Photo credit: Adéla Vosičková
Cover photo: Adéla Vosičková
„More than ever, there is a need for critical refection that interprets the work of artists today in its social and cultural context; more than ever, the world needs a diferentiation of points of view, raising awareness of the existing paradoxes and contradictions, a diferent view of reality. Artists can help us read the world, decipher its complexity. One of the means at their disposal is to make use of dramaturgy in all the diferent forms that it can take.”
– Marianne Van KerkhovenMicro and Macro Dramaturgies in Dance (MMDD) is a three-year-long European research and training project, that brought together six leading contemporary dance organisations: Anghiari Dance Hub and Marche Teatro from Italy, Bora Bora Dance and Visual Theater from Denmark, Dance House Lemesos from Cyprus, DansBrabant from the Netherlands and Tanec Praha from the Czech Republic to explore and develop through exchange and collaboration dance dramaturgy as a creative and socially conscious practice. Initiated by Gerarda Ventura and Guy Cools, the project has been developed and collaboratively led by the partner organisations, coordinated by Tanec Praha and curated by dramaturgs Maja Hriešik, Katalin Trencsényi, Anne-Marije van den Bersselaar and Guy Cools with dancer, choreographer and curator, Alexis Vassiliou. The curators were responsible for planning, developing and facilitating the programme in close collaboration with the artistic directors of each venue.
The aim of the project was to develop skills in micro dramaturgy which is the temporal-spatial composition of the actual performance and strategies that inform the creative process. At the same time, it also focussed on macro dramaturgy, that is to say how the artists relate to the society within which they operate and how dramaturgical strategies and methodologies can be transferable outside the domain of dance. The project’s longer-term objective was to develop contemporary dance and dramaturgy as critical tools to respond to and work with local communities and enable social cohesion.
The project provided an opportunity for dramaturgs and choreographers working in these fve countries (the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands) for professional development and exchange. This was ofered in the form of workshops, seminars, and collaborative explorations with support from leading professionals, within the framework of two, ten-day residencies organised each year (one in the spring and one in the autumn). The residencies also provided opportunities for the artists to engage with the local scene of the hosting organisation as well as the wider public to participate. The project concluded with a two-day-long presentation in Prague to share the fndings with the general public and encourage further thinking about and developing the feld together.
Participating artists:
Petros Konnaris (CY)
Konstantina Skalionta (CY)
Evagoras Vanezis (CY) Rodia Vomvolou (CY)
Miřenka Čechová (CZ)
Tereza Krčálová (CZ) Tereza Lenerová (CZ) Markéta Vacovská (CZ)
Adriano Wilfert Jensen (DK) Mirko Guido (DK)
Ida-Elisabeth Larsen (DK) Naya Moll Olsen (DK)
Francesco Cocco (IT)
Fabritia D’Intino (IT) Salvo Lombardo (IT) Margherita Scalise (IT)
Evangelos Biskas (NL) Elisabeth Borgermans (NL) Nikita Maheswhary (NL) Elena Tzanavalou (NL)
Guy Cools (B) Maja Hriešik (SK) Katalin Trencsényi (UK) Anne-Marije van den Bersselaar (NL) Alexis Vassiliou (CY)
Anghiari Dance Hub (IT) Bora Bora (DK) Dance House Lemesos (CY) DansBrabant (NL) Marche Teatro Polverigi (IT) Tanec Praha (CZ) – Project Coordinator
28 – 30 October 2019
Project kick-of meeting (partner organisations and curators) Limassol, Cyprus Hosted by Dance House Lemesos
5 – 6 February 2020
Curators and project coordinator’s meeting Prague, Czech Republic Hosted by Tanec Praha
Illustration: Jeroen de Leijer
18 – 20 October 2020
Pandemic Dramaturgies & Project Management
Online symposium
Hosted by DansBrabant
22 – 30 March 2021
Weaving together the self, the performance, the community MMDD Italian residency (online) Hosted by Anghiari Dance Hub and Marche Teatro Polverigi
23 October – 3 November 2021
“Being There” – the Environment of Care
MMDD Tilburg residency Hosted by DansBrabant
21 – 30 March 2022
Disturbing Patterns
MMDD Aarhus residency Hosted by Bora Bora
5th – 12th September 2022
MMDD Prague residency
Hosted by Tanec Praha
15 – 16 September 2022
Performing Dramaturgies – shared thinking about dramaturgies in dance
The project closing public event Hosted by Tanec Praha in PONEC – dance venue and Krenovka Art Centre, Prague
Photo credit: Nela Wojaczková
18 – 20 October 2020
Hosted by DansBrabant
Online technology manager: Petra Hanzlíková
Curated by Heleen Volmann and Katalin Trencsényi
In this bizarre period of Covid-19, everyone had to reinvent themselves. Sharing experiences, insights and solutions could help. The overarching theme of our MMDD project, the relationship between micro and macro dramaturgy seemed to be more relevant than ever at this time. In April 2020 because of the pandemic, we had to postpone until further notice a 10-day residency, involving the meeting and exchange of fve European mid-career choreographers and fve dramaturgs in Anghiari and Polverigi. Similarly, our planned second residency, hosted by DansBrabant in Tilburg in the autumn could not take place. As an alternative to all the gatherings that had not been possible this year because of Covid-19, our project partner DansBrabant organised an online symposium.
When organising this event, we were looking for a rhythm in which the online meetings could be most efective. How long can you stay focussed on Zoom? What will hold your attention? How long can you stay chained to a chair? How do you remain curious and alert? How do you build an arc of tension and what gives satisfaction? The programme turned out to be a dramaturgical exercise in itself.
Illustration: Jeroen de Leijer
MMDD Italian residency (online)
Hosted by Anghiari Dance Hub and Marche Teatro Polverigi Online technology manager: Petra Hanzlíková
Curated and facilitated by Guy Cools and Katalin Trencsényi
The words ‘text’ and ‘textile’ have the same root: something that is woven. Weaving is both a concrete, tactile craft in which our hands engage with material threads and a powerful metaphor for any process, both physical and mental, of bringing together distinct elements in meaningful patterns.
As such it works both on the level of the micro dramaturgy: “the organisation of the actions of the performance” (Eugenio Barba) and the macro dramaturgy of how to bring together the community and “to help us read the world and to decipher its complexities” (Marianne Van Kerkhoven).
The theme for the Italian residency, therefore, was Weaving together the self, the performance, and the community. The (inter)weaving served not only as a metaphor for dramaturgy (bringing together distinct elements in meaningful patterns) but also as an actual artisanal activity relevant to the history and culture of our residency host towns. Furthermore, the theme of (inter)weaving served as a means of connection between the spring residency and the autumn residency host towns, since both Anghiari and Tilburg are traditionally renowned for their textile industries.
