On December 16, 2000 Theater Vanemuine celebrated the centennary of Ida Erika Elizabeth Urbel, the founder of our ballet company with a magnificent gala concert. It included numbers of classical ballet and contemporary dance as well as several video reminders, for example a fragment of Ida Urbel's ballet "Paganini", danced by Ülo Vilimaa.

This is when the idea of an international dance festival was born. It was ment to be an annual meeting of choreographers and dancers to develop the dance culture in Estonia and to bring together the professionals and the young.

I.D.A festival does not concentrate on a certain style. It includes performances from classical ballet to contemporary dance as well as dance films and exhibitions.

Participants have included guests such as Matteo Moles and Co (Belgium), Francesco Scavetta and Wee (Norway), Jorma Uotinen (Finland), dancers from the Danish Royal Ballet, the National Opera of Finland, St Peterburg's Maryiinski Theater and the National Opera of Latvia. In 2003 we were delighted to see Agnes Oaks and Toomas Edur in Wayne Mcgregor's duet "2 Humans".

Estonian dance has been represented by several performances of the ballet company of Theatre Vanemuine and soloists of the National Opera of Estonia (Kaie Kõrb and Sergei Bassalajev, Maria Seletskaja and Allan Simson, Marina Tširkova and Vladimir Arhangelski). In addition there have been performances by such contemporary dance companies as "Fine Five" and S.P.A. Every year students of professional dance schools have also had a chance to perform.

Since 2004 a competition of young choreographers and dancers has been part of the festival to support the development of Estonian dance. In 2004 the scholarship was awarded to Jarmo Karing, choreographer and member of the United Dancers of Zuga, and Maarja Pärn, dancer of Hetero Studio.

The next festival is held in Tartu from November 30 till December 3rd in year 2006.