You can expect fantastic dance in the city’s theatres and a takeover of Birmingham’s streets and squares, with show-stopping free performances and opportunities to get dancing.

This festival will bring the best of international dance to the city and provide a platform for local talent to shine. The programme will excite and delight a wide range of audiences and participants, inspiring local people, and attracting visitors to the city. BIDF celebrates Birmingham as a young, diverse city, a place where anything is possible, where the extraordinary happens in the most unexpected spaces.

The 2018 festival programme is inspired and curated around themes of imagination and digital art and reflects on the diversity of dancers’ bodies. It will present work that shows choreographic practice at its best and pushes the boundaries of dance as a contemporary art form.

Alongside the performance programme will be a series of professional and industry events, debates and workshops, creating a valuable space for dialogue, collaboration and sharing of ideas, as well as skills development.

BIDF’s outdoor touring strand which will visit different parts of the city, spreading the festival vibe to neighbourhoods that may not often see dance – funded by Dance Hub Birmingham. Watch out for the spectacular Origami, an elegant large-scale performance which will be wowing audiences at outdoor locations around the city from 22nd-24th June.

Talking about BIDF 2018 Lucie Mirkova, Festival Artistic Director said: “The 2018 festival has a strong curatorial voice and vision that reflects current and new dance practice and looks to the future. Our aim is to grow the festival’s reputation and significance, nationally and internationally, as a place where the best of international and national dance is presented, reaching out to new audiences, and offering a platform for change and development to happen. BIDF imagines a world of greater connection, fewer barriers, and more dancing.”