EDN has moved. It now stands for European Dance Development Network.
EDN has moved. It now stands for European Dance Development Network.
We travelled to Timișoara this June to attend our two-day annual network meeting, hosted by AREAL | Space for choreographic development and the Center for Projects Timișoara.
Lavanderia a Vapore hosted a 4-day exchange of artistic practices, led by disabled artists collective Al.Di.Qua in Collegno (Turin), Italy, from 22 to 25 May 2023.
Dansateliers and ICK Dans hosted an EDN Atelier connected to the Moving Futures Festival in Rotterdam and Amsterdam
The Atelier was hosted by la briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne and took place on 22 and 23 March 2023 as part of the 22nd edition of the Biennale de danse du Val-de-Marne at la briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine. Registrations were open to both EDN members and non-EDN members.
The Atelier, hosted by Dance Ireland and Dance Limerick, took place on 9 and 10 February 2023 during the What Next Dance Festival in Limerick. Registrations were open to both EDN and non-EDN members until 30 November 2022.
EDN offers its members the opportunity to visit other dancehouses; an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning, an informal insight into production and artistic processes, a new know-how and knowledge EDN members can choose to visit another dancehouse in person or to be connected with their peers online via a matchmaking process with the EDN Office.
EDN General Meeting & EDNext Activities Webinar on 26 & 27 January 2023 is an annual online meeting of the European Dancehouse Network.
EDN campaign presents concrete actions and ideas to engage the contemporary dance sector in Europe, its advocates, funders and stakeholders, in a shared movement towards a sustainable future.
EDN's annual online conference brought together artists, dance practitioners and researchers to discuss environmental sustainability in the context of contemporary dance. We invite you to watch the video recording, read short report and download the EDN research publication.
EDN and The Ice Hot Nordic Dance Platform organized a seminar on equity and dance production, taking place live at Theatre Museum, Helsinki in the context the Ice Hot Nordic Dance Platform 2022 on July 1, 2022 between 13:30-14:30 PM (Helsinki time) with live stream for online audience.
Meet your peers! EDN offers the possibility for its members to visit other dancehouses; an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning, an informal insight into production and artistic processes, a new know-how and knowledge. Register by April 27, 2022.
Between 18-21 August 2022 CSC Bassano del Grappa hosted the Carte Blanche Artist Exchange. EDN members were invited to register for participation and travel support of their associated artists, producers and programmers. Registrations were open to both EDN and non-EDN members.
EDN Think-In and General Assembly took place in Barcelona on June 28-29, 2022, hosted by Mercat de les Flors during the Grec Festival. The Think-In was also the opportunity for the members to actively contribute to EDNext’s campaign during a Research and Advocacy Meeting.
EDN Think-In and General Assembly in Barcelona was for EDN members only.
The EDN Atelier took place on July 7-8, 2022 in Dresden. Atelier was opened to EDN members and others.
The EDN Atelier was held in Athens on June 1-2, 2022, co-organised and hosted by Duncan Dance Research Center. Atelier was open to EDN members and others.
The EDN Atelier was held in Sofia on May 10-11, 2022, and it coincided with Bulgarian Dance Platform, followed by Antistatic- international contemporary dance festival (Sofia) and One Dance Week Festival (Plovdiv). The atelier was opened to EDN members and others.
EDN office and Board of Directors organized a webinar for EDN members on the theme of sustainability, taking place online on 14 January 2022.
The event took place within the Czech Dance Platform, April 24-26, 2022, in Prague, hosted by Tanec Praha. In addition to the live gathering, the event was live-streamed on April 25, 2022 at 10:30 a.m. (CET, Prague time). The event was opened to EDN members and others.
The online forum co-organized by EDN and The Place & Sadler's Wells invited artists, producers, promoters, and other dance professionals from all over Europe for online discussions.
The Atelier joined around 25 dance artists, performers, curators, programmers and professionals.
Throughout the crisis, dance houses’ communication, PR and marketing teams have been in the eye of the storm: constantly adapting, conveying cancelation and postponing messages, experimenting with live streaming and promoting online experiences… The challenges have been numerous and EDN offers a new informal and recurring online gathering for EDN members’ staff to share experiences, exchange solutions, dos and don’ts, tips and advice.
