This enduringly popular event has become an unmissable cultural and heritage fixture for artists and the Caribbean public.

This year's edition brought together professional and amateur dancers around a wide variety of dance workshops, music and a common theme: the gathering of Caribbean dance traditions in one place.

In his desire to make the Stage Intensif de Danses a true laboratory, a place for exchanging practices and knowledge about traditional and contemporary Caribbean dance, Robert Regina, dancer, Bèlè teacher and creator of the project, organised for the first time a Residency for choreographers and dancers from 15 to 20 August. This year also saw the launch of a series of conferences on the promotion and transmission of the intangible cultural heritage of Martinique and the Caribbean, with a particular focus on Bèlè, a singular form of artistic expression that occupies an important role in Martinique. 

Bèlè means "beautiful air" in Martinique Creole, and is a practice that combines song, music, dance and storytelling. It emerged on the island after the abolition of slavery and is today considered as a legacy, a manifestation of the emancipation of the Martinicans at the time.  This is an important cultural heritage for Martinique, and the future projects at the Maison du Bèlè in Sainte-Marie dealing with "Cultural and intangible heritage and creation" are proof of this.