Stockholm fall 2026 dance preview
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Hösten kommer snabbt till Sverige. The leaves on Långholmen are yellow and red. The dance and performance festival My Wild Flag, already underway, celebrated its 10th birthday with corporeal cake-baking by French provocateur Rébecca Chaillon and her cabaret accomplice Mona LaDoll. Now is the time to save dates and book tickets for spooky season. This list is not meant to be comprehensive but offers a few standouts to consider.
Having recently interviewed Streetstar founder Joachim Hövel about 2026 Dance Teacher Awardee Archie Burnett, I’ve been eager to learn more about the Scandinavian street dance scene. Warm up for Malmö Dance Week at 6steptember, a free afternoon breaking jam and one-to-one tournament at Stadsgårdsterminalen on — you guessed it — Sunday, September 6. Eslux hosts while Camilo “Cam” Monasterio spins. Details here.
Faye Driscoll’s touring productions, such as a series of shows supertitled Thank You for Coming, are often tailored to the talents and qualities of collaborators the US choreographer and director knows well. I’m one of many who is curious about flesh chariot, chariot of flesh, a season-opening premiere and original work for Cullberg. It opens with a ten-show run at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern before traveling to Västerås, Göteborg, Belgium, and New York City. Details here.
September Sessions returns with a menu of internationally sourced, contemporary creativity in various venues, September 10–13. Among multiple events in the realm of live performance are Chiara Bartl-Salvi’s Heat Island; WonderWaves by Anna Öberg with Elize Arvefjord, Viktor Fröjd, and Jon Bugge Mariussen; and QUIXOTE_A ROSE IS NOT A ROSE from Industria Indipendente with Annamaria Ajmone. Details here.
Dansens Hus is the place to be throughout October, with promising programs of its own as well as partnership engagements. The month starts with Hofesh Shechter’s Theatre of Dreams, a summer 2024 premiere at Théâtre de la Ville with, by rough count, another 20 producing partners in 10 countries around the globe. Within Practice, a weeklong festival for choreographic practitioners, follows from October 5–10 (with additional events at Moderna Dansteatern and the Stockholm Academy of the Arts). Cristina Caprioli’s ccap takes both the venue’s big stage and blackbox with GAME ON, October 23 and 24.
Fresh off his recent designation as Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, choreographer Medhi Walerski shares a double bill with Alexander Ekman, October 20–November 14 at Kungliga Operan. Walerski’s Chamber, with music by Joby Talbot, premiered in 2013 around the 100th anniversary of Nijinsky and Stravinsky’s infamous Le Sacre du printemps. Ekman contributes Cacti, from 2010 and since restaged by numerous ensembles. Both ballets premiered at Nederlands Dans Theater. Details here.
Fresh off its 20th anniversary celebration, Weld enters its third decade with a dozen engagements for audiences of all ages. Playing October 21 and 22 is the particularly intriguing Sun Eaters by choreographer-musician Jassem Hindi and visual artist Sina Seifee, in which “pre-Islamic iconography, West Asian music, doom metal and Norwegian folk melodies come together in a dark and terrifying performance.” Count us in. Details here.
Moderna Dansteatern’s fall lineup is similarly stacked and, tack och lov, its newly renovated lobby offers better lighting and more room to mingle. Swing by October 23–25 for Adam Sahid Tair’s and from their hair, unending forest, which continues the artist’s exploration of runes from a queer Afro-Nordic perspective. “At the center of the work is the figure of Ymer, an intersexual creature who, according to myth, was killed and whose body gave rise to the world.” Details here.
Canadian-Belgian choreographer Liz Kinoshita is the new artistic director of Härnösand-based Norrdans. The ensemble is small, with just eight members, but each is quickly knowable and memorable; among others, Horácio Macuacua has made much of their unique qualities. Greek choreographer Chara Kotsali’s Núx brúx — ancient words meaning “night” and “gnashing teeth” — promises “a charged space of revolt, tenderness, togetherness and metamorphosis” at Dieselverkstaden on Halloween. Details here.
Before the year-end holidays hit, The Water Roared in Sullen Waves plays for two nights at Konträr on Södermalm, November 6 and 7. Latvian choreographer Rūdolfs Gediņš performs a duet with actor Āris Matesovičs about violence, proposed by the pair as “an endless and fundamentally meaningless cycle in which society believes again and again that someone will win.” Sergei Fyodorov is their wrestling coach. Details here.
Zachary Whittenburg
Zachary Whittenburg has been a journalist, administrator, photographer, and grantmaker in arts and culture since 2008. A regular contributor to Dance Magazine and former dance editor at Time Out Chicago magazine, he has written for numerous additional publications including Critical Correspondence, Critical Read, Dance International, Flavorwire, Pointe, and Total Theatre UK.