The team from the German Dance Film Institute Bremen is recording the event at the Aalto Theater Essen / Germany.

The German Dance Association invites you to a glittering dance gala on
Saturday, February 28, 2026 at 6 p.m. at the Aalto Theater in Essen.
This year’s program showcases the great diversity of dance:
Guests include the Berlin State Ballet, the MiR Dance Company Gelsenkirchen, the choreographer and dancer Thomas A. Bradley, and the Urban Dance Department & friends.

As part of the dance gala, the German Dance Prize 2026 will be awarded to choreographer Christian Spuck. Honors will also be bestowed upon dance scholar Prof. Dr. Gabriele Brandstetter and Butoh dancer Tadashi Endo (posthumously).

Visitors can expect an exciting and diverse gala program:

WATER is a powerful opening act in which the Urban Dance Department & Friends bring the essence of urban dance to the stage. Featuring 13 local and international dancers, Souhail Jalti’s choreography blends hip hop, popping, and breakdancing with contemporary urban expression.

The world premiere of NOT BUTOH SOLO by choreographer and dancer Thomas A. Bradley is both a reference to Gabriele Brandstetter and Tadashi Endo and a reflection on the artist’s enduring fascination with Japanese Butoh.

The Berlin State Ballet presents three pieces by choreographer and this year’s prize winner, Christian Spuck: With Beethoven, Spuck captures the mood of the second movement, “Adagio un poco mosso,” of Piano Concerto No. 5.

Nocturne, with its fusion of classical and contemporary elements, particularly represents Christian Spuck’s choreographic style. Christian Spuck premiered the ballet Romeo and Juliet in Zurich in 2012. His interpretation of the balcony scene, the balcony pas de deux from Romeo and Juliet, is among the most moving moments of the piece.

The MiR Dance Company Gelsenkirchen presents excerpts from the captivating two-part work Hasard & Boléro by Sita Ostheimer, featuring music by Yehezkel Raz and Maurice Ravel, and an excerpt from Millennials by choreographer Marcos Morau. “Millennials” explores how, in the era of the digital revolution, the internet and social networks have fundamentally changed society.

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The dance gala will be opened with a welcoming address by Wolfram Weimer, Minister of State for Culture at the Federal Chancellery.

The evening will be hosted by Vivian Perkovic – known, among other things, from the 3sat magazine Kulturzeit.

The dance gala will be offered with interpretation into German Sign Language (DGS).

“Orange Is Not Alone” is about people, about feelings, about differences. It’s about colors, about encounters, about togetherness. In this dance theater piece, eight dancers with and without disabilities move on stage. They move in spaces. They move in, they move within, they move together. They move out, they move into another space.

Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. Sometimes chaos, sometimes a storm. Together somewhere in a party cellar. Dancing together, like they’re really going wild. They hold each other, they belong together. They are very close, they are connected. They play, they take each other seriously. Not still like a statue, not boring. Everyone is important, no one is excluded. Everyone sits in the corner. Blue like friendship, pink like soft and chewing gum, green like longing, yellow like an open window, purple like a paint box, black like the night. Skin like a person, feeling and transparent. Orange wants to be seen, Orange belongs in the group. Maybe we’ll go out onto the balcony and watch a rainbow scatter. Maybe we’ll find a space—for me, for you, for us. Maybe we’ll find it here.

Neele Buchholz (born 1991 in Bremen) is a freelance dancer and actress with Down syndrome. She has performed on stage more than 300 times both in Germany and abroad (including “T4. Ophelia’s Garden,” directed by David Stöhr) and has appeared in film productions (including “Eldorado KaDeWe,” directed by Julia von Heinz). She began her career in 2013 as a permanent dancer with tanzbar bremen e.V. Since 2022, she has worked full-time as a freelance artist. The themes of equality and love often play an important role in her artistic work.

Tomas Bünger studied classical and modern stage dance and was a long-time member of the Bremen Dance Theatre. He subsequently completed an inclusive dance teacher training program in New York and was a guest lecturer at the University of the Arts in Buenos Aires. He worked regularly in Bangladesh for many years with the support of the Goethe-Institut and was an artistic resident in Togo, Romania, and India. He received various teaching appointments. The focus of his choreographic work is the human being as dancer and their relationship to the world.

The ensemble of “Orange Is Not Alone” was selected following a casting call by Neele and Tom in a joint audition.

Co-production: Schwankhalle. Funded by the Performing Arts Fund with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Senator for Culture Bremen, the Waldemar Koch Foundation, and Sparkasse Bremen.