BOLZANO, Italy The Board of the Haydn Foundation, organizer of the International Dance Festival Bolzano Danza, has appointed the new Artistic Directors of the Festival from 2025 to 2027.

Emanuele Masi, the current Artistic Director in office for over ten years, will be followed by the French duo composed by the choreographer Olivier Dubois and the cultural manager Anouk Aspisi. They will be responsible for the Festival's program for the next three years, guiding it towards a new course after the milestone of its fortieth anniversary, which is being celebrated in the 2024 Festival edition, concluding on July 27.

Paul Gasser, Chairman of the Board of the Haydn Foundation, said: “With the appointment of Olivier Dubois and Anouk Aspisi, a new cycle begins for the Bolzano Danza Festival as well as for our Foundation, whose outlook is becoming increasingly European and global. Following an international call, which attracted over 50 prestigious applications from across Europe, the Foundation’s Board identified the joint proposal by the duo Olivier Dubois and Anouk Aspisi as the most outreaching artistic project. A long-time acquaintance of Bolzano Danza, choreographer Olivier Dubois has established a strong connection to our city and the festival’s audience over the years; his works have been ground-breaking, offering an original perspective on the status of choreographic art today. Anouk Aspisi, with her extensive experience as a cultural advisor for live performances at prestigious French and Italian institutions, as well as in patronage and fundraising, brings a crucial skill set for the international development and growth of the event”.

Olivier Dubois and Anouk Aspisi declared: “Today we become passeurs, tasked with steering the legacy of a well-established and thriving entity towards the future. We envision an event that conveys its past and history, and that holds at its core both the act of creation and the artists, witnesses to the inevitable changes in our lives and visionaries of the world's direction. As an artistic and social laboratory, the Festival should create a “suspended time,” a moment to celebrate life by living and being together. To concretise this concept, we imagine a joyful and inclusive program, a Festival strongly rooted in the city, that focuses on building new relationships with its community. Bolzano Danza will be a place of encounter, dialogue, and celebration of creativity and innovation.”

Olivier Dubois has been a recurring guest at Bolzano Danza since 2013. He has presented: Tragédie (2013); Les Mémoires d’un seigneur, a piece commissioned by the Festival (2015); 7xRien (2017); Tropismes (2019); My body of coming forth by day (2019; Swan Blast (2019), another Festival’s commission; Come out (2021, for Ballet de Lorraine); Prêt à baiser/ Sacre #1 (2021); For Gods Only/Sacre #3 (2024), a word premiere for the Festival’s fortieth anniversary.

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