EDN members’ associated artists were invited to join the artistic research session Cellule d’Essai, at Maison de la Danse in Lyon, France.
In 2021, EDN introduces a new format in the light of the COVID-19 situation. Instead of traveling to other dancehouses, all interested in staff exchange are invited to join us on virtual journeys.
With the arrival of the new venue of 700/220 seats in Helsinki, the team at Tanssin Talo hosted a dialogue with European and international colleagues to unpack the diverse potentials and issues concerning creating and presenting dance in different contexts, economies and conditions.
Atelier organized in close co-operation between EDN, Mercat de les Flors casa de la dansa and Graner creation center for dance and live arts, in the context of Grec festival of Barcelona.
Perform Europe is funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and co-initiated by a Consortium composed of IETM - International network for contemporary performing arts, the European Festivals Association (EFA), Circostrada, EDN - European Dancehouse Network and IDEA Consult.
EDN in collaboration with Kino Šiška organized the EDN Atelier on 20th and 21st November, linked to the November online edition of the International Festival of Contemporary Dance - CoFestival, organized by Kino Šiška and Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia.
EDN joins efforts with Grand Re Union: how can we re-design our thinking and our projects, how can we - still stay creative and how can we co-imagine a new, better, future for our local and global communities and societies.
Four days of performances, dialogues, interviews, shared physical practices and conversations about dance.
An atelier organized by EDN-member Dansmakers Amsterdam, concerning the current possibilities in digital communication of and about artistic practices. The atelier connected makers in dance and other disciplines to digital professionals working with social media, digital archive and online monetisation in order to share tools and knowledge in times of need.
This activity aimed to open new forms of dialogue with artists, organisations and dance professionals based in the African continent, investigating new forms of relationship and collaboration based on ethical values, respect and sustainability.
At the beginning of March 2020 EDN and AND + worked together to implement the path started in Yokohama and to prepare a public talk, as part of the in-depth events open to the public, organized by the Tanzplattform Deutchland in Munich (Germany).
Immersed in the dense program of events, shows and meetings promoted by HOTPOT and TPAM, some EDN members, on February 13th 2020, met the members of the Asian Network for Dance + (AND+) in Yokohama.
The Atelier organised by KLAP Maison pour la danse in Marseille on January 10-11, 2020 dived into the question of audience engagement from the perspective of local neighbourhoods and social bonds.
At the occasion of the CoFestival 2019, EDN, Kino Šiška and Nomad Dance Academy (NDA) Slovenia organised discussions to investigate the place of dancehouses in the dance ecosystem and to look deeper into the Slovene dance scene.
EDN’s Encounter Brazil took place from 5th November to 9th November in Sao Paulo during the Festival Contemporaneo de Sao Paulo. Form's director Matti Numminen, one of the 5 EDN members taking part in the visit, shares his impressions.
A cooperation project focusing on developing the capacity of choreographers in dramaturgy. Micro and Macro Dramaturgies in Dance aims to develop new skills for choreographers in dramaturgy and to train a future generation of dance dramaturgs through three main areas.
The second edition of the EDN Carte Blanche for artists took place from August 20th to 26th, 2019 hosted by the CSC – Centro per la Scena Contemporanea. Twelve artists from nine Dancehouses attended B.Motion under the guidance of local mentor Eva Zilio.
In times when certain democratic processes seem in crisis, the CND and EDN thought it important to take a global look at Europe and the world so as to understand better the realities of each country in danger and conceive more exactly spaces for international solidarities. Giving a podium for artists and groups committed to struggles which are at once societal, political and intimate seems to us to be the best way to bear witness to today’s artistic realities.
For the first time, EDN offered the possibility for its members to send artists to the Moving Futures festival in Amsterdam, from May 22 to 25, 2019 as part of the Carte Blanche – Artist focus.
EDN Members were invited to discover the Baltic dance scene at the Baltic Dance Platform that was held as a part of the international contemporary dance festival “New Baltic Dance” (May 2-11). It is a combined platform among 3 countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Annette van Zwoll reports on the first Baltic Dance Platform, and on the connections with EDN.
