TANEC PRAHA Festival 1996 | 15 June – 2 July 1996

The Geneva Ballet made a triumphant return to the festival in 1996. In its last year under the leadership of Gradimir Pankov, the company again presented the very best of the world dance scene: Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin and Christopher Bruce. Joseph Nadj excelled at the festival for the first time with the production of Vojcek. Another artist making a big impression was the Slovenian Iztok Kováč, one of the first from the former Eastern bloc country to succeed on the European scene. The program also featured productions by Yoshiko Chuma, Hervé Diasnas, Simone Sandroni and local artists.

In the fall of that same year, Mikhail Baryshnikov accepted the invitation of Tanec Praha and for the first time in history came to a country of the former Eastern bloc with a magnificent solo evening. The personal attendance of Václav Havel at his first performance in the National Theatre underlined the extraordinary nature of the event. In the same year, Pavel Štorek for the first time organized the 4 Days in Motion Festival, another significant enrichment of Prague's cultural offering.