In this residency, a group of choreographers and dramaturgs came together to develop and exchange dramaturgical skills. Since at the time the Covid-19 travel and assembly restrictions were still in place worldwide, the partners and the curators decided to hold the residency in a hybrid (live and online) format. The computer screen was functioning as a digital buchetta della danza – reminiscent of the buchetta del vino (wine portals), typical of Tuscany in the 17th century, through which restaurants could distribute food and wine safely during the plague, and in this way continued to nourish their community.
Photo credit: Francesco Dejaco
23 October – 3 November 2021
MMDD Tilburg residency Hosted by DansBrabant Curated and facilitated by Maja Hriešik, co-curator: Anne-Marije van den Bersselaar
The second dance dramaturgy intensive celebrated live meeting.
The phrase “Being There” underlines the beauty and importance of personal encounters in the creation of an artwork and is equivalent to a state of heightened attention. After a period of distancing and exploring hybrid formats in art, the second part of the 2021 dance dramaturgy intensive celebrates a live meeting taking place in DansBrabant, Tilburg. It revolves around the chemistry of close exchange among the artists, of blending diferent procedures and perspectives. The aim is to share, test, but also question familiar dramaturgical knowledge together in order to tackle the future urgent places for dance art.
“Being There” is also the theme and title of a research project and manifestation in the city of Tilburg, initiated by DansBrabant. In a long-term collaboration with partners and diverse experts such as the city’s architect, “Being There” explores how dance can make the fabric of the city or its ruptures, visible and traceable. As the development and (social) design of the city are strongly connected to its textile history, its blueprint becomes another important element of the intensive. The fabric of the city of Tilburg, its public and social spaces, are not just workspaces for choreographers and dancers, but also a playground for their ideas and sensitivity.
Dance dramaturgy can be seen as a tool for arousing curiosity and awareness, a means to express care for the context, circumstances, pre-histories or other partners in artistic dialogue – which are all preconditions of creating dance art relevant to the given time and place. The crisis has shown the importance of networks and interconnectedness among agents, a need for creating wellfunctioning larger ecosystems. Being an interwoven practice of dance in society, let’s imagine dance dramaturgy as a creator of an ecological environment rather than merely a means for producing and consuming production.
Photo credit: William van der Voort
MMDD Aarhus residency
Hosted by Bora Bora, Curated and facilitated by Katalin Trencsényi and Alexis Vassiliou
The next residency, the third in the programme and the frst for the new cohort of artists, marked the beginning of the second round of the MMDD project.
The chosen theme of the Aarhus residency was disturbing patterns, which also aimed to disturb the established patterns of the programme in many ways. Having had two MMDD intensives that were idealising dramaturgy (weaving the fabric of society, bringing people together), we wanted to explore the more uncomfortable, questioning, disturbing, or even political side of dance dramaturgy. The theme also resonated with those socially conscious, innovative methods that are used at Bora Bora, as summarised by their then artistic director, Jesper de Neergaard: “facing our worries and arming our resistance and creativity at the same time”. Dramaturgy is often defned as the recognition of patterns and the creation of meaning through them. When creating the ‘texture’ of a performance, we look at occurrences, recognise patterns, movements and correlations, and arrange the constituents of the performance into a composition, a dynamic form. Yet, relying on patterns can make us complacent, since, as dramaturg Ruth Little argues, “all growth or evolution is only possible when something changes or is disturbed”. Bearing these in mind, the theme, disturbing patterns, ofered two interpretations:
• ●Bringing awareness to existing patterns in our thinking as well as in society etc. that trouble us, that we fnd problematic. Either because they are no longer acceptable, or because they have been used repeatedly for so long that by now, they have lost their meaning and become empty patterns that no longer lead to anything fruitful in a historical moment that screams for critical thinking and reformation.
• Disrupting, changing, and disengaging with existing patterns of our working process: refecting on emotions, thinking processes, actions, methods, communication, and engagement with others on an individual and an institutional level.
The residency set out to respond to both sets of questions. During the Aarhus residency, we explored the many possible layers of interpretation of the theme, disturbing patterns ofered us: dramaturgically, politically, environmentally etc. We examined it on a personal level (relating it to our thinking and practice), on an institutional level, and on a societal level. Furthermore, we decided to ‘disturb’ our thinking about contemporary dance by opening it up to interdisciplinary encounters and widening the sphere of explorations to new felds.
Photo credit: Lars Kjaer Dideriksen
5th - 12 September 2022
MMDD Prague residency
Hosted by Tanec Praha Curated and facilitated by Maja Hriešik, co-curator: Alexis Vassiliou
After the frst part of the intensive revolving around disturbing the existing patterns, an entry point into the art of dance dramaturgy for the Prague intensive was attentiveness. On a macro level, art comes about frst at the intersection between the self and the world. Galvanised by very personal interests or attempts to fnd answers to disquieting questions of the day, where the artist places their attention can make all the diference. It can shift the general focus or even uncover blind spots. Freedom and playfulness are never too far from great responsibility.
On a micro level, art experience is born when an artwork encounters its spectator. Dramaturgy therefore could be seen as a tool of playful interaction between the artist and the spectator’s attention. The artwork has a horizon that requires specifc positioning on the part of the spectator. Perception presupposes movement, literally the movement of the eye and other parts of the body – classicists would add of course the soul. Hence the obvious relation to dance but also to the question of whether dance stirs the attention in a particular way. And how about contemporary urban life or the multiple crises fashing on the backdrop of our days – are they changing our ability to perceive art?
Hosted by the PONEC dance venue in Prague and in dialogue with the local art community a diverse group of dance creators will put the attention on their own strategies in relation to economic, political or ecological zero hour. With intention to build endurance and the ability to reshape for the sake of preserving the horizon of their work despite simultaneously disrupting realities.
Photo credit: Adéla Vosičková
The project’s fnal event: open to the public. Hosted by Tanec Praha in PONEC – dance venue and Krenovka Art Centre, Prague Curated by: Alexis Vassiliou, Maja Hriešik and Yvona Kreuzmannová
In September 2022, all the participants of the intensive residencies of the past two years, from the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, and Cyprus, gathered in Prague. Together with the curators of the project, they spent two days exchanging, discussing and developing the research that was made by these two diferent groups of artists (the cohorts of 2021 and 2022). The fndings, the experiences and the new questions were shared with the wider dance community and with everyone who was interested in the topic of dance dramaturgy and wanted to join us in a collaborative exchange, thinking and embodying the process of envisaging micro and macro dramaturgies in dance.
