On the night of July 10th in 1983, an expectant audience filled the auditorium of the Sociedade
Harmonia Lyra, a building almost a century old in the center of Joinville and stage to many cultural
and artistic shows.
There, the Joinville Dance Festival was born. The beginning, in addition to being modest, was badly
affected by the dreadful floods that engulfed the state of Santa Catarina in 83 and 84.

The number of schools which enrolled for the first Festival even surprised the organizers. There were
40 schools and around 600 dance students. The Festival lasted 5 days and the public filled the
Harmonia Lyra to watch the classical, modern, jazz and folk dance performances.

Although the original idea was just to join a few groups for an interchange during the days of the Festival,
the event tuned into a regional one, being so well received by dance schools and students that it
exceeded initial projections, and all this at the very first Festival. In 1984, with the occurrence of
the II Dance Festival, all expectations were exceeded. This time, the city received around one
thousand dance students, representing 62 schools, requiring a new venue for the presentations - the Ivan Rodrigues gymnasium - and the event had to be extended to 7 days.

It was this year that the Dance Festival received recognition outside Santa Catarina - mainly due to the presentation of "The Great Mystical Circus", by the Guaíra Theater Foundation, from Curitiba. From then onwards, the event hasn't stopped growing, both in number as well as in the technical and artistic evolution
of its participants.

If the Festival has grown in participants, it has also grown in work for the event organizers. Support from
the private sector played a fundamental role in the growth and development of the event. The final step for making the event international occurred in 1995, with presentations from the Bolshoi Theater Ballet,
Moscow (Russia), on the pre-opening and opening nights, and from the Stuttgart Ballet (Germany),
and it was further extended to 13 days.

From 1997 onwards, the Festival competition nights also began to have guest dancers and groups.
This same year, the event also received a new home: the Centreventos Cau Hansen - a multi-use arena
which houses the entire administrative structure and serves as stage for the competitions and special
Festival attractions.

In 1999, the Dance Festival Institute was created giving birth to a new era in the history of the event,
which gained yet another attraction the following year, the Half Point Festival. Held at the Sociedade
Harmonia Lyra, birth place of the Joinville Festival, the first Half Point joined 19 groups and around 300 participants, including dance students, judges, choreographers and school and group directors.
In 2001, the children's group also received a new home, the Juarez Machado Theater, within the
Centreventos, the same venue which also served as the headquarters for holding the first
Contemporary Dance Exhibition, a non competitive event for professional companies.

Over the 19 years, around 73 thousand dance students and professionals have participated in the event.
The shows have been watched by more than 1 million 100 thousand people. Today, the Joinville
Dance Festival involves four thousand participants and it is the biggest competition for dance
students in Latin America, recognized not only for its size but also for its organization and technical quality.

Special guests who have graced the Festival

In its 19 years of existence, the Joinville Dance Festival has had the privilege of receiving dance companies and individual dancers of national and international renown as special guests, they include: