International Dance Encounter Amman Festival (IDEA)

IDEA Festival Jordan hosted its third edition in September 2023, offering participants an opportunity for participants to perform, share knowledge and inspiration, and construct community across local, regional, and international networks. 

Each edition of this multidisciplinary, biannual festival builds upon the previous, imagining and bringing to fruition new possibilities. Inspired by the renewed excitement of audiences returning to in-person events following the Covid-19 Pandemic, curators crafted the most ambitious program yet, bringing together 11 performances, six artistic residencies, three workshops, two dance jams, a three-session roundtable, and other surrounding events.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IDEA

Organized by Amman-based arts and culture organization, Studio 8, IDEA 2023 presents diverse works from performance and visual arts fields, creating an encounter between people with backgrounds in dance, circus, theater, music and sound, scenography, installation arts, and more. 

IDEA developed long before the festival’s first edition, when festival curators Abd Al Hadi Abunahleh and Xiaoman Ren embarked on producing their first full-length work. Confronted by gaps in existing performance art infrastructure in Amman, Jordan, they reflected on pathways to gaining meaningful feedback, presenting similar work in this context, and expanding audiences. Further, they started brainstorming what skills they would need to develop to manage the successful production of such events.

Once they gained confidence planning and hosting individual performances, curators imagined a festival that could materialize their vision for Jordan’s place in the ecosystem – local, regional, and international – of arts and culture production. 

Taking a grassroots approach that prioritized learning-by-doing and flexibility, they launched the first edition of IDEA in 2019. It brought together ten acts that unfolded within local theater spaces, effectively introducing audience members to the contemporary dance form. 

With a foundation, organizers took a more playful and hybrid approach to the second edition, in 2021. Impacted by the global uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic, programming was mostly residency-based, with three choreographers invited to work with local Jordanian communities to develop a piece. This – in addition to original Jordanian pieces – inspired interdisciplinary performances and workshops that focused on physical theater, scenography, movement-as-live-documentary, games and activities, and more. Synchronous events were supported by in-person and digital exhibitions. Physical installation pieces were connected to online content, while digital pieces were dissected to explain their conceptual, thematic, processual, and historical elements.

International artists and collaborations during the first and second editions infused the Amman’s dance communities with a sense of possibility, new techniques, and methodologies. Still, curators saw the need to look for further regional involvement and to expand the programming of the festival. Engagement with Goethe-Belgium project, Halaqat – a project that seeks to create links between the Arabic-speaking world and Europe – helped curators envision of what this regional infrastructure might look like, which became a focus of their third edition.

A Note from the Curators 

This book captures highlights from the 2023 edition of the IDEA Festival, inviting readers to envision its long-term and collective process of its production. IDEA is an ever-evolving platform, driven by Hadi’s vision of nurturing a supportive environment for dance and performing arts in Jordan. Through the collaborative efforts of Hadi and Ren, IDEA aims to establish a resilient infrastructure akin to renewable energy for dance and performing arts, from inception to dissemination. In a world of rapid change, IDEA adapts and evolves, now recognized as a pivotal platform for performing arts in Jordan, the region, and beyond.

This edition was very special for multiple reasons. Firstly, it marks the 10-year anniversary of the establishment of Studio 8—a decade of friendship, dedication, and creation with a collective of artists from different backgrounds, interests, and artistic disciplines. Additionally, we were delighted to feature a number of works from the Arab region as well as the Global South, where mobility and funding are increasingly challenging.

One of IDEA’s primary goals is to enhance the profile of performing arts and contemporary dance, earning recognition in the international art scene. Additionally, it aims to position Jordan as a central hub for global art and cultural exchange, fostering a vibrant network of artists, collaborators, and enthusiasts. We invite art curators, dancers, dance companies, choreographers, set designers, writers, and installation artists to our program, as we strongly believe in the power of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

• Hadi Nahleh and Xiaoman Ren