City Streets become a stage as Dance International festival returns to Glasgow

The citywide biennial festival returns from 1 to 23 October with a dynamic, future proof Autumn and Spring programme taking over Glasgow’s streets, galleries, arts spaces, parks and moving vehicles. 

From the visual art spaces of Tramway and the Gallery of Modern Art to the outdoor stage at Queens Park Arena, the festival’s fourth edition will travel beyond its Tramway home, to Glasgow’s streets, parks and cultural venues as well as online this October.

The festival’s reimagined format will embrace hybridity to cater for all varieties of audiences. Featuring outstanding performance from local and national artists, performances will be presented live indoors and outdoors and through film, virtual reality and DIG’s new digital strand. Experimenting with a new festival approach, DIG will take place in two stages: in October 2021 and Spring 2022.
The Spring 2022 programme features performances from Project X, Suzi Cunningham, Three 60 and Farah Saleh with further details to be announced shortly.

Highlights of the October 2021 programme include Love Dance Scotland commission award recipients Shotput open the festival on Friday 1 and Saturday 2 October with work-in-progress ‘Totentanz’, a dance macabre for our times and a manifesto to connect through death rather than be isolated by it. ‘Totentanz’ will feature an accompanying exhibition (Tramway Upper Gallery, 2 - 17 October) created by Shotput and performance photographer Brian Hartley.

Fellow LDS commission recipient FRAN.K presents ‘Living in the Space Between’ (Thursday 14 - Saturday 23 October). The hybrid virtual/live club night and immersive dance installation is one of a number of DIG performances exploring club culture. The work will see 17 exceptional artists across the worlds of club music, performance art, dance and club performance come together for a six hour kaleidoscopic journey with a pulsing soundscape.

Night-time outdoor performance and mobile projection parade ‘STRUT’ by MHz take over the streets of Pollokshields (Thursday 7 October) and Govanhill (Sunday 10 October). Residents can watch from windows and doorsteps as five local dance heroes reflect the celebratory energy of their much loved neighbourhoods. The dancers’ personal styles will range from bhangra to romani, salsa and hip-hop.
Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballet present a series of five films (Thurdsay 21 October). ‘Whiteout’ and ‘Loose Leaf Tea’ which will feature responses from pupils at St Albert primary school. The colourful films will tour on a moving van through the neighbourhoods of Pollokshields and Govanhill.

‘Everybody With Me, Always’ by London’s Deptford Freestylers’ (Wednesday 20 October) will feature film, activities and encourage interactive performance in a relaxed environment. Audiences can stand up, make noise, move around and join the dancers if they feel like it or just relax and enjoy the show.

LJ Findlay-Walsh, Curator, Dance International Glasgow, said:

“We are thrilled to bring DIG festival back for its 4th edition. We return to present a more covid-secure, hybrid festival with digital, distanced live works and outdoor dance spectaculars. Our focus this year has been on trying to create a palette of experiences accessible to the broadest range of audiences who may have been removed from cultural experiences over the last year and a half including relaxed performances, durational installations and even virtual experiences.

“We have also remained flexible to the needs of artists this year by expanding the festival over two periods October ‘21 and March ‘22. We have worked with mostly local and national artists and they have led the way in imagining new forms and new ways of meeting their audience. As ever their work centres the moving body, audiences can expect everything from the immersive, meditative and healing properties of dance to an opportunity to convene safely in joyous experiences that encourage us to move together or be moved, shaking off the dust of the recent past and moving confidently into the future.”

For further information, high res images and interviews please contact:

Sharon McHendry at SM Publicity
Phone +44 7970 178643
Email sharon@smpublicity.co.uk

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Header image: Photo by Harrison Dante