Review Pink Panther Party XXL ★★★★ – de Volkskrant
‘Pink Panther Party XXL’ brings a 1970s inclusive disco back to life in a swinging way
21 December 2025
by Annette Embrechts
Introdans’s dance performance revolves around a joyful and natural fusion of dance styles, identities and forms of love. It swings, even amid the plush seats of a stately concert hall.
Concertgebouw De Vereeniging is not an ideal venue in terms of sightlines to suggest, between stage and auditorium, the setting of a dark (anti-)squat building where young people come at night to celebrate their liberating disco parties. You have to crane your neck to catch all the slick moves from head to toe. The colourful collection of footwear speaks volumes instead: from pointe shoes, sneakers and roller skates to heels, thigh-high boots and platform soles. The seven Introdans dancers and thirteen (partly neurodiverse) students from dance programmes move to anything, as long as it swings.
The same goes for the exuberant mix of reused fabrics—from teddy and lace to sportswear and crocheted tops—from which fashion designer Sjaak Hullekes has created supple, sexy outfits. At times you may miss some of that creativity. But the story behind Introdans’s Pink Panther Party XXL is fun, especially for anyone who could use a positive vibe around inclusivity. PPP XXL is about a joyful, self-evident fusion of dance styles, identities and forms of love. “I am what I am,” lasers project in block letters onto the block-like stage.
Until the end of December, Introdans performs this XXL version of a slice of disco history from its own building on Vijfzinnenstraat in Arnhem. It once housed the legendary Pink Panther discotheque, with a glass, illuminated dance floor where in the 1970s everything and everyone—from Moluccan and Indonesian to Latino and queer—came together during performances by Percy Sledge, The Trammps, Kool & The Gang and KC and The Sunshine Band. What’s nice is that the clear little storyline of a group of young people dancing an anti-squatter awake, created by choreographers Adriaan Luteijn and Chantal de Vries, is not coloured by the stereotypical disco image of jeans, flared trousers and afros, but instead by styles such as vogue, waacking, electro, ballroom, hip hop and ballet. It swings, even among the plush seats of De Vereeniging.