Photo credit: Nela Wojaczková
During the 2016/2017 season, Guy Cools held seminars on dramaturgy in Prague. It followed naturally that shortly afterwards, we were contemplating how to share the extensive experience from the meetings with this brilliant dramaturg. Guy led similar workshops in the Italian town of Anghiari, Tilburg in the Netherlands and Limassol in Cyprus; in other words, in the places where the professional dance community succeeds in appreciating dramaturgical thinking and generally is aware of the importance of the dramaturg’s work.
In a series of informal debates, we opened up the topic of dance dramaturgy with colleagues from the Aerowaves platform and the European Dancehouse Network (EDN). These debates only confrmed that dance dramaturgy is still an emerging or side-lined feld, ofering only minimal possibilities for institutional education and best practice sharing. The profession in many countries lacks fundamental awareness of dance dramaturgy.
What is the crucial diference between dramaturgy in theatre and in dance? What particularities occur in dance in comparison with drama and theatre? Drama uses words as its main means of expression, while dance conveys its message through the body – doesn’t it make a key diference for the dramaturg and their work? Is the trend of speech being frequently used in dance productions the consequence of the work of the theatre dramaturgs and their infuence? Or it is a simple need to transcend the boundaries of the genre and accept the openness of dance towards other arts?
Where do we encounter the terms micro and macro dramaturgy? Does the artist perceive all aspects of the creative process with the same intensity? What is the role of the local context in the artists’ work? Do artists pursue the dramaturgical line of their work, is it more about intuition or purpose? Authors and artists choose from so many possibilities and attitudes. Who helps them to make this choice?
Jump ahead four years, and it is September 2022, the last MMDD intensive workshop and the project closing events are already over. It was a challenge to choose a comprehensive subtitle for the last public gathering of all project participants. We eventually settled on Shared thinking about dramaturgy in dance which I believe is very apt – let us not expect hard data, dogmas and manuals. With mutual respect and not necessarily always with a consensual ending, we have opened up the space to an endless series of thoughts and sharing of various attitudes, methods and opinions. Dramaturgy is a vivid topic, actually, we are still at the very beginning of exploring it. We keep asking more questions than we are answering. Furthermore, the countries we are comparing have such diferent conditions for artistic creations.
Photo credit: Alice Koubova
What do I think about such a debate as an artistic director after years of leading the TANEC PRAHA Festival and the venue? The biggest surprise for me was the topic shared by the artists in Tilburg. Their thoughts were concerned with their feelings about who has that decisive ‘power’. I did not completely understand what they meant. Is it true that the role of one person is more important than somebody else’s? What will happen to artistic directors if they do not manage to ofer an interesting programme to the audience? What will happen to the artist without the audience? We pursue the same goal and, logically, we are partners, fellows pulling together to ofer to the public the most attractive programme possible. This is also how I think about our relationship. However, attractive does not always mean ‘easy to digest’. Artists are invited to present values shared by both parties, the artists as well as the producing venue. The simple fact that I think about the audience does not necessarily mean that I pander to the people or even adapt to the mainstream taste. This is what we discuss with the creators. As a producer-curator, I always have to take into consideration the public, their experience, general knowledge and degree of curiosity, regardless of whether I am setting up the programme for our theatre or our festival. I endeavour to refect on the local context and dare to provoke and open up new perspectives and horizons. At the same time, I strive to bring the context of the presented work to the audience, because the background might be considerably diferent, and it is always good to try to understand it. Many practical aspects come into play later on: time, space, money… It is a never-ending debate, not only with the local artists but with colleagues across continents, too. This brings me back to what I mentioned at a discussion in Prague after years of advocating art and activism in a post-communist country. The support of culture, not only in the Czech Republic but in a vast majority of European countries, is product-oriented. It counts the output, activities and other measurable and comparable values that ft into statistics. However, these fgures do not tell us anything about quality, which cannot be reached by an accumulation of productions. Quality emerges when we dive deep into the creative process and set the right conditions for it. My vision for the future is a process-based cultural policy. Utopian it might sound, but it will be substantiated. This policy allows the artist to have room for research, work with various communities, and time for trial and error and search. The artist should have some ‘room for failure’ as one artist at the Aarhus residency aptly put it.
Opposing this attitude, there is the pressure on achieving a concrete outcome here and now, clear deadlines, planning, PR and various necessary restraints originating from the reality of our society. Yet, for me, the premiere is not the fnal product, it is only the frst step towards further maturation…
The system of cultural sustenance is one of the main themes for the future, too. The pursuit of economic growth might be the wrong choice for art. We are living in times when ‘no growth’ theories are holding more sway.
Now, it is time to mention the underlying part of the experience of the MMDD project: the pandemic. All the struggles and obstacles have eventually made us stronger in some ways. Dance showed remarkable resilience and fexibility, and I dare say even growing in importance for our society. Dance became relevant not only for the artistic experience it can ofer but also for the community work of artists and the spreading of participatory methods involving the public in artistic projects. Last but not least, art can help overcome the trauma of the challenging COVID-era, which I hope will soon be behind us – although another trauma followed hot on its heels, a war-related one this time…
These are the challenges we are facing. How not to linger in our bubbles, how to leave our comfort zone, step out of the line and try something new?
The Czech Republic grants Cena Ď – a Thank You Award to patrons. I would like to express my Ď – big thanks to all of you who have walked this arduous journey with us. The curators frst, the participating partner organisation and their teams, and obviously all the artists who have forged such strong bonds that I do not have even the slightest doubt about the legacy of the project at all. We have stirred up the topic of dramaturgy in dance and it lives on.
Yvona Kreuzmannova founder and director Tanec Praha (Translated from Czech by Kateřina Vorlická)
Photo credits: Vojtech Brnicky, Francesco Delaco
PHOTO JOURNAL
Photo credits: William van der Voort
Photo credits: Kjaer Dideriksen, Marketa Perroud, Katalin Trencsényi, Alexis Vassiliou
Photo credits: Alice Koubova, Adéla Vosičková
Photo credits: Alice Koubova, Kata Trencsényi, Adéla Vosičková
Anne-Marije van den Bersselaar (1984, Netherlands) works as an independent dramaturg and in art education as theory teacher, coordinator and programme designer and recently as education innovator at the Master Institute of Visual Cultures at Avans University of Applied Sciences (www.thecurrent.is). Anne-Marije worked as production dramaturg for twelve years for several choreographers like Mor Shani, Joost Vrouenraets, Kristel van Issum and Sagi Gross. In 2015 she founded the Concept Store for Artistic Strategies (www.motionterritory.com) to expand dramaturgy practice towards process and research facilitation. Anne-Marije has been teaching art theory, philosophy and dramaturgy at Fontys Dance Academy for over seven years. There, she also took part in an Erasmus+ Project “Inclusive Dance. The Transferable Skills of the Dance Artist” as researcher and content creator for a digital platform (2017, www.inclusivedance.eu). Aligned, she was one of four co-designers of the master “Performing Public Space” at Fontys University of Fine and performance art (2017).
