Over 100 dance events in one action packed week.

The oldest and most extensive Nordic Dance festival, Kuopio Dance Festival, opens a new window onto the world of international dance. The programme includes fresh pieces, Nordic premieres, classics revisited and current themes on everyday life, communality, and the great issues facing the mankind. During the festival week there will be more than one hundred different dance events, performances, Q and A sessions, courses, club nights, and cruises.

This year’s undisputed highlight will be a visit from the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. The company will bring to Kuopio works by three of the most sought after choreographers of our time, Saburo Teshigawara, Andonis Foniadakis and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

The Festival opens with a themed evening – From Sevilla to Lapland. The evening features a Spanish flamenco artiste Belén Maya and a contemporary folk dance theatre from Finnish Lapland called Rimpparemmi...

Israeli Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company’s piece Ekodoom grapples with current issues. Communality is also the topic of the Finnish premiere of the year, Eeva Muilu’s Jossain on jotain (Finland). The stage will be occupied by elderly people and one young dance artiste.

The winner of the choreography competition Nordic Grand Prix 2007, Alan Lucien Øyen (Norway), searches for beauty in the mundane through humorous sentimentality in his work What's not to love.

Nordic collaboration has produced Petri Kekoni’s choreography Glow of Dimness (Finland).

An Ivory Coast atmosphere will be brought to the Festival by Compagnie Georges Momboye (France/Ivory Coast), with their piece Boyakodah – an ode to life! This French company, made up of African dancers, has performed at Lyon Biennale and at Sadler's Wells in London, amongst other venues.

The classic works Huuto and Petrushka by the Festival’s Artistic Director Jorma Uotinen (Finland) return to stage refreshed after many years. The children’s dance house programme features Simo Heiskanen’s choreography Parrots, performed by Glims & Gloms Dance Company, and Kuopio Music and Dance Academy’s Aika Öykkäri (Finland).

Hundreds of dance professionals, enthusiasts and beginners flock in to dozens of popular dance courses as well as festival clubs, Market Square programme, Paikallisliike and other festival events.

For the full programme details click here.