Since 1986, each year the folk community celebrates the Tanzhausfest in the city of Leipzig. A festival dedicated to the dancing part of the European folk movement. From the start, the Leipziger Tanzhausfest has been an international festival, always trying to gather bands from all over Europe for four days of joy and dancing. Since, the Leipziger Tanzhausfest is a long-standing traditional festival a whole bunch of bands, popular as well as lesser known ones, already participated. Some examples from outside Germany include the Oyster Band (1986), Blowzabella (1989), Ar Re Yaouank (1996), Skolvan (2000), Dikanda (2003), Dobranotch (2005), Gonnagles (2010), Triple-X (2012) and Té (2016). Some of them are real dinosaurs, they don’t even exist or play for dancing anymore.
Since, the festival is organized by a small open group of people, who also happen to be enthusiastic bal folk fans, bal folk dances and music are the main theme of the festival. But the “all styles of folk” part has never been abandoned. You will always get the chance to dance other common and uncommon European dances. Last year for instance, we spiced the festival with Sorbian and Italian dances.
Open sessions are possible after workshops, throughout the evenings and all-night long.
Because of the corona crisis the festival had to be cancelled. The line-up from 2020 has been rescheduled to 2021.
If you have questions regarding the festival, feel free to send your questions to info@tanzvolk-leipzig.de. No need to write in German. English and French are fine. Even Swedish, Italian, Latin and Ancient Greek may be possible. For Polish, Dutch, Hungarian, Esperanto and Russian it may take us some days until we catch a translator… 😉