The Festival
2025

The 6 th edition of the Netherlands Contact Festival will take place in 8th till 13th of July 2025, and you are all welcome to join us.

We will be dancing in an amazing location with nature around us, and we aim to make it as accessible as possible for all levels of dancers.

Our aim is to create a festival with around 100 people, which can be seen as neither too big nor too small - or as we say in the Netherlands - 'Gezellig.'

The festival will offer 2 intensives morning classes to choose from, and afternoon classes with Dutch and international teachers and musicians.

Throughout the festival, alongside the scheduled classes, there will be invitations to participate in labs, open spaces, and offer classes from participants.

During this festival, we celebrate Contact Improvisation as it was originally developed by a group of dancers centered around Oberlin College in the early 1970s. We will focus on technique-oriented classes and celebrate what we've practiced, learned, and shared in our evening jams.

For practcalities and prices, see below or go to registration form.

video by Lody Meijer

We have intensives with two international teachers, one for beginners, one for experienced. We have workshops by our national teachers, and we invite participants to share their ideas in the form of a lab, workshop or something else. The jams in the evening allow for free exploration of Contact Improvisation.
Intensives, workshops, jamming
De Uelenspieghel is a beautiful farm dedicated for activities and community building. It is a situated in a quiet nature area close by to a lake and forest.
De Uelenspieghel in Uffelte
Danny is the Chef of the week.

Co owner of SJEFF cateringcompany

Connected to the festival for 3 years now and will serve you lunch and dinner for the week.

With mostly bio ingredients creating a variety of vegetarian and vegan dishes.

Looking forward to cook for you again!
Our cook is Danny
Connecting through dancing, we facilitate sharing groups to process our experiences, we invite the people who want to share a topic of their own interest to have a place on the schedule and we have the helper structure, which is the backbone of the festival
Dance, connect, help and share
In this festival we celebrate Contact Improvisation as it was originated by a group of dancers which included Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Danny Lepkoff, Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Nita Little, Andrew Harwood, and Ray Chung. We see and believe that the essence of Ci is where the magic happens.
Contact Improvisation from the ground up
Our live musician this year is
Juliano Vendemiatti - go to here for more info and this is his website
The dance gives the inspiration to connect and create a community. We hope to promote a stronger CI community with our events. Getting dancers, teachers, facilitators together to support in creating events for CI and in creating meaningful connections with each other.
Community
The helpers are the backbone of our festival, it wouldnt be able to exist without the people who feel called to help in the daily tasks and the building up and breaking down of our dance tent. It is an opportunity to feel like you are contributing, and connect with other in a informal way during things to do. Next to that, your findancial contribution to the festival will be lower.

A helper joins us 2 days before and 1 day after for building and taking apart the festival, during the festival days you will be with your team and in charge of some part of the day to day cleaning or helping
(it should not interfere with classes, and it is roughly 1.5-2 hours each day). We will provide food and sleep, and of course we will dance!

Please go to the registration form for more info.
Helpers
This festival is aimed for adult dancers, practicing CI and sharing their passion for it.

Although we love children we learned from past editions that it is hard for parents to find a balance between caring for them, and having fun or find some freedom.
We also see that more CI experienced dancers/parents are able to know if it is suitable for them to bring their child.
So we ask only parents that have been before in Contact Improvisation festivals to ask about this option.

We don't have a kids program to keep them busy, so during the day and evening you should be able to keep an eye on your child. Therefore its best that there are two adults on every child, or have like a second caretaker from one of the dancers you know. Please arrange that before.
We ask the parents to be responsible for their young ones, especially during the jams (for their safety, and for dancers safety), we, as organisers, dont take this responsibilty.

The families/ people with kids cannot sleep in the shared rooms (for noise reasons to other participants), so when you sign in check the tent or cabin option only.

if you think about bringing your child, you have to contact us to see if it's fitting and if there's still place for them.

With enough care we will all benefit and have a great experience!
Kids