Soon after moving the New Era Horizons festival to Wrocław, the idea to create a dance section at this festival appeared. Jacek Gębura from ARKA Dance Theatre and Sonia Nieśpiałowska-Owczarek from Kino Tańca Foundation, in collaboration with the head of New Era Horizons, Roman Gutek, created the section in 2007. During the festival New Horizons of Dance, not only were world-famous productions of UK group DV8 and Wim Vandekeybus from Belgium, the founder of Ultima Vez group, presented, but also a retrospective of Dutch director Clara van Gool and a panorama of dance movies from her country. Presentations of dance creative attempts of film school students, including Daria Kopiec, Michał Tywoniuk and Alicja Pahl, also were an important aspect of the programme. Moreover, presentations of Wrocław dancers’ (Teatr Tańca ARKA, Anna Krych) performances and Izabela Chlewińska’s solo premiere (Episode) took place.
In 2008 Sonia Nieśpiałowska-Owczarek presented a retrospective of modern dance films by New Zealand director Shona McCullagh. So far, this was the last separate block dedicated to dance at the film festival.
Later, dance appeared at New Horizons in the “movies on art” competition (Olivier Assays’ Eldorado working in collaboration with Angelin Preljocaj and Karlheinz Stockhausen or Mike Figgis’ The Co(te)lette Film based on Ann Van den Broek’s performance) or within a special events programme (Polish premiere of Wim Wenders’ Pina).
