Introdans presents the 2024-2025 season programme
Great dance personalities and special encounters
2 May 2024
In the new dance season 2024-2025, Introdans presents a richly varied mix of choreographies, with new work by internationally renowned choreographers, repertoire pieces and special encounters. The season opens in September with HEROES, a programme full of premieres with work by choreographers Regina van Berkel, Sol León & Paul Lightfoot, Inbal Pinto and Adriaan Luteijn. In the winter months, like the previous two years, Introdans will present a large-scale family performance in a magical, imaginative and contemporary adaptation: The Nutcracker by the Belgian choreographer Jeroen Verbruggen, a Dutch premiere. In the spring you can see ICON, a focus programme around the unique dance personality and American choreographer Lucinda Childs, who is also called the queen of minimalist dance. A time travel through her work including a world premiere by her. In the same period, Introdans revives another minimalist work, TYPHOON by the Dutch choreographer Krisztina de Châtel (co-production). The season ends with a vibrant End of Season 2025 programme, in which highlights of the season alternate with surprising encounters.
Artistic director Introdans Roel Voorintholt: “I look forward to a new season full of leading choreographers and a celebration of inclusive dance talent. Our programme is diverse and attractive for both seasoned dance lovers and new audiences, we inspire young and old. Our ballets vary in style, from extremely virtuoso and acrobatic to lyrical, minimalist and poetic, so that every Introdans evening offers something new.”
In addition to the performances in the theaters, Introdans can also be seen in many other places during the season, such as the Dutch Dance Days (Nederlandse Dansdagen), Zwarte Cross, Uitnacht Arnhem, Sonsbeek Theater Avenue, Kunstnacht Nijmegen, Vondelpark Openluchttheater, Bridge to Liberation and the Piano Biennale, where upcoming choreographic talent and (by that time) ex-Introdancer Jurriën Schobben creates a new piece. The company also goes abroad with special projects and performances, including Poland, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Canada.
Introdans in Arnhem and Theater trips by bus
For the premieres, Introdans moves to the theaters in Nijmegen, Doetinchem, Apeldoorn and Amsterdam due to the closed Stadstheater Arnhem. But Introdans can be seen several times in Arnhem next season, namely with an adapted programme in the Parkzaal of Musis, where a special stand is being built for an optimal view. On display are HEROES and a combined ICON & TYPHOON in Musis programme. In addition, Introdans will also shine at many Arnhem events next season, such as Sonsbeek Theater Avenue, Uitnacht Arnhem, Piano Biennale and Bridge to Liberation.
For De Notenkraker and End of Season 2025, the audience can travel from Arnhem on the special Theater bus to Apeldoorn, Doetinchem and Nijmegen, which Introdans is again organizing with Musis & Stadstheater. This way, our loyal Arnhem dance lovers don’t have to miss a single Introdans performance. Tickets for a 1st row seat in the theater including a bus return will soon be available for purchase via the Musis & Stadstheater website.
Trailer
HEROES – an exhilarating mix of highly physical, dynamic dance
Introdans kicks off the 2024/2025 season with a programme that’s all about heroes. Everyone seems to be a hero on social media these days. But who are our real heroes? In the HEROES programme, Introdans focuses on this theme in a number of high-energy and enthralling choreographies by three choreographers and a choreographer duo, each with their own very individual, unique voice. Daily Hero is a piece by Regina van Berkel, a Dutch choreographer who has enjoyed her greatest success abroad. Introdans is performing this work for the first time, and for the company it has now been specially extended with a stunning finale. This is followed by a choreographic jewel recently acquired by Introdans: SH-BOOM!, marking a long-overdue return of top choreographer duo Sol León and Paul Lightfoot to Dutch venues. Choreographer Inbal Pinto has created the third work in HEROES: the Dutch premiere of the sophisticated, melancholic Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Finally, the special guest dancers appearing in Iungo – The Encounter 2024 by Introdans choreographer Adriaan Luteijn are heroes for sure.
