Communicating Dance supported young choreographers and writers and journalists in the field of contemporary dance as future leaders in the professional dance sector. It was focussed on raising the level of competence of the participants in the areas of responsibility for and participation in interdisciplinary and transnational teams, funding, communication, distribution and career planning at European level.

Core components of the project

Structured group meetings for participants were held on the context of key national dance platforms or festivals in each of the 6 partner countries involving workshops, individual activities and peer-to-peer exchange of best practices.

The meetings addressed particular aspects of communication and leadership in dance while offering opportunities to develop practical working relationships with European colleagues. Facilitation and mentoring support was provided by external advisors in the field of artistic and cultural leadership. Experiences and insight were shared via the project blog by both choreographers and writers as the core element of research and knowledge transfer during the project, stimulating critical discourse on dance.

Key outcomes

• Training of 6 young European choreographers and 6 young European writers in order to raise there awareness of the challenges of communicating dance as an art form.
• Increased awareness among participating artists and writers and staff members of different ways of communication about dance (offline as well as online), especially in terms of rethinking the use of social media channels.
• The exchange of contacts, of methodology and way to proceed between all the participants of the project, whether artists/writers or partners resulting in a strong network among the participants.
  Development of sustainable new channels and publications (e.g. DRAFF Magazine and abcdance.eu).
• Implementation of experiences and outcomes gained through this project in the residency program and the communication strategies of the partner institutions.
• A follow-up project funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the EU, that developed an online publication aiming at giving a 360º overview of strategies for communication in the field of contemporary dance.

You can visit the project's website here.

Partners & Funders

Led by K3 - Zentrum für Choreographie Hamburg (Germany), Communicating dance was realised with EDN partners: Centro per la Scena Contemporanea Bassano del Grappa (IT) and Dance Ireland Dublin (IE). Three non-EDN members were also involved:Dansateliers (Rotterdam, NL), Hrvatski institut za pokret i ples (Zagreb, HR), Le Pacifique CDC (Grenoble, FR).

The dancehouses in Rotterdam and Zagreb joined EDN in 2015.

This project was co-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union.