SPRING Performing Arts Festival is a ten-day international festival with close to 30 innovative theatre, dance performances and more. Here are the 5 must-sees. Grzegorz Reske, artistic director SPRING Performing Arts Festival: ‘For this edition of SPRING I have invited makers from different parts of the world – Brazil, Indonesia, Morocco, Singapore, but also from Utrecht. Some performances are already on tour, others will be playing here in front of an audience for the first time. It is an exciting moment for us, to finally bring audiences and artists together. I am very much looking forward to think about urgent topics together, topics that we carry with us today, but also to celebrate the time we can share together in Utrecht.’ (Don’t) look me in the eyes This dance performance by Ainhoa Hernández Escudero is inspired by the story of the Greek myth of Medusa and the Gorgon sisters. It’s a piece for three human performers, two robots, and an avatar, and attempts to displace the issues that the myth triggers into a sci-fi dystopian future, tracing a line that connects past and future to understand and confront some of the problems from the present we inhabit. 31 May & 1 June 2024 at Theater Kikker Breathe A poetic outdoor choreography for one human body and several oversized inflatable objects. With this performance, Finnish choreographer and performer Milla Koistinen invites us to reflect on our relationship with nature and space, the human dimension and the scale of the city. 25 May at Zocherpark & 26 May on the roof of the IKEA Hmadcha During the uncertain time of the pandemic, this Marrakesh-based artist surrounded himself with a group of dancers. Like in the old Sufi brotherhood tradition, they search for rhythms and melodies to ecstatically dance out their anxiety and ritually re-emerge from the crisis. 25 May 2024 at Stadsschouwburg Utrecht Haribo Kimchi Through various absurd and moving anecdotes, Korean creator and composer Jaha Koo takes you on a culinary journey exploring food culture as a form of language that reveals the structure of a society. 29-31 May at Paardenkathedraal UnBearable Darkness Choy Ka Fai combines the paranormal with the digital and the artificial with the spiritual. The body of a dancer, digital extended reality and shamanistic gestures will bring one of the biggest figures of Butoh dance to life. 1 June at Stadsschouwburg Utrecht