premiere 20 Sept 2024 | Amphion Theater Doetinchem, tour until 29 November 2024
The Nutcracker – a magical, visionary adaptation of the quintessential winter ballet – Dutch premiere
Limitless imagination, exuberant choreographies, tender and moving dance and a totally new approach to Tchaikovsky’s famous music: this work, the biggest production that Introdans has ever staged, has got it all! The dance company presents another contemporary, internationally successful adaptation of a universally loved classic for the whole family. This time we have chosen the ultimate winter ballet: The Nutcracker, but in a totally new interpretation by the Belgian choreographer Jeroen Verbruggen. His version does not include a Christmas tree, sugar fairy or gifts, but it does contain all the magic and enchantment that you expect from The Nutcracker. Introdans gives it a quirky and unique touch. A version about ‘cracking’ your own shell, your own nut, in order to discover your true identity. Major highlights include Verbruggen’s vibrant choreography, the ‘dream land’ stage décor and the lavish, baroque costumes by the Paris-based fashion duo On Aura Tout Vu by Yassen Samouilov and Livia Stoianova, which has stars such as Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Christina Aguilera among its clientele. After the resounding success of Carmen and Swan Lake in the last two years, The Nutcracker is a new performance by Introdans in the winter months for every dance lover (age 6-106).
premiere 14 Dec 2024 | Theater Orpheus Apeldoorn, tour until 22 Februari 2025
ICOON – focus programme around unique dance personality Lucinda Childs
Choreographer Lucinda Childs is the queen of minimal dance. She will be 85 years old in 2025, and Introdans is celebrating this with the focus programme ICON, a tribute to the ‘grand old lady’ of American dance. This evening the audience will experience a (time) journey that starts with Interior Drama from 1977, new for the Dutch audience, past the pieces Kilar, Petricor and Concerto that Introdans has danced before, and ends with a world premiere of her latest work. Childs’ movement idiom is absolutely unique: taking an abstract, almost mathematical approach she uses relatively simple ballet and athletic movements to create amazingly complex masterpieces. The bond between Childs and Introdans can also be called unique, there is no company in the world that dances so much of her work. Introdans has a rich oeuvre of existing and new work by Lucinda Childs. With ICON it underlines this special bond. ICON will be accompanied live in a number of theaters by the National Youth Orchestra.
premiere 14 March 2025 | Stadsschouwburg Nijmegen, tour until 9 May 2025
TYPHOON – coproduction with Krisztina de Châtel
Introdans brings the production TYPHOON (1986) back to the stage in co-production with the De Châtel sur Place foundation. This monumental showdown in minimalist dance by choreographer Krisztina de Châtel will be revived in the spring of 2025 and danced by the dancers of Introdans. In this performance, De Châtel’s urge for choreographic order is tested, as it were, in a flying storm, to the piano sounds of Simeon ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato. “I have always been an admirer of Krisztina de Châtel’s minimalist work. The clarity in structure, the minimal shifts and the battle with the power of the wind machines are enormously fascinating. Introdans is committed to cherishing and reviving existing repertoire to prevent dance from becoming disposable art and to ensure that a new generation of audiences can become acquainted with these impressive works,” says Roel Voorintholt, artistic director of Introdans.
coproduction – premiere 22 February 2025 | ITA Amsterdam, tour 18 Feb – 18 May 2025
End of Season 2025 – a festive summer celebration full of new encounters and virtuoso ballets
This year too, Introdans brings the theatre season to a festive close and heralds the summer with a dazzling End of Season. In addition to several virtuoso highlights from the Introdans repertoire, this time the programme also features a few surprises and inclusive dance encounters. New choreographers will be showcased, special guest dancers will grace the stage and the company will look back on collaborative projects with artists and organisations from other disciplines. This includes a new choreography by Introdancer and choreographer Jurriën Schobben, which he creates for the Piano Biennale. Choreographer Jordy Dik gives a preview of the piece he is creating for HubClub’26. The pieces Caught by David Parsons and Lazarus by Oona Doherthy are also on the programme. What’s more, the annual End of Season is a great opportunity for dancers who are ending their career or heading abroad to shine one more time and to display all their talents.
premiere 19 June 2025 | Amphion Theater Doetinchem, tour until 28 June 2025
Interaction & Education – building bridges and special encounters
For more than fifty years, Introdans has been sharing its dancing power with its interaction and educational activities every year with thousands of students, young people, local residents, people at a distance from the labor market, vulnerable elderly people and people with intellectual or physical challenges. Various projects and meetings will again be organized in the new dance season, in collaboration with social, healthcare and educational partners and guest dancers from different social and cultural worlds. Such as the VR dance experience VRtuoso VRtual, dance projects with the elderly, dance education projects for students and many other projects. “It is great to see how dance can open up worlds, connect people and offer them a different, previously unknown way to communicate,” says choreographer and artistic initiator interaction & inclusion at Introdans Adriaan Luteijn. Luteijn will also be sharing his knowledge in the field of inclusive dance internationally, with projects in China, Hong Kong and Japan, among others.