Theatre

• Husbands, based on the film of the same name by John Cassavetes, will be premiered by Toneelgroep Amsterdam on 28 February in the Théâtre National de Bretagne in Rennes, France. It will then travel through Europe, taking in Berlin, Lisbon and Modena before enjoying its Dutch premiere in Amsterdam on the 18 April. Director Ivo van Hove’s previous productions, 'Opening Night' and 'Koppen' [Faces] have already proven that he can make theatre in its purest from Cassavetes’ films and the translation is again by Gerardjan Rijnders.

• Lucas De Man will be taking 'Bubble Boy' (10+), a production for Het Lab Utrecht, to the Spleen Festival in Grad, Austria on 13 and 14 February. The play is about Tom, who has lived for twelve years in a plastic bubble because he has an autoimmune disease. You see the operation that cures him and Tom’s first steps outside of the bubble live. Lucas de Man (1982) graduated in direction in 2008 in Amsterdam and is artistic director of the Nieuwe Helden company. His work has included Cassius, an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar; Bejaarden en Begeerte', a production with and about senior citizens; and an interpretation of the film 'Fight Club'.

• The very, very old lady called Mathilde longs for death just as much as she is afraid of it. This new short production from the Stuffed Puppet Theatre is a co-production with Le Carre/Chateau Gontier in France. Mathilde will be premiered in Gorron, France on 20 January before an extensive tour of France including Craon, Alonnes, Lavel and Villaines-la-Juhel until 11 February.

Theatre and Dance for Young People

Tabea Martin’s production 'Parade' (6+) will be on at Starke Stücke, the annual festival of theatre for young people, which takes place from 6 to 16 March at twenty locations in the Rhein-Main region in Germany. Depicted by three dancers living in their individual worlds, Parade is about norms and deviations and the degree to which the latter can be allowed. As well as Parade, five of the eighteen productions at the festival will also be from the Netherlands, 'Lampje, Lampje' from Wiersma & Smeets (2+), 'Alice' from De Stilte (5+), 'No Man is an Island' from Erik Kaiels Archeopteryx 8 dance company (10+), 'Help' from Theatergroep Max. (12+) and 'Couple-like #2' from Het Lab Utrecht & Theatergroep DOX (14+).

Dance

• Various Dutch dance companies will be on at the 17th Schrittmacher Festival which will be taking place in both the Fabrik Stahlbau Strang in Aachen and the Parkstad Limburg Theater in Heerlen.
  The Nederlands Dans Theater 1 (NDT 1) will be performing their new programme 'Traces', with new choreographies from Crystal Pite and Marco Goecke, and 'Double You (1994)' from Jiří Kylián.

• Scapino is also represented with the much praised 'Kathleen +' by Ed Wubbe, almost twenty years old but still spectacular, Wubbes 'Beeswing' and Marco Goecke’s 'Beautiful Freak'. Het Nationale Ballet will also be performing with the 'Hans van Manen Special' and 'Swan Lake' [het Zwanenmeer].

• Fascinated by the strict and apparently simple minimalism of Lucinda Child’s earlier work, Nicole Beutler has adapted two of her works, 'Radial Courses' (1976) and 'Interior Drama' (1977), to create her own production. Both works which were originally performed in silence but DJ/producer Gary Shepherd has composed a soundtrack for them. Beutler has called her interpretation 2: 'Dialogue with Lucinda' and it will be performed at the Side Step Festival in Helsinki on 11 and 12 February.

• Dance Works Rotterdam/André Gingras will be doing a short tour of Canada and the United States from 13 to 19 February with 'Anatomica'. The production will be opening the Distinctively Dutch Festival in Pittsburgh on 18 February, where theatrical jewels from the Netherlands will be exhibited. Dance Works Rotterdam will also be giving workshops, giving a guerrilla performance of 'Skipping Dance' somewhere, and previewing their latest production, 'The Sweet Art of Bruising'.

• Anouk van Dijk’s 'Protect Me' will be on at the Teatro Central in Seville and the Teatro Espanol in Madrid from 18 to 25 February. In Protect Me, people find themselves on the stage in a state of disorientation and they look to each other for support in the world crisis, the new basis for their lives. Van Dijk has created the production with Falk Richter, and it will be performed by actors from the Schaubuhne Berlin and the dancers from anoukvandijk dc, including Anouk van Dijk herself.

• How do you allow yourself be influenced without losing yourself? 'Ghost Track' from Leine Roebana is a meeting of extremes: Europe and Indonesia, the contemporary and the traditional, dance and music. Choreographers Andrea Leine and Harijono Roebana challenge five western and three Indonesian dancers and composer Iwan Gunawan and his gamelan ensemble Kyai Fatahillah to allow themselves to merge into something new. 'Ghost Track' will be premiered on 18 November and there will be a series of performances on 8 and 9 of February in the Teater Salihara in Jakarta, Indonesia.

• The Swedish-Dutch choreographer Jefta van Dinther has created a production with lighting designer Minna Tjikkainen and sound designer David Kiers inspired by synesthesia, the phenomenon where the senses do something that we don’t expect like hearing colours or seeing sounds. This 'Grind' was premiered in Stockholm in December, and it can be seen in a couple of places in the Netherlands in February and April, in Germany on 2 and 3 March and in Austria.

• Whilst the production made in Brazil, 'Screaming Object', will be enjoying its European premiere at the Holland Dance Festival on 17 February, Duda Paiva’s latest production, 'Bastard!' will be performed in Stuttgart, Mannheim and Heilbronn in March as part of the Imaginale international object theatre festival. Inspired by the novel, 'L’Arrachee-coeur', by the French writer, Boris Vian, Paiva paints a no man’s land of absent morality in a solo production with a humorous visual language that feeds the senses and a provocative and colourful symbolism.