Training, consulting, discussing, moving, and observing are the key words behind this year‘s training and coaching program, whose underlying theme could be summed up as “mediation and transmission.” While the training sessions, workshops, and Artists’ Meeting are aimed at professionals, Backstage introduces interested young people to the world of contemporary dance by means of selected performances and gives them an opportunity to discuss their impressions of the work they see with the festival directors and artists. The series of Interventions – open to both professionals and the general public – explore how space, body, and work interact, and also take a closer look at three Tanz im August venues that are very different in regard to their character and history. In an exchange arranged by the festival, students of the university-level dance program in Berlin and participants in the choreographic training program ex.e.r.ce in Montpellier will have the opportunity to discuss new concepts for artistic education. Exhibitions, film screenings, the popular sommer.bar, and discussions with choreographers round off this year‘s festival program, which presents an international spectrum of current work – ranging from lavish productions by established artists to unconventional experiments. Ulrike Becker, Matthias Lilienthal, Bettina Masuch, André Thériault