Advocating for Dance

EDN members gathered in Turin for the network’s annual General Assembly & Think-in consultation, hosted by Lavanderia a Vapore on 3 & 4 June 2025, in Collegno, Italy.

This gathering served as a dynamic space for exchange, advocacy, and artistic reflection, bringing together EDN members and other guests to discuss new forms of governance, accessibility, and translation of embodied knowledge.

Challenges, New Practices, and Future Directions

EDN's Think-in consultation captures how the European dance sector is reimagining itself in 2025, highlighting its challenges, emerging practices, and policy directions.

It introduces fresh ways of framing dance as both a civic right and a form of social infrastructure, while sharing transformative models and ideas for linking dance with education, care, and community work.

The outcomes provide awareness, inspiration, and practical guidance for supporting and advocating for dance as an essential part of cultural life today.

Programme

The Think-in consultation was designed to inform the Performing Arts Coalition’s research on cultural rights, artistic freedom, and access to performing arts for audiences and creators.

It attempts to articulate the societal value of dance, the impact of embodied practice, and explore the role of mediation. Interactive case studies involved Dance Well practice, a holistic approach to mediation by Tanzhaus Zürich, guided discussions, and interviews with unexpected experts.

Together, we identified barriers and mapped concrete actions related to advocacy, mobility, infrastructure, funding, representation, and education. We aim to highlight strategies that broaden access and cultivate genuine interest in dance across communities.

How to Attend

Registrations were open to EDN member representatives until 18 March 2025.

EDN has booked and covered 2 nights of accommodation or up to 4 nights for board members, and will reimburse a travel bursary of 300€ and 2 days of per diems at 40€ per day for one representative per EDN member organisation.

Members could apply for a top-up from our Green Travel Programme to cover additional costs of their slow or low-impact travel.

To offset additional access needs, members could apply for a top-up from our Accessibility Travel Programme.

The General Assembly is co-funded by the members. The participation fee of 300€ for the representative has been invoiced to their organisation.

Keep in Touch

For any questions concerning this event, you can reach out to Christoph Bovermann at christoph[at]ednetwork.eu

This event is brought to you by Embodied Transformations, EDN’s EU-funded network project. It connects contemporary dance professionals, organisations, and communities across Europe to foster a transformative and interdependent dance ecosystem.