Billingham International Folklore Festival of World Dance (BIFF) since its foundation in 1965 has welcomed 20,000 performers from 95 different countries. BIFF is a unique multicultural event celebrating World Dance in all its variety and its fusion with other art forms and sport.
During each festival, Billingham transforms into a kaleidoscope of colour, joie de vivre & friendship. Billingham becomes a “meeting place” for world cultures, showcasing the diversity & richness of the world through traditional & contemporary cultures in the forms of dance, music, songs, costumes & crafts. These are incorporated into various performances, parades, exhibitions and workshops. Each festival presents over 300 international performers from around the world.
Every year we receive hundreds of applications from traditional dance companies around the globe, from which we select 8 to appear in Billingham.
Billingham Festival is not only about performances and workshops. Two weeks prior and during the festival, Billingham turns into a unique centre for international creative collaboration between choreographers and performers, informing and sharing their practice, creating new work around the annual festival theme and collaborating on a flagship festival performance.
Originally launched in 1965 by Stockton Borough Council and Philip Conroy, Billingham is a haven of colour and culture for a week-long Festival in the Summer to celebrate Billingham International Folklore Festival of World Dance.
Philip Conroy was a Head Teacher who had a passion for Irish Dance and performed one Saturday in the 1960s in Billingham Town Centre. At the end of this show Mr Conroy mentioned to councillors present that he had just returned from the continent from a week-long folklore festival and remarked that Billingham would be an ideal setting for such a festival, so was the Billingham Festival born in 1965.
Since the beginning in 1965 only Austria, Estonia and Hungary were represented. Now in its 55th year, the festival hosts around 20,000 performers from more than 90 countries. The festival has extended its content to include dance in all its variety, from traditional to contemporary, and in later years to include fusion of dance, arts & sports.
Joe Maloney, who became the Festival Director in 1998, a role he cherished and took immense pleasure in doing, together with his wife Olga Maloney, over the last 20 years made a huge contribution to the festival development, introducing new, contemporary identity to the festival in 2011. Joe sadly died in December 2018, but his legacy will stay with the festival forever.
Billingham Festival is proud to be one of the founding members of the International Organisation CIOFF®, and to have Olga Maloney, Billingham Festival Artistic Director as CIOFF® Secretary-General.
Our Opportunities
We are looking for people to gather valuable memories and stories by talking to local residents about the Billingham International Folklore Festival of World Dance, which is celebrating its 60th Anniversary.