Evangelos Biskas (GR) is a freelance dance artist working as a choreographer, performer, dramaturg and teacher based in Tilburg (NL). He graduated from the choreography department of Fontys School of Fine and Performing Arts (FHK) and received the ‘Moving Forward-Young Dance Makers Award 2016’. In 2017 he started a talent development trajectory called PLAN (2017 – 2020) through the scope of DansBrabant (NL). He later joined Corpo Máquina Society (NL) as a maker (2020 – present). His choreographic work has been invited to theatre venues and festivals such as Festival Ardanthé (2016), Moving Futures Festival (2018 & 2022), Theaterfestival Boulevard (2021) and Dutch Dance Days (2022). Evangelos has made international appearances as a performer in the works of Guilherme Miotto, Charlotte Goesaert and Katja Heitmann among others. As a dramaturg, he has been working with Bill and Fred Productions (2021– present). Evangelos has been a guest teacher and mentor at Fontys Dance Academy (2018 – present) and the Academy of Circus and Performance Art (2022).
Photo credit: Annemee Dik
Photo credit: Circusography
Miřenka Čechová is a Czech director, choreographer, performer and writer. She is co-founder and house director of two theatre companies: Spitfre Company and Tantehorse, and also works as an independent director or dramaturg. She is a PhD holder at the Academy of Performing Arts and a Fulbright scholarship recipient. She received her frst recognition for her dance solos about transgender and identity (and was awarded the Best of the Contemporary Dance 2012 by the Washington Post and the Herald Angel Award at EdFringe). Miřenka specialises in the transformation of personal stories and documentary material with the help of multimedia to theatrical works both as a performer/ writer and as a director. She also curates the ongoing series, Emergency Dances that consider dance creation as an activist practice and helps others to tell their stories of pain through dance pieces. Miřenka puts in her performance an emphasis on a close blend of sound design, flm, objects and body.
Francesco Cocco is a set and performance designer and dance dramaturg. He is particularly interested in mechanisms of dramaturgical creation that are partially allowed to reveal themselves onstage. He graduated in visual and performing arts at IUAV University and a master’s in Set Design at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts.
Francesco designed the set for the operas: Il matrimonio segreto by D. Cimarosa (2016, Dutch National Opera), Gina by F. Cilea (2017, Fondazione Teatro la Fenice), Il sogno di Scipione by W.A. Mozart (2019, Fondazione Teatro la Fenice). He worked on research projects of performance design in collaboration with Elena Zamparutti exploring visual playfulness, audience participation and fragmented open dramaturgy ( Push, Push Baby! at Prague Quadrennial 2019. Walk! with Terrafne, Trieste 2020. Interspace Walking with DanceWell at Fabbrica Alta, Schio 2021). Francesco developed an interest in dance dramaturgy collaborating as a dramaturg with choreographers Matteo Carvone, Silvia Galletti, Andrea Scarfì and with the DanceWell project. He was invited to open the Venere in teatro dance festival 2022 with the performance A chi si perde
Photo credit: Mi ř enka Č echova
Photo credit: Mattia Caracciolo
Guy Cools is a Belgian dance dramaturg, currently living in Vienna. He has worked as a dance critic and dance curator. He curated from 1990 till 2002, the dance program of Arts Centre Vooruit in Ghent, Belgium. As a production dramaturg, he worked amongst others with Jean Abreu (UK), Koen Augustijnen (BE), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (BE), Danièle Desnoyers (CA), Alexander Gottfarb (AT), Lia Haraki (CY), Akram Khan (UK) and Arno Schuitemaker (NL). As a dramaturgical mentor, he has been mentoring Anghiari Dance Hub; the Biennale Dance College in Venice and the Atlas program of Impulstanz in Vienna. His most recent publications include In-between Dance Cultures: on the migratory artistic identity of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Akram Khan (2015); Imaginative Bodies, dialogues in performance practices (2016); The Choreopolitics of Alain Platel’s les ballets C de la B, co-edited with Christel Stalpaert and Hildegard De Vuyst (2019) and Performing Mourning. Laments in Contemporary Art. (2021)
Fabritia D’Intino (ITA, 1986) graduated with a BA at Accademia Nazionale di Danza (Rome) and ArtEZ (Arnhem, NL) and she completed a master’s degree in Performing Arts (MAP_PA) in Rome. From 2013 to 2019 she has been the artistic coordinator of Barcelona International Dance Exchange (BIDE), curating activities in Europe and America. Her activity includes stage performances, public space interventions, participatory projects and research formats. She works mainly in collaboration with other artists. Fabritia’s work has been awarded national prizes (Ingenerazione, Tu35Expanded) and it had been presented in diferent international contexts including Théâtre De La Ville, Sadler’s Wells, Festival Le Grand Bain, Dance City UK, Festival OFF d’Avignon, Sismograf Olot, Mons arts de la scène, Teatri di Vetro, Festival Ammutinamenti, Danza Urbana, Young Jazz, Centro Pecci. As a dancer, Fabritia collaborates with diferent choreographers and visual artists. Since 2018 she is part of ci.e Catsandsnails (France) and Chiasma (Rome).
Photo credit: Daniele Mattioli
Photo credit: Pawel Wyszomirski
Mirko Guido (b. Italy) is a choreographer and dancer. He holds a master’s degree in New Performative Practices from Stockholm University of the Arts. His choreographic works have been performed in several venues across Europe and, as a dancer, he has been a member of various dance companies in Germany and later on of the Cullberg Ballet in Sweden. In his work, Mirko explores questions of intersubjectivity and the body/self as a multilayered, multidirectional and relational subject. Often intrigued by themes of transition and change, he moves between theatre, art galleries and public spaces, and by employing dance, voice, text, video and participatory methods, his work crystallises in very diferent performances.
Mirko is currently based in Aarhus, Denmark, and he is an in-house artist at Bora Bora – Dance and Visual Theater.
Maja Hriešik was born in Novi Sad, ex-Yugoslavia, and has been living in Slovakia since the late 90s, where she completed MA studies in aesthetics, theatre directing and dramaturgy. She works in the feld of dramaturgy in diverse felds (dance, opera, flm), and oscillates between art and activism, theory and practice. She has worked as an editor of the dance magazine Salto (2006 – 2011), curated international theatre festivals, and hosted a programme on public space and activism on Slovak public radio. As a production dramaturg, she has been collaborating with Slovak and Czech choreographers of diferent generations. Maja published a book of essays entitled On Corporeal Dramaturgies in Contemporary Dance (2013) and is a lecturer at the Dance Faculty in Bratislava (courses of dance dramaturgy, history and aesthetics of dance). She is one of the founding members of PlaST – Contemporary Dance Platform, a community-based project, aiming at creating better conditions and visibility for Slovak contemporary dance.
