Karl Regensburger

(C) Nikolaus Samilache

Karl Regensburger

Director of ImPulsTanz
The ImPulsTanz festival (Vienna International Dance Festival) is one of Europe’s largest international dance festivals presenting not only performances by both world-renowned contemporary dance artists and the work of emerging choreographers but also many workshops by leading figures in the dance world. The festival is an outgrowth of the Vienna International Dance Week intensive dance workshops launched in 1984 by Karl Regensburger, who still serves as the festival’s director, and the Brazilian-born dancer and choreographer Ismael Ivo in response to the lack of any other venue for learning about contemporary dance in the city. From 1987 a performance program was added to the week’s schedule and from the following year, 1988, the ImPulsTanz name was adopted, combining the German words for impulse/stimulus and dance. Since then, it has been held every year in the months of July and August—the summer vacation period for the Vienna’s public theaters—with a program that presents leading dance artists, choreographers and companies old and new, such as Wim Vandekeybus, Marie Chouinard, La La La Human Steps, Rosas, Josef Nadj and Emio Greco to name just a few, and workshops and other events for the education of young people in dance. In 1996, all of the performances and workshops were made free of charge for participants and a mentor program scholarship named danceWEB Scholarship Programme was established. Also, from 2001 a new program named 8:tension was launched to introduce young choreographers.