Festival director Christian Watty introduces the program 2025!

Dear audience of euro-scene Leipzig,

You are holding in your hands the programme of our 35th International Festival for Contemporary Dance and Theatre. We warmly invite you to join us!

This year’s guiding theme is LOVE BODY POLITICS. The philosophical and sociological concept of “body politics” is based on the understanding that the human body is not simply given by nature. The way bodies are perceived and valued is never neutral; it both regulates and is regulated, shaped by social structures and political forces. The body often becomes a stage for social conflict. Dance and theatre have always explored this field of tension – negotiating power relations and reclaiming bodily self-determination. Love plays a central role here: love of oneself, or as connective tissue between people – an act of resistance and of healing.

Our spectacular festival opening picks up right here: the performance collective Caravan of LUV comes directly from the Wiener Festwochen and invites us to understand love not merely as a private emotion, but as a political practice that makes bodies visible and connects them. HEALING HATE is no ordinary concert but a musical-performative happening that engages with the fractures of our present time.

Celebrated shooting star Manuel Roque from Montreal pushes the limits of dance and the body in LE VENT SE LÈVE and BANG BANG, defying the storms of our time.

How origin, history, and power relations shape identity is explored in several works across the festival: Lo Fang Yun’s THE SEAS BETWEEN US examines how political systems and cultural influences shape our thinking and actions. Cristiana Morganti and Emanuele Soavi take their Italian heritage as the starting point for their first collaboration THIS IS A PREMIERE, using humour and self-irony to reflect on their outstanding dance careers in Germany. In ALIENATION III, Robert Ssempijja analyses the transformation of Kampala by German architect Ernst May, commissioned by the British colonial government – and the lasting alienation of people from their homeland. Pol Pi’s ME TOO, GALATEA interweaves the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea with the #MeToo movement, questioning patriarchal images of women. In an equally radical physical inquiry, Harald Beharie’s solo BATTY BWOY offers a biting and electrifying confrontation with queer representations of the body.

In view of global attacks on reproductive rights and access to contraception, Tjaša Črnigoj’s SEX EDUCATION II: FIGHT recalls the Yugoslav women’s movement and its struggle for bodily autonomy and sexual rights – a foundation for progressive ideas of pleasure, love, and equality. Also drawing on Yugoslav history, Serbian filmmaker Mila Turajlić’s NON-ALIGNED NEWSREELS revives the legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement under President Tito – once an alternative to the power blocs of the Cold War. Can this memory inspire new impulses for international understanding today?

Steven Cohen is, without exaggeration, one of the most fascinating figures to grace our stages. Two years ago, he enchanted us with three unforgettable pieces. Now, the South African performer and humanist returns with a world premiere: PEOPLE WILL PEOPLE YOU is a gift to the audience in Leipzig.

For children aged six to twelve, a performer reimagines the myth of the AMAZONS using Lego figures, miniature landscapes, live video, and protest imagery, sparking a conversation among peers about gender, justice, and resistance. Who are the Amazons of today?

To conclude the festival, Trajal Harrell explores the question of how art is evaluated – and shows why he truly deserves the title DANCER OF THE YEAR.

Feeling inspired to take part yourself? In SLOW WALK by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Compagnie ROSAS, everyone is invited to join a five-hour collective deceleration through Leipzig’s city centre.

Join us on a journey of discovery.
We look forward to seeing you – and now: curtain up!

Yours,
Christian Watty + the team of euro-scene Leipzig