Photo credit: Jens Sethzman
Photo credit: Michal Liner
Petros Konnaris (Nicosia, 1988) is a performance practitioner working between the felds of live art, participatory art, and dance, and the artistic director of Dance House Lefkosia. His artistic practice manifests in the form of durational happenings, 1 – 1 (one-with-one) performances, public interventions, performance scores, and process-based artefacts. Konnaris’ research focuses on the embodiment of care, the materiality of words, the audience as a witness, and feminist and queer discourse. His work has been part of festivals, exhibitions, and research programs in Cyprus (Open House Festival 2021, Bufer Fringe Festival 2019), Finland (The Posture of Impermanence 2021, New Performance Turku Festival 2016), Greece (Thessaloniki Queer Art Festival 2019), Spain (La Casa del Herrero 2017), and Thailand (Asiatopia Festival 2016). Konnaris holds an MA in Live Arts and Performance Studies from UniArts Helsinki and has published texts in books ( Performing Silence /2022, Figures of Speech/2018) and art reviews (Zoned out/2016).
Tereza Krčálová studied Bohemian and Russian Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, Prague. During her studies, she started to research new Russian theatre, which based its conception on dramaturgy. She translates Russian plays into the Czech language and develops the verbatim method. In 2015, she collaborated with choreographer Michal Záhora on the project Be spectACTive. In 2019 she joined his and Honza Malík’s new dance platform Pulsar. In cooperation, they produced two performances – Generation X and The End’s Turnabout. Tereza created the project Dance manifest (a happening about the role of the dancer in society), initiated and co-created the dance performance Absolutely unaccepted! for Prague Pride, and initiated the project dis play
She led six artistic meetings Catch the reality! and co-worked on the conception of the project Unstable, where graduates of dance got artistic and production support, and led it as a mentor.
Photo credit: Evagoras Vanezis
Photo credit: Maria Vivchar
Yvona Kreuzmannová founded and has been directing the organisation Tanec Praha (NGO) since 1991, after completing her studies at the Dance Department of the Academy of Music and a scholarship in Paris. She is the executive and artistic director running TANEC PRAHA International Dance Festival, PONEC – dance venue and the Czech Dance Platform besides many projects supported by Creative Europe, and has active membership in several EU networks. From 2006 to 2008 she worked as an advisor to the Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic and she continues to advocate for the arts as well as for the President of the Czech Centre of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). She teaches arts management at the University of Economics. In 2004 Yvona was awarded by the French President the Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite National for her outstanding contribution to the development of European cultural cooperation.
Ida-Elisabeth S. Larsen is an award-winning choreographer and a dance dramaturg currently based in Roskilde, Denmark. She gained her certifcation as a professional dancer from SEAD in 2007 and continued to supplement her education with a BA in Philosophy and Performance Design from Roskilde University. In 2020 she completed her MA in Ecology and Contemporary Performance via TeaK – University of the Arts Helsinki. The core of her artistic practice she unfolds as a co-founding member of the project Institute of Interconnected Realities. IdaElisabeth has also worked as a dramaturg in various artistic collaborations and was engaged as such in the international performance festival series Works at Work (2014 –16). IdaElisabeth tours with stage productions regularly and participates internationally in various artist residencies and exchange programs. She was also an elected member of Dansehallerne’s Research Committee from 2018 – 19.
Photo credit: Vojt e ch Brtnick y
Photo credit: Jefrey Scott
Tereza Lenerová is a Czech choreographer and performer. After graduating from the Theaterschool Amsterdam, she embarked for two months to New York in search of experiences and then started dancing for various choreographers in the Czech Republic and abroad. Lenerová often collaborates with artists from other art backgrounds under the name of Tereza Lenerová and coll. Her work has been recognized not only in the Czech Republic but also abroad. Her most striking and successful pieces were: Swish (Performance of the year 2017), Don’t Stop (selected for the Aerowaves Twenty21), and one of her last works, dis pla y, created together with Jitka Čechová, which received Czech dance platform award 2022. This year Tereza is working together with visual artist and flm director Jiri Havlicek on a new creation called Glove Concern, inspired by an abandoned glove factory in the hometown of her grandparents, which shall be premiered in autumn 2023 in PONEC Theatre Prague.
Salvo Lombardo is a multimedia artist, curator, independent researcher, and artistic director of Chiasma_Arti e Culture Contemporanee (Rome). His research moves between dance, theatre and visual arts and is positioned between theories and practices. In 2017 – 18 Salvo was an associate artist at the Oriente Occidente Festival (Rovereto). In 2019 – 21 he was co-curator of Resurface Festival (Rome) focused on decolonial and postcolonial practices. In 2020 he was one of the founding members of Ostudio (Rome). Since 2021 he has been an associate artist at Lavanderia a Vapore (Collegno, Turin) and curator of Interazioni Festival (Rome). In 2021 he realised the digital-community art project Punctum for the European network BeSpectActive! Salvo is currently an associate artist at the MilanOltre Festival. [www.salvolombardo.org]
Photo credit: Murat Durum
Photo credit: Carolina Farina
Originally from New Delhi, Nikita Maheshwary is a performance practitioner based in The Netherlands with over a decade of experience in choreography, curation, art education and research. Her art inquiries lie at the nexus of gender, culture, and identity. Through her work, she is deeply invested in telling stories of plurality, female agency, forms of marginalisation and class divide. Since 2018, also as a research fellow at THIRD, DAS Graduate School, Amsterdam, Nikita is engaged in her artistic research project Naachne-wali: The Dancing Girl. Currently, she works as an independent choreographer and teaches artistic research and dramaturgy at the Circus Academy and Dance Academy, Fontys University of Arts, Tilburg. In association with DansBrabant, she is, at present, involved in the European dance project: Performing Gender – Dancing in your shoes (2021 – 2023).
Naya Moll Olsen is a choreographer, dancer and dramaturg. She holds a BA in dance and choreography from The Danish National School of Performing Arts, where she graduated in 2017. Both as a choreographer and as a dramaturg her work is embedded in phenomenology as well as feminist critique, emerging in questions relating to the phenomenology of senses, the body and its interrelation to the outer world/nature. In her landscape performances for dance and music made site specifcally for hospices in Denmark, Naya is investigating choreography in relation to landscapes, with care as a recurring theme. Care also refers to how she works with the relation to the audience, in how she produces works, and in her leadership. As a dramaturg, Naya is working closely together with the choreographer
a part of the unfolding of a performance trilogy about the
frst with Touch (2020), then Caresses (2021).
