Spring Forward 2022 took us to Elefsina (GR) where we presented no less than 25 performances in 5 venues during 4 days and culminated Aerowaves 25 years celebration. 

Alongside the European based companies, as part of the Aerowaves Exchange initiative Spring Forward’s programme included Asian artists and organisations: Ayano Yokoyama (Japan), Q dance company (South Korea), Yeu-kwn Wang / Shimmering Productions (Taiwan) and Movers Platform (Japan/Korea/Greece). Former Aerowaves artist Jesús Rubio Gamo presented ‘Gran Bolero’ to celebrate 25 years of Aerowaves. And we also premiered ‘Aerowaves at 25’, a documentary directed by Enya Belak. 

We welcomed 333 dance professionals from 48 countries and 3000 local spectators from Elefsina enjoyed the festival’s performances. 

The new directors of the platform were announced: Elisabetta Bisaro and Roberto Casarotto will lead Aerowaves into the next phase of life when founder John Ashford steps down, after 25 years in September 2022.

At Spring Forward we also made time for a series of talks called ‘Across Europe: dance back, dance forward’. We discussed choreography, dance past and future and dived into the themes and forms of the pieces presented during the four days. In addition, alongside the performances, we ran Springback Academy (a programme for burgeoning dance writers) and for the first time we invited a group of emerging dance presenters who kicked off Startup Forum.

We produced a new edition of #SpringbackSocial, a series of video snippets to follow the jam-packed action of the festival, presented by Springback writer Róisín O’Brien and Aerowaves Artist Alexandros Stavropoulos. In addition, Springback writers interviewed the Aerowaves Artists #Twenty22 for the ‘Springback Meets the #AerowavesArtists’ series.