The Bratislava in Movement Festival was established in 1997 and shaped by a community of dancers and teachers from the Contemporary Dance Association founded in 1996. The aim of the association was to organize activities for the dance community and encompassed three areas: education, presentation of contemporary dance and its reflection. The association had the vision to create a centre – a venue in Bratislava – for the presentation and development of contemporary dance. Later ambitions included the creation of an information centre and establishing and maintaining international ties. In a sense, the festival drew upon the tradition of presenting high-quality French contemporary dance that had been started by the first director of the French Institute in Bratislava, Luc Bouiniol Laffont. On his initiative various projects were held here for the period of three years, aimed at promoting contemporary work including a festival entitled Bratislava en Movement. It was only natural that we wanted to build on what had been successfully launched in previous years and with great respect and with the approval of the Institute, we took over the organization of the festival.

In 2000 the festival detached itself from the activities of the Contemporary Dance Association and its organization was taken over by the newly established Bratislava in Movement Association. After the first three years, Miroslava Kovářová became the director of the festival and she remains at this post to this day. The personal background of the festival today consists of six people, the artistic and executive director (Miroslava Kovářová), executive manager (Katarína Figula), PR Manager (Dana Freyerová), graphic designer (Oleg Fintora), technical consultant (Juraj Ridl) and accountant (Ľubica Roháriková).