New approaches to community-engaged practices focused on young audiences, emerging artists, youth mental health, and wellbeing.
Responding to Real Societal Needs
The YOUNG Working Group plays a critical role in EDN’s strategic response to sector-wide demands for socially impactful, pluralistic, and accessible choreographic arts.
It focuses on developing and strengthening community-engaged approaches that position contemporary dance as transformative to youth development, mental health, and societal wellbeing.
Transformative Impact of Dance
Dance, as both an artistic and embodied practice, makes a remarkable impact on public life. It mobilises participation, deepens connection, and builds resilience across generations.
The Working Group leverages this potential by convening EDN members and partners to co-research and co-develop methods that enhance young people's cultural participation, empower community-driven artistic practices, and respond to real societal needs.
Embodying Contemporary Values
By linking practice with reflection, and local initiatives with international networks, the YOUNG Working Group articulates the role of dance in addressing cultural rights and shaping civic spaces rooted in plurality and democratic resilience. It builds capacity across the network by facilitating knowledge exchange, testing innovative models, and informing cultural policy through practice-based insights.
Long-Term Impact and Policy Influence
Over its multi-year cycle, the group will generate tangible outcomes: policy-relevant documentation, new collaborative frameworks, and expanded access to dance, ensuring that the impact of dance on society is not only articulated but embedded in the sector’s development strategies.
Meetings and Events
The working group gathers in monthly online coordination meetings and hosts yearly onsite Atelier Workshops, an ongoing Exchange Programme, a Sector Consultation (2026) and a dedicated Online Conference (2026). The meetings are open to EDN members, who are welcome to extend the invitation to their partners, colleagues and associates.
YOUNG Atelier: From Spectators to Co-Creators (2026)
The YOUNG Working Group's next Atelier, "Young People in Dance: From Spectators to Co-Creators," runs 30 November – 2 December 2026 at Le Gymnase CDCN in Roubaix, within the Forever Young festival. It explores young people as both audiences and active participants in dance, through panels, project presentations, and performances. Registration closes 30 September 2026.
Think-in Consultation (2026)
During the first edition of the Tanztriennale, the EDN Think-in brought members together to reflect on demographic shifts and mounting pressure on dance infrastructures, and what these mean for participation, programming, and dance's role with young audiences. The full report will soon be available here.
YOUNG Atelier: "Rooting Futures" (2025)
In November 2025, the YOUNG Working Group held its first onsite Atelier, "Rooting Futures," hosted by Oriente Occidente in Rovereto, Italy. Young dance professionals from beyond the network gathered to explore what it takes to build sustainable careers and communities in rural and peripheral areas. Read the full report.
The YOUNG Working Group is part of 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.