PRELIMINARY FEST LINEUP

Many of you may have seen this at Esplanade during the arts festival and Flipside festival:

da:nsfest says hello!

On Centrestage (and more to come) :

The World Premiere of Dunas by Maria Pages & Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (23 & 24 Oct)

The Asian Premiere of The Re-Triptych by Shen Wei Dance Arts (30 & 31 Oct)

A World premiere and an Asian premiere - when the da:ns team found out we did something of a leprechaun jig around the office. Happy as clams, and not to mention super excited as well. These days any performance happening for the first time can be a world premiere (like the school play I put up in '96) but for one of the best and most prolific, eloquent flamenco dancers in the world (Maria Pages) to want to dance for us with Sidi Larbi of Sutra (the arts fest performance with the Shaolin monks and Antony Gormley) fame... it really is an honour.

And Shen Wei as well. Everyone remembers the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. And this:

Scroll to 2:10 and watch!

Shen Wei was the lead choreographer and chief creative consultant for the opening ceremony, directing 16,000 dancers. This beautiful piece with ink-dipped dancers swirling across the blank canvas of the stadium floor is adapted from his work Connect-Transfer. Shen Wei Dance Arts will be performing The Re-Triptych at da:ns 2009 after its World Premiere in the USA.

Watch this space for more from these artists, as well as the full lineup!