Review HubClub’26 – de Volkskrant ★★★★
Holland Dance Festival puts inclusive thinking in dance on the map with two beautiful, moving premieres.
8 February 2026
by Annette Embrechts
Increasing visibility, removing barriers and thinking in terms of possibilities instead of prejudice. The Holland Dance Festival celebrates performers with a physical or mental disability. Successfully.
They still often run into walls, get stuck in the box labelled “inclusivity,” and regularly bump their heads against glass ceilings in dance or theatre. For performers with a physical or mental disability, professionally trained or self taught, it is a challenge to be seen as fully fledged on stage. Yet in the Netherlands there are decisive initiatives that increase their visibility, remove barriers and think in possibilities rather than prejudice. With success.
The biennial Holland Dance Festival, which has been putting inclusive thinking in dance on the map for many years, presents during its twentieth edition, alongside a symposium, two strong premieres from Dutch soil that are now going on tour. In HubClub’26, Introdans challenges experienced choreographers to tweak their existing repertoire so that an older, deaf or almost blind dancer can also shine in it. And choreographer Jordy Dik creates, with four dancers at the Breda based Compagnie Tiuri, an impressive statement about the (un)safety of women, which at the same time is a warm blooded plea for gentleness: Please Hold My Hand is expressive dance theatre that gives courage and thinks beyond fear, without avoiding intensity.
Moving
“There is always something that is bigger than fear, and it lives in the hands of women who know how to remain gentle, even when the world screams,” writes Annemieke Mooij during the most beautiful moment of this performance: a moving solo in which she strokes along her half arm, lifts her hand into the air and makes tender, legible gestures that Dik choreographed together with Margriet Jacobs (a dancer born with Down syndrome). Jacobs, with a fierce gaze, gives wings to her broad shouldered back and dares to let her voice be heard, even though it cuts like a knife through the breathlessly built, sensitive atmosphere of flower petals, evening dresses and café chairs. Props and costumes that refer to Dik’s fascination with the emotional dance theatre of the late Pina Bausch.
Sabine van Riel (also born with Down syndrome) shows, with expressive hands in front of her eyes, ears and chest, how damaged intimacy can turn inward. And Andrea Beugger, as the oldest of the group, makes the funniest remarks, dares to confront her almost sixty year old body with glitter balloons, and dances, dances, dances like the others, like a breeze playing with leaves. Four women who name and protect, who push and dare, and who pass through invisible walls as if they were simply garlands framing the stage, under the ambiguous mantra “I can walk, but not alone.”
Looking out for one another
Meanwhile, five Introdans dancers and eight guest dancers put this motto into practice during the cheerful vaudeville of HubClub’26, by quietly looking out for one another without holding themselves back. Issam Zemmouri, a dancer with four percent vision, has an enviably precise touch. And Hilde Machtelinckx (64), a leading figure of Introdans in the 1980s and 1990s, jokes and plays with her clown like physicality. No wonder that the wooden panels, which at the beginning still form restrictive partitions, eventually give everyone in this colourful company a little push forward.
Read the full article on Volkskrant.nl
Stage pictures HubClub'26
