Given the pandemic situation declared by the World Health Organization and in line with recent measures adopted by the Portuguese Government in order to fight covid-19, the City Hall of Porto / Teatro Municipal do Porto and the City Halls of Matosinhos and Gaia decided to cancel the 5th DDD – Festival Dias da Dança (April 18 – May 3 2020).

The decision, taken along with the festival’s organisers and partners, is based on the awareness that we live – and will continue to live in the near future – an exceptional situation, in which the safety of the population must be the top priority.

In addition to security issues, the measures recently adopted have also raised several logistical obstacles, such as Visa restrictions, the cancelation of international flights and the closure of local venues where national artists and companies would be rehearsing in the forthcoming weeks the new works which would premiere during the festival.

The 5th DDD had programmed over 20 national and international shows which would be presented in the cities of Porto, Matosinhos, Gaia, Coimbra and Viana do Castelo. The programming also included performances in public spaces, a Programmers’ Week and a vast number of parallel activities such as workshops, conferences and parties.

The organisers of the festival will do their best – along with the artists and companies involved – to ensure that the activities of 2020 will be rescheduled in the near future, particularly during the DDD 2021.

Thus, the organisers of the festival are deeply committed to honouring, to the maximum extent possible, the contractually assumed commitments and costs actually spent to date by the companies and artists which were affected by the cancellation.

The DDD will be back in 2021, between April 15 and May 2.