This is a really ambitious programme. One of the two artistic directors is Stuart Griffiths, chief executive of the Birmingham Hippodrome and an Oxfordshire man, hailing from Eynsham. I asked him how this impressive month of dance came about.

"There has always been a lot of dance going on in Birmingham, and of course we have the wonderful Birmingham Royal Ballet as resident company at the Hippodrome. But there's so much more around, and we thought it would be a good idea to bring it all together in a month-long festival that will really put Birmingham on the map as an international venue for dance. So dance events will also happen at the Patrick Centre, the Town Hall, the Mailbox, the Repertory Theatre, the Ikon East Side gallery space, and even in shops and in the open air."

Prestigious companies appearing include the Kirov Ballet from St Petersburg presenting a mixed bill, and also their exciting production of Don Quixote. Then there's the Cloud Gate Theatre from Taiwan who have been getting rave reviews around the world for Moon Water, an infinitely graceful, slow-moving dance piece, and a work by Britain's Akram Khan in collaboration with the National Ballet of China, with eight dancers from different cultures and dance backgrounds. The Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara is bringing a work featuring dancers on a massive square made of thousands of pieces of broken glass.

There are light-hearted programmes too, with companies like Havana Rakatan (see my review on Page 7) full of jazzy latin exuberance; flamenco dancing, top-class Indian classical dance in the Kathak style, and Bare Bones - the company of festival partner Dance Exchange - in a piece called Action.

This is just a sample of what will be going on in Birmingham over the next month - to find out more, including open air events, ballroom and tea dances, go to www.idfb.co.uk If this first festival is a success, as seems most likely, the idea is to repeat it every two years, which is good news for anyone within reach of Birmingham.