When a city moves together

Every year, the curation of IN2IT begins long before the program is put together.

It starts with listening.

Listening to the rhythms of the times we live in.

Listening to the questions that move through artists.

Listening to what bodies carry – often before language finds its form.

Gradually, a landscape begins to emerge. Not a collection of performances, but a field of encounters.

Because a festival, at its deepest, is not something we just attend. It is something we step into. Something we help create through our presence.

Curating Beyond Urgency

This year's festival unfolds under the theme Beyond Emergency – Dance as a Practice of Agency.

Where last year invited celebration, this edition turns to orientation.

How can we be responsive without living in constant reaction?

How can we remain open, sensitive, and relational in a world that constantly asks us to speed up?

The artists gathered here do not offer ready-made answers. Instead, they create spaces where we can practice mindfulness in new ways — through movement, through proximity, through shared time.

Again and again I returned to works that insist on one simple but radical gesture:

to stop — and to notice.

A living cultural ecology

What touches me most about this year's program is the breadth of expression it encompasses.

Children encountering dance for the very first time.

Young artists stepping forward. Experienced voices deepening their practice. International perspectives meeting local realities.

Communities that come together across generations.

This is not accidental.

It reflects a belief that culture is not built by a few — it is carried and maintained collectively.

When the audience enters the theater, studio, library or foyer, a shift occurs. The work is completed in the encounter between the performer and the witness.

Your presence is not secondary.

It is part of the festival's own choreography.

Why we gather now

There is something deeply hopeful in choosing to gather around art.

In an age where much of life is conveyed through screens, efficiency, and distance, there is a quiet significance to sitting in a room with others — to breathe the same air, to witness the same moment.

Art reminds us how we can be together without having to find an immediate solution.

To listen without rushing towards answers.

To feel before explaining.

Recognizing ourselves in foreign bodies.

This is how cultural spaces remain alive.

Not just through programming — but through participation.

An invitation

Therefore, I would like to extend a simple invitation to you.

Come curious.

Come as you are.

Come alone, or bring someone with you who has never experienced dance before.

Allow yourself to be surprised.

Festivals don't just happen on stage — they happen in the shared atmosphere between us.

And every single person who steps inside helps shape that atmosphere.

If last year was about celebrating what we've built, this year is about stepping into it — together.

I look forward to welcoming you.

— Tendai MakurumbandiArtistic Director, IN2IT International Dance Festival