Emilie Gregersen, and has been phenomenology of senses, Photo credit: Chirag Bhasin Photo credit: Liv RossanderJeppe H. Nissen is educated as a dramaturg from Aarhus University and has been working with the independent artists of Aarhus since 2004 in a lot of diferent roles. Among these are dramaturgy, lighting design and scenography. Jeppe has been working as a producer and dramaturg at Bora Bora since 2011 where his main subject is the development of the dance feld in Aarhus and Western Denmark. His work focuses on facilitating the meeting between artwork and audience. Within the framework of Bora Bora, Jeppe approaches this from two main angles. One is to support the independent artists, by designing operational, lightweight programmes such as the Residency programme of Bora Bora. Or by holding space for knowledge sharing as in the Contextualizing Dance programme. The other is to invent new ways for the arts to relate to the local society in meaningful ways.
Lisa Reinheimer (1985) wrote as an independent critic on creative practices and developments in Dutch dance for professional (inter)national art platforms, for festivals and institutions such as the Dutch Dance Days and European Dancehouse Network, and for and about various choreographers. She curated context programmes and discussions for festivals and theatres. Creating space, context and connection are her guiding principles. For a long time, Lisa was associated with the Domain for Art Criticism where she developed programmes to renew dance criticism. She was also a senior lecturer in Dramaturgy, Arts & Culture at the Fontys Dance Academy, where learning to think critically, developing your own voice and defning your position were important aspects of her teaching.
In 2020 Lisa delivered the State of Dutch Dance in the form of a podcast flm in keeping with her inquisitive nature. From January 2020 to October 2022, she worked as an artistic coordinator at DansBrabant, where she focused on the development of sustainable artistic practices and sought alternatives to production-driven work.
Since November 2022 Lisa is the director of Dansateliers Rotterdam.
Photo credit: Or-Emilie Yonah
Photo credit: JochemJurgens
Margherita Scalise is a theatre-maker and dramaturg from Italy. She is currently based in Brussels and works in Belgium, Italy and other places in Europe. After her bachelor’s degrees in Cultural Heritage Studies at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan) and in Theatre Directing at the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi (Milan), Margherita has been working as an assistant director and choreographer for Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez, in Brussels (2019 – present). In 2021 she took part in the studies of the International School of Theatre Anthropology, led by Eugenio Barba and Julia Varley; in 2022 she was part of a seminary on dance dramaturgy organised by Anghiari Dance Hub with Guy Cools.
Between 2015 and 2022 Margherita created 12 diferent pieces, ranging from theatre to dance and performance. She co-founded R.A.C. (Regist_A Confronto), the frst Italian trade association for theatre directors.
Konstantina Skalionta is a dance artist and performance maker based in Cyprus. Her choreographic research and work use movement to explore the narratives that emerge from the interaction between human and non-human bodies. Konstantina’s work has been presented in the UK, Cyprus and Italy, as part of exhibitions, platforms and festivals such as Larnaca Biennale, Cyprus Choreographic Platform, No_Body Festival, Summer Dance Festival, Seeking Roots Exhibition (NiMAC), UKYA Nottingham Take Over, Resolution, Swallowsfeet Festival and more. She has been a resident artist at the Dance House Lemesos (Moving the New 2020), the international centre of choreography Dance 4, NN Contemporary Gallery, Lyric Hammersmith, and Egomio Cultural Centre (Nicosia).
She is an alumna of London Contemporary Dance School (MA in Contemporary Dance) and Central School of Ballet (BA Hons in Professional Dance and Performance, Choreography Award 2011).
Photo credit: Margherita Scalise Photo credit: Artemis EvlogimenouKatalin Trencsényi is a dramaturg, theatre-maker and researcher of Hungarian origin, working in the felds of contemporary theatre, dance and performance. As a London-based dramaturg since 1998, she has worked with the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, Soho Theatre, Corali Dance Company, Deafnitely Theatre and many independent artists. She is co-founder of the Dramaturgs’ Network (2001, UK) and is now sitting on its Advisory Council. Katalin is the author of Dramaturgy in the Making (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015) and editor of Bandoneon: Working with Pina Bausch (Oberon Books, 2016). Katalin taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (visiting lecturer), as well as internationally. In 2019, she served as Drama Creative Fellow at the University of Queensland. Currently, Katalin is working as a lecturer in the Comparative Dramaturgy and Performance Research programme at the University of the Arts Helsinki.
Elena Tzanavalou (Greece, 1989) is a performing arts educator, dramaturg and performer based in Brussels. She holds a master’s degree in Drama and Performance Theory, History and Analysis from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR) and continued to supplement her education with a diploma in dance (GR). In 2019, Elena obtained a master’s degree in Cultural Studies from the Catholic University of Leuven (BE), while currently, she is receiving training in Gestalt Therapy, aspiring to expand the scope of her feld.
Elena has worked as a dramaturg, assistant director/ choreographer, production assistant and performer in multiple productions and festivals in Greece, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In addition, she has been teaching theatre and dance (Greece, Spain, Ireland/UK, Belgium) as well as movement improvisation, composition, and creative writing. Over the years Elena has collaborated with institutions such as the Kunstenfestivaldesarts (BE), DansBrabant (NL), and the National Theatre of Northern Greece, among others.
Photo credit: Lilla Khoór
Photo credit: Danai Tezapsidou
Markéta Vacovská (CZ) is a freelance dance artist working as a choreographer, performer, dramaturg and teacher based in Prague and Pilsen (CZ). She graduated from the nonverbal theatre department of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
Marketa is a long-time collaborator of Spitfre Company which is an artistic company that includes works of physical, visual and dance theatre. She has been performing and/or choreographing dozens of their productions.
Markéta was awarded many domestic and foreign awards (Herald Angel, Czech Dance Platform, Theatre Newspaper, Next Wave, nomination for Thalia Award) and her solo piece One Step Before the Fall (with Spitfre Co.) was included among Aerowave’s Priority Companies 2014. Markéta tours with productions regularly and participates internationally in artist residencies. Currently, she co-creates a DanceWell community in the Czech Republic.
Markéta perceives the human body as an endless landscape where the abstract meets the fgurative, the real meets the imaginative, and the intimate meets the performative.
Working between the felds of curation, art theory and criticism, and creative writing, Evagoras Vanezis’ practice engages with the production and contextualization of cross-disciplinary spaces and narratives. Working along and through the mediums of project, exhibition, and text, his hybrid methodology incorporates events, ecologies, fragments, footnotes, and margin notes from sources as varied as the history of aesthetics, the literature of 20th-century poetic materialism, feminist and queer theory, decoloniality, personal and collective experiences. Since 2016 Evagoras has organised various exhibitions, programs, and publishing projects in collaboration with communities, institutions, and other initiatives. Recent projects include Anachoresis: Upon Inhabiting Distances, the Cyprus Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale (co-curator, 2021), and Formworks, Thkio Ppalies Project Space (curator, 2019 – 2022).
