Ice Hot Nordic Dance Platform – postponed!
Current status report November 19th of 2025 – an update on ICE HOT in 2026:
After a careful review of the current financial situation, the ICE HOT partners have made the difficult decision to postpone the next edition of the platform.
Despite extensive efforts and strong commitment from across the Nordic region, the project remains significantly underfunded. Even in a reduced form, it would not be possible to carry it out in a way that meets the platform’s core purpose.
ICE HOT was founded to create touring opportunities, strengthen collaboration, and increase visibility for Nordic contemporary dance. These are long-term goals that depend on stable and sufficient public investment in international cultural exchange — something that has become increasingly difficult in today’s cultural policy climate.
The current situation also reflects broader challenges for the art form itself. Many artists, producers and organizations across the Nordic region face similar conditions, where ambitious artistic visions must constantly be balanced against shrinking resources. We know that we are not alone in this experience, and we recognise the resilience, creativity, and solidarity that continue to define our field despite these constraints.
We are deeply grateful to all the artists who applied and expressed their wish to be part of the platform. Your engagement and artistic vision is crucial to this initiative within the Nordic and international dance community.
We also want to extend our sincere gratitude to all our partners and collaborators across the Nordic region. Your continued commitment, dialogue, and shared belief in the value of ICE HOT make this network what it is. It is through this partnership and mutual trust that we will be able to find a way forward.
This postponement allows us to take the necessary time to reflect on the future of ICE HOT — to explore new formats, and to adapt to the changing cultural and financial landscape. Our shared commitment remains the same: to create meaningful opportunities for artists and presenters, and to ensure that Nordic contemporary dance continues to reach new audiences, even under challenging circumstances.
Further updates will be shared on this site as soon as possible.
For any inquiries plese contact the Stockholm team.
– The ICE HOT partners
DANSENS HUS STOCKHOLM (Sweden)
DANSENS HUS OSLO (Norway)
DANSEHALLERNE (Denmark)
PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE ICELAND
Coexistance – what we hoped for the platform of 2026.
During the platform 2026 we would have let the concept of Coexistence guide and challenge us.
To Co-Exist. To Co-Inhabit. To be together, to work next to, to grow together, to embody differences and nourish each other. In an ecosystem we need each other. Humans need each other and needs insects, and we all need plants and so on. We all need to coexist.
How does the dance field coexist when financial resources are tightened, when the social climate becomes increasingly polarized and artistic freedom is threatened in several places, in the Nordic Country’s as well as in the rest of Europe.
We wanted to find inputs into the artform that include cultural and artist political aspects. During Ice Hot we would have dived deep and discuss and explore what “coexistence” is today and could be tomorrow.
We wanted to explore the multifaceted dance field in the Nordics. Welcoming a large palette of artistic expressions, genres and practitioners. Dance and Choreography bridges differences, and can create spaces that offer multiple perspectives, instead of opinions. Dance and Choreography can suggest new approaches, positions and power relations. Dance and Choreography presupposes an open and trying approach, which does not necessarily confirm our belief systems.
We wanted to highlight contemporary dance as an art form that both coexists with, and of course, play an important part of the Nordic society. What do the conditions for the art form look like in our region? What norms, mechanisms and hierarchies exist in the interaction between educations, financiers, presenters and audiences?
Hopefully, these are questions we will continue to discuss in other formats than what would have been ICE HOT Nordic Dance Platform in 2026.