New partners, world premieres, outreach & guest performances: explore dance kicks off the new season with exciting new ideas for dance and young audiences – financial situation remains uncertain

With four world premieres and a six-day festival in Potsdam, the nationwide network explore dance – dance for young audiences is kicking off the new season. Fresh impetus is provided by the collaboration with two new partner institutions in the network, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt/Main) and perform[d]ance (Stralsund), which are contributing new artistic projects to the collaboration. The financial situation remains critical. If no federal funds are made available for the 2026 budget, it is unclear whether the network will be able to continue its successful nationwide work in urban and rural areas.

The explore dance Festival #7 invites children, young people, families, school classes and teachers to Potsdam from 24 to 29 September. With a varied programme of explore dance pop-up pieces, guest performances, workshops, discussions and exchanges in schools and on stages in Potsdam and Brandenburg, the festival highlights the importance of cultural participation and artistic freedom. In recognition of the programme’s objectives, the festival has been officially included in the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Four new explore dance productions are planned for the new season, two of which are already in preparation: Pop Up RITOURNELLES by Johanna Ackva and Laura Gary for the very youngest children aged three and up will premiere in mid-December at fabrik Potsdam. Here, everything revolves around circles, rhythms, rhymes and movement. This will be followed in March 2026 by the premiere of Main Character: Lost by the Miller de Nobili collective in Munich for a young audience. The joint production by Fokus Tanz München and HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts focuses on the search for identity through breaking and urban dance. As in all explore dance productions, children and young people are involved in the artistic selection of the pieces as decision-makers, are in direct contact with the artists during the creative process, and can help shape creative processes in educational formats such as workshops, rehearsal visits and research sessions.

explore dance increases the touring of all productions nationwide and internationally in cities and in structurally weak rural areas. This sustainably strengthens the visibility of all works and ensures artistic participation for children and young people regardless of their place of residence or social background. In September alone, eighteen guest performances of various explore dance pieces are scheduled in schools, educational centres, on stages and open air from Hamburg to Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, Potsdam and Freiburg to Zug in Switzerland. Starting in November, the audio walk production Ein Raum ohne Wände (A Room Without Walls) by the artist group LIGNA from the Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm will tour several partner cities in the network.

The financial situation of explore dance remains extremely critical. Current federal funding expires in autumn. explore dance can only continue its successful cross-border work in this form with further support from the federal government. If no federal funds are allocated in the 2026 budget, the network’s continued existence remains uncertain.

The cross-state network explore dance has been promoting and teaching contemporary dance to children and young people since 2018. In the seven years since it was founded, 35 dance pieces for children and young people of various ages have been created. The stage and pop-up pieces have already been performed nationwide and internationally in over 600 performances on stages, in classrooms and in public spaces in cities and rural areas, accompanied by hundreds of educational formats – from Flensburg to Bad Oldesloe and Zwickau to Lalling, from Osnabrück to Altlandsberg and Berlin to Eisenhüttenstadt.

explore dance – Network Dance for Young Audiences is an association of fabrik (moves) Potsdam, Fokus Tanz / Tanz und Schule Munich, HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts Dresden, K3 – Centre for Choreography | Tanzplan Hamburg, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt/Main and Perform[d]ance Stralsund.

explore dance is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media; the explore dance activities of the project partners are co-financed by the State Capital Potsdam, the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg, the Department of Culture of the State Capital Munich, the Bavarian State Association for Contemporary Dance from funds provided by the Bavarian State Ministry, the Saxon State Ministry of Science, Culture and Tourism, the State Capital Dresden, the Authority for Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, the Crespo Foundation, the Ministry of Science, Culture, Federal and European Affairs of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the district of Vorpommern-Rügen.
With the support of the Beisheim Foundation and the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne.