Focus Forward Gala Focus Dance 30 år

Dance party at UKK with Uppsala’s first professional dance company celebrating 30 years of dance art at the highest level and international guest artists from, among others, the Royal Ballet!

Category & Stage	Duration	Price	Age limit
Dance Uppsala Concert & Congress, Stora salen	1 hour and 30 minutes, no break	Ordinary: SEK 350 Student/youth: SEK 150 Service fee will be added	No age limit

About the Performance

In connection with Focus Dance’s 30th anniversary, an anniversary gala is presented that highlights three decades of artistic work and the dance company’s importance for Uppsala’s cultural life – with both national and international influence.

Be swept away by the power of dance and music during a sparkling and spectacular evening at UKK, when Uppsala’s first international dance company celebrates its anniversary in its hometown.

International guest dancers on stage

The gala brings together invited guests from the Royal Swedish Ballet and international artists who have contributed to Focus Dance’s success. During the evening, golden nuggets from the company’s audience and critically acclaimed productions will be presented.

The program reflects both the breadth of the artistic work and the development of a long-term and vibrant choreographic language, created by the company’s founders Marie Larsson Sturdy and Joseph Sturdy.

Focus Dance also has a clear connection to the history and development of Uppsala Konsert & Kongress. The company has created several works with world premieres in the house, and most recently in February 2025, the audience success “Nina” was performed as a tribute to the icon Nina Simone.

The anniversary gala will be both a tribute to the past and a strong starting point for the importance of dance as a living, accessible and necessary art form in Uppsala’s cultural ecosystem.

Focus Dance – Uppsala’s first professional dance company

Focus Dance was founded in 1996 by Marie Larsson Sturdy, who was born and raised in Uppsala. She trained as a dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and has a long career as an active dancer in both Swedish and international dance companies. In connection with requests to create choreographies for, among others, Musik i Uppland’s former ensemble Omnibus Kammarblåsare in her hometown of Uppsala, work began on developing Focus Dance.

Marie has been awarded the Uppsala Municipality Medal of Honor and the Carina Ari Medal for her work as artistic director and director of operations, and in making professional dance art of high artistic quality available to a wide audience.

In 1997, the collaboration with British dancer and choreographer Joseph Sturdy began. He trained at the Royal Ballet School in London, and has a long career as a dancer with the UK’s leading ballet company, the Royal Ballet, and the Bejart Ballet in Lausanne. Joseph has choreographed more than 50 productions for Focus Dance, and is also engaged as a choreographer and ballet master nationally and internationally for the Royal Ballet and others.

Focus Dance has worked to develop meeting places for audiences of different ages and backgrounds and collaborates locally in Uppsala with venues such as Gottsunda Dans & Teater, Reginateatern and UKK.

Over three decades, these activities have created jobs for cultural operators and meeting places for audiences, locally, nationally and internationally.

Presented by Focus Dance with support from Uppsala Municipality