In between the Carte Blanche - Artists Focus and the Encounter, a group of European artists went for three weeks to Montréal for an artistic exchange, following the EDN Encounter that took place two years earlier.
Those are some of the questions addressed during the Atelier hold at K3 - Zentrum für Choreographie.
Organised as part of the first edition of “Explore dance – Festival for young audiences” it gave to the participants the opportunity to watch up to seven new dance pieces for young audiences and encounter the artists, to exchange with other colleagues on short best practice presentations from different parts of Europe.
An Atelier investigating relations between ‘Dance and Craft’ organised by The Isadora & Raymond Duncan Dance Research Center, Athens.
The Atelier invited artists from the performance arts, pedagogues and cultural workers to explore, observe and experience a range of materials, techniques and methods of craft and to share and reflect on the insights that crafts can initiate through a series of workshops and lectures/performances.
Yasen Vasilev shares his thoughts on the EDN Atelier on Mobility and Freedom of Expression held in January 2019 at Trafo, Budapest.
In this atelier organised by Dansateliers (the Netherlands) participants explored strategies for dance professionals and dance institutes to remain vital and constructively critical with regards to their own practice through lectures, working sessions, dialogue, movement classes and performances.
How can we take in different perspectives on what we do, in order to remain responsive to, or pro-actively act on the ever changing world we live and work in?
Dancing Museums is an action-research project designed to foster and sustain long-term collaborations between dance organisations, museums, universities and local communities in order to develop inspiring and long-lasting arts and cultural programmes that people in those communities want to get involved in.
Taking a global perspective on civic engagement through dance, this Atelier held at CSC Bassano del Grappa provided food for thoughts and actions to shift the way we engage with audiences. Topics addressed were related to the development of long term relationships and trust, with citizens, towards contemporary dance initiatives and proposals of the dancehouses.
Empowering Dance - Developing Soft Skills is a European project that aims to research if and how the practice of contemporary dance helps people of all ages to acquire and develop soft skills.
Organised by Dance Ireland, this Atelier explored new approaches to training within the complex ecosystem of youth dance initiatives, vocational training and post graduate performance companies.
By invitation of the West Kowloon Centre, four EDN members joined the 4th edition of the Producers' Network Meeting and Forum. It provided a new occasion for EDN to connect with AND+ since the Encounter in Japan in 2017.
Hellerau - European Center for the Arts (Dresden, Germany) organised an international forum to discuss the development in contemporary dance globally. Annette van Zwoll reports on the event.
The aim of this Atelier organised by Tanec Praha was to encourage a deeper knowledge of very diverse contemporary dance scenes in Central Europe and closed post-soviet countries, the similarities and differences between them and their potential for international collaboration
By taking part in a nomadic bus trip to several locations in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria, EDN members connected with Nomad Dance Academy – Balkan network for contemporary dance and got acquained with the potentials of the region.
Taking place over two days, the event organised by EDN, Mercat de les Flors and Graner probed the relationship between dance artists and the institutions that support them. Participants were a mixture of artists, arts administrators, curators and directors from Spain and beyond.
DRAFF, living archive of performance making, reports on the Atelier.
From November 28th till December 1st an EDN Encounter took place in Montreal, Canada bringing together EDN members with their peers from the CanDance Network. The Rencontres in Montreal at L’Agora de la Danse focused on how a dance house and/or institution mediates between artists and their audiences/communities.
The Atelier organised by Dance House Lemesos focused on how to strengthen professional practice, a clue aspect of the EDN events for the upcoming years. "Audience development is a mindset, not a product or project”, one of the ideas that arose from the meeting.
Migrant Bodies developed a shared international research, focusing on identifying, developing and testing new and relevant actions for the inclusion of refugees and migrants with dance and movement based initiatives.
The EDN Conference Inventur 2 took place at tanzhaus nrw from 1 to 3 June 2017 and analyzed the current situation within contemporary dance and performance, across genre boundaries and in a cross-sectorial manner.
Jