As a precaution, all desks in ticket processing will be occupied on January 21: artistic director Markus Müller and dance director Honne Dohrmann know what will happen as soon as advance sales for the Tanzmainz Festival begin.
It can be expected that the demand will be even greater than usual: the fourth edition from March 8th to 19th will take place a little later, Corona and the German Dance Congress, which took place in Mainz in 2022, have postponed the highly popular festival.
Now, however, Dohrmann was able to present a program that includes well-known names such as Ultima Vez / Wim Vandekeybus, younger festival favorites such as Moritz Ostruschnjak and choreographers already familiar to the Mainz audience such as Rafaële Giovanola with Cocoon Dance or Koen Augustijnen and Rosalba Torres Guerrero, this time with their group Siamese, gathered on all stages of the State Theater.
The popular Compagnie La Baraka is represented with an all-female piece for the opening of the festival on International Women's Day.
Confrontations with folk dance play a role this time, as well as body norms and attributions – also quite cheerful, as in the case of the Italian Silvia Gribaudi, who in “Graces” also examines the beauty ideals of neoclassical ballet.
A track that the Nuovo Balletto di Toscana and also La Horde,
For Müller, the fourth festival stands for what, since 2007, at the Oldenburg State Theater, has been working with Dohrmann as a curating dance director who is not himself an artist: being active in a spirit of discovery, communication and bringing together, in the service of the dancers and the audience.
This “act of persuasion” that Müller swears by is obviously paying off: for the first time, the multiple award-winning company is touring to New York from January 21 and playing five evenings that are almost sold out en suite at the Joyce Theater, where “the contemporary dance company of the State Theater Mainz in Germany” handles the doorbell with the Cullberg Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance.
This success story is set to continue: Dohrmann has just extended his contract until he reaches retirement age in 2027.