Evagoras is currently a co-curator and fellow of A Natural Oasis?, Biennale of young artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (BJCEM, 2022 – 3). He holds an MRes in Art Theory and Philosophy from Central Saint Martins.
Photo credit: Lucie Vyslouzilova
Photo credit: Panayiotis Mina
Alexis Vassiliou (1978, Cyprus) studied dance at Trinity-Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, music at the University of East Anglia and composition of music for flms and theatre at the University of Bristol. In 2008 he received a scholarship (DanceWeb) as part of the 25th mpulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival. During 2012 and 2013 he was selected to participate (artistic residency) in two European programmes (E-motional Bodies and Cities and Act Your Age). In 2014 with his work Please Be Gentle, Alexis was selected among the fnal twenty artists of the Aerowaves network. He directed /choreographed various works that were presented at festivals locally and abroad. In 2016 Alexis was appointed as general and artistic director of Dance House Lemesos.
Rodia Vomvolou (1993, Greece) is a performing arts dramaturg and researcher based between Amsterdam and Athens. She is currently doing PhD research on the self-positioning of the dance dramaturg, under the supervision of Prof. Dr Maaike Bleeker at Utrecht University. Her personal feld of interest focuses on practical dramaturgy and the fgure of the dramaturg as well as on the feld of contemporary choreography and artistic research in the current socio-political context and knowledge economy. As a freelance dramaturg and mentor, Rodia collaborates with institutions and dance houses in Europe as well as with independent artists in the Netherlands, Greece, and Cyprus. Since 2019 she is the mentor and curator of the Artistic Development programme “Moving the New” of Dance House Lemesos. Rodia holds an MA in Contemporary Theatre, Dance and Dramaturgy (Cum laude) from Utrecht University supported by a scholarship by John S. Latsis Foundation Scholarship, and a BA in Drama and Performance Theory, History and Analysis from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Cum Laude). https://www.uu.nl/staf/TDVomvolouArsenopoulou
Photo credit: Pavlos Vryonides
Photo credit: Buba Gabedava
Wim van Stam (1959) is currently managing director of house for dance development DansBrabant in Tilburg, the Netherlands. He studied psychology and later philosophy and theatre studies in Utrecht and has been working in performing arts since: as a creative producer of small-scale festivals, a specialist in theatre for young people at the Dutch Theatre Institute, member of the jury for the Dutch-Flemish youth theatre price, business manager of the notorious dance collective Hans Hof Ensemble and as general director of venue De Regentes in The Hague.
Former dancer, and since 1989 cultural operator for the performing arts, Gerarda Ventura has worked with, among others, Fondazione Romaeuropa, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Biennale di Venezia, and the Department of Culture of the City of Rome. Gerarda was the coordinator of the Equilibrio Award, a choreographic competition organised by Fondazione Musica per Roma with the artistic direction of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. She has been working as an expert for the Regione Toscana Commission to give an annual contribution to the performing arts structures. She was a dance programmer and consultant for Teatro Stabile dell’Umbria. Since 2015 Gerarda has been the artistic director of Anghiari Dance Hub, a residency program for young choreographers.
Founder of the Danse Bassin Méditerranée (DBM) Network, Gerarda was the Secretary General of the Euro-Mediterranean Platform of the NGOs and President of CON.ME. Contemporaneo Mediterraneo network. In 2019 with Alessandro Pontremoli she published the book La danza: organizzare per creare for Franco Angeli Editore.
Adriano Wilfert Jensen works with dance and choreography to analyse and produce conditions of relations. This materialises through making, performing, writing about, curating, representing and dealing with choreography, dancing for other artists, as well as other occupations like a series of cocktail hangouts, publications, research projects, teaching and so on.
In 2017 Adriano initiated the research project analysis, which led to the group dance performances feelings, 2019 and mixed feelings, 2021. With Simon Asencio, he founded and since 2014 is running Galerie – an immaterial gallery for immaterial artworks. Together with Linda Blomqvist, Anna Gaïotti and Emma Daniel he organised Indigo Dance Festival, Magazine and Tink Thanks at Performing Arts Forum. And with Emma Daniel, he is dancing for the dinosaurs in Spending Time With Dinosaurs. Adriano studied choreography at SNDO – School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam and artistic research at a.pass – advanced performance and scenography studies in Brussels.
Photo credit: himself Photo credit: Ventura Alberto Photo credit: himselfAnghiari Dance Hub (IT)
www.anghiaridancehub.eu
Gerarda Ventura (artistic director)
Alessandra Stanghini (project manager)
Giusi Nibbi (fnancial manager)
Anghiari Dance Hub is a centre for the promotion of contemporary dance, dedicated to the deepening of the creative process of Italian choreographers and their interpreters. Each year it ofers creative residencies for new projects accompanied by thematic workshops amongst others on dance dramaturgy. It has a special focus in the MigrArti project, together with the Teatro di Anghiari, for the realisation of dance, theatre and music workshops for young immigrants living in Italy. The dance dramaturgy workshop is one of the fundamental activities of the Anghiari Dance Hub project both for the specifc aspect of the choreographic creation and for the possibility of investigating the relationship between the work and the surrounding territory.
Bora Bora (DK) www.bora-bora.dk
Jesper De Neergaard (artistic director – until June 2022)
Lotte Kofod Ludvigsen (artistic director – from August 2022)
Kasper Egelund (international producer)
Jeppe Hemdorf Nissen (producer, dramaturg) Louise Kirkegaard (head of communications)
Bora Bora - Dance and Visual Theater is based in Aarhus, Denmark. Bora Bora presents, produces, and co-produces local, national, and international contemporary dance and visual theatre. Bora Bora – Dance and Visual Theater has the status of a small metropolitan theatre and operates with a four-year grant from the Danish Arts Council and Aarhus Municipality.
The Bora Bora Residency Centre hosts around ten paid research residencies a year. “Contextualizing Dance” is an ongoing dramaturgical project in the residency centre. It seeks to disturb routines in dance productions by contextualising both the artistic process and the ‘marketing’ of the performance in the present time and geography/demography.
Bora Bora:
• Presents and co-produces dance from around the world in the ratio 1/3 local, 1/3 national and 1/3 international performances.
• Develops and runs the festivals Dans Baby Dans (for children) and Move Your Mind (for adults).
• Ofers residencies to Danish and international choreographers through the Bora Bora Residency Centre
• Is involved as presenting partner in a large number of festivals, e.g., Aarhus Festuge, Det Frie Felts Festival, SPOR, SPOT, ILT, Gender House Queer Arts Festival and Danish+.
• Is a partner in several large European networks that develop contemporary dance, including the European Dancehouse Network and Aerowaves.
