to drastically cut the three-year funding programmes for top-level and excellence funding for theatre and children's and youth theatre, it also plans to significantly change the system.

The festival centre, nrw landesbuero tanz, has reacted with a statement (in German).

The nrw landesbuero tanz appeals to the NRW Ministry of Culture, to Minister Ina Brandes and to the state government to reconsider and reverse the decisions to cut funding, which will have serious consequences for the independent theatre scene.

Solidarity instead of privileges. It's about everyone. Art remains free! The fight against right-wing extremism, right-wing populism and anti-democratic voices is getting organised, becoming louder and standing up for cohesion, diversity, commitment, empowerment and solidarity against division, disenfranchisement, exclusion, deportation, repression and violence. This is what DIE VIELEN and WE stand for!

The biennial festival tanz nrw presents a wide range of choreographic positions from North Rhine-Westphalia and reflects the diversity of the regional dance scene on several levels: it invites artistic works from the fields of dance / performance / choreography and includes the genres of contemporary and urban dance art, performance and contemporary circus, digital live formats as well as intergenerational and inclusive works - from up-and-coming artists to experienced choreographers. What all forms of dance have in common is the contemporary approach in terms of the political, social and aesthetic relevance of the artistic dialogue. An important concern of the festival is a resource-friendly use of production material and to continuously work on improving the accessibility of the festival programme.

The festival creates cross-connections - between cities, formats and discourses. The resulting spaces become places of exchange and mediation - between the artists, the organisers and the audience.

Welcome to the tanz nrw 25 festival!