In 2021, PLACCC Dance, the dance-focused special edition of PLACCC International Festival of Site-specific Art and Art in Public Space, was born from the meeting of three endeavours. On the one hand, over the years, the organisers of the festival have been working with more and more Hungarian dancers and choreographers, either for a single project or on a longer-term basis. On the other hand, at the end of the first year of the pandemic, the restrictions – although easing but still very much a part of our lives – were not an obstacle but an inspiration, and the artists came up with extremely varied and innovative forms that we wanted to give the opportunity to showcase. Finally, we felt important – in spite of the strong international character of PLACCC – to give opportunities specifically to Hungarian artists, thus supporting them, even if only to a small extent, during/after the months of the pandemic.

In the third year of PLACCC Dance, these aspirations have been modified and developed – but what has remained unchanged is that the two main focuses of the programme are dance in public space and creative innovation. 

The most characteristic change between the program selection of the two first years of PLACCC Dance and of this year’s edition is that the artists – after a significantly strong interest in creating in nature during and right after the Covid-years – found their way back to urban spaces. In our 2023 edition, the invited artists will explore the relationship between (public) space and the body – taking (public) space as a field of experimentation, they will search for the meaning, the significance and function of the dancer’s body in this space.
What does the body say when young or aging, when collective or excluded?