• Works closely together with other theatres and dance houses in Denmark on touring opportunities, theatre policy and dance strategy.
• Contributes to the constant development of the art of dance, i.e., through the laboratory project Contextualizing Dance.
Dance House Lemesos (CY) www.dancehouse.com.cy
Alexis Vassiliou (general and artistic director)
Marina Kakoulli (project manager)
oard of Directors:
Lia Haraki (president)
Anna Charalambous (vice president)
Chloe Melidou (secretary)
Evie Demetriou (treasurer)
Dance House Lemesos’s main functions are the presentation and promotion of dance art and performance on a local and international level as well as its inclusion within the Cyprus reality through an open and accessible structure to all. Dance House Lemesos serves artistic development and choreographic growth through residence programmes, participation in European programmes, workshops, laboratories and research programmes. Dance House Lemesos also hosts every year the annual Open House Festival with local and international choreographic works. It is a space of creativity and exchange, research and practice, artistic development and innovation. It is a meeting point for local and international dancemakers. Since 2012 Dance House Lemesos established ‘Moving the New’ a residence programme that supports choreographers – emerging and more mature – in the development of new or existing ideas. Within this framework, Dance House Lemesos invites professional dramaturgs to lead intensive workshops.
Dance House Lemesos has been a partner in the European programmes: E-motional Bodies and Cities, Act Your Age and Leim. The organisation is a member of EDN and Aerowaves network.
www.dansbrabant.nl
Wim van Stam (general director)
Lisa Reinheimer (artistic coordinator)
Heleen Volman (international relations until 2022)
Leon Caarls (production manager)
Dirk Verhoeven (communication manager)
DansBrabant was founded to create space for research and development for dance artists. They back choreographers and initiate projects that focus on current trends that infuence how we relate to our bodies, a source of ever-innovative themes such as – body and technology, body between cultures, body in public space, body and gender. DansBrabant moves actively within the triangle of production, presentation and audience development and experiments with context and environment in presenting dance work. On European level, DansBrabant partners in diferent EUprojects and has lately been invited to become a member of the European Dancehouse Network. In the projects and in the artistic development of the choreographers with whom DansBrabant collaborates, dialogue with a dramaturg is of vital importance. By questioning principles, motivations, choices, assumptions and efects during the whole process of development and creation, content and form can strengthen each other, and the artists sharpen their signature as well as their communication with audiences. With Being There / Making Space, a project in which choreographers work in public space, dance connects with the environment in a fresh way of looking at each other and building new relationships.
Marche Teatro (IT) www.marchteatro.it
Velia Papa (general director)
Cristina Carlini (project manager)
Alessia Ercoli (project manager)
Monia Miecchi (fnancial manager)
Beatrice Giongo (communication manager)
Marche Teatro was founded in 2014 by consolidating the two historical experiences of Teatro Stabile delle Marche, a regional public theatre, and Inteatro Festival, devoted to contemporary performing arts and international activities.
Marche Teatro is the organiser of Inteatro, an International performing arts festival in Polverigi, established in 1977 as a place of research, innovation and exchange of best practices between artists and professionals from all around the world. It is also where the European network IETM and the mobility fund Roberto Cimetta were born.
Funded by the Italian Ministry for contemporary dance, Inteatro Festival is based in Villa Nappi, a former monastery that is fully equipped to host residencies (300 days per year) providing accommodation and per diem, rehearsal spaces, and a venue. Residencies and international cooperation are the basis of the work led by Inteatro for forty years, always looking for better ways to support emerging artists and new artistic movements.
• Institutional theatre season, presenting famous pieces and great artists from Italian and international traditions. It’s the stage for productions with resident main artists, such as Carlo Cecchi, Arturo Cirillo and Marco Baliani.
• Contemporary performing arts season, hosting national and international companies. It’s the stage for international co-productions, outcomes of residencies, EU projects, and resident contemporary artists, such as Alessandro Sciarroni and Luca Silvestrini’s Protein.
• Inteatro Festival, created in 1977 and devoted to innovative and contemporary arts, taking place in June/July in Polverigi and Ancona and presenting Italian and international artists, special projects, and international collaborations. Inteatro Festival is also where the IETM network was born in 1981.
• Cinema production with artists moving from the stage to the screen, such as Giuseppe Piccioni’s “Diary of a promenade”, presented at the Venice Film Festival 2021.
• Children and young theatre season.
• Opera season, hosted at Teatro delle Muse and organized by Fondazione delle Muse.
• Cinema season.
• Museum dedicated to performing arts masters, such as the installation by Romeo Castellucci. Marche Teatro is recognized by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage as “Theatre of signifcant cultural interest”, with Marche Region and Ancona Municipality as founder members.
Tanec Praha (CZ) www.tanecpraha.org
Yvona Kreuzmannová (executive and artistic director) Markéta Perroud (artistic co-director) Zuzana Bednarčiková (production manager) Daniela Řeháková (fnancial manager) Bára Čermák (communication manager)
Tanec Praha is one of the frst NGOs created in the Czech Republic immediately after the Velvet Revolution. Inspired by many colleagues from IETM and other European networks, Tanec Praha has defned its mission with the vision to bring contemporary dance into the country, which had been isolated for ffty years and to foster conditions for sustainable development of contemporary arts, especially dance, movement theatre and related art forms, in Central Europe. Consequently, Tanec Praha became one of the leading organisations to inspire other Visegrad countries and to develop long-term relations and cooperation across the country. Tanec Praha organises the most important dance festival in the region of Central and Eastern Europe under the label TANEC PRAHA and supports the development, creation, production and dissemination of artworks thanks to PONEC –dance venue.
With such an extensive scope of agendas, Tanec Praha provides highly professional public services to a large audience all over the country. Tanec Praha is also the organiser of the Czech Dance Platform, an event maintaining its continuity for over a quarter century. Moreover, Tanec Praha encourages artists to develop community work in diverse ways: through work in schools, with seniors, minorities and other groups with disadvantaged access to arts. A substantial part of the organisation’s activities is focused on education, lifelong learning, as well as improving management skills and practices. Thanks to the European cooperation projects, Tanec Praha can also examine peer learning and other ways of experience sharing.
Tanec Praha is a member of several EU networks, such as European Dancehouse Network, Aerowaves, and works as a partner in EU cooperative projects such as Big Pulse Dance Alliance, and Dance Well.
Follow the Micro and Macro Dramaturgies in Dance project on social media: Instagram facebook www.dancedramaturgies.eu
Micro and Macro Dramaturgies in Dance 2019 – 2022. Project closure document.
Edited by Katalin Trencsényi graphic design: Tamás Gádor MMDD - Tanec Praha, Prague, 2022
Photo credit: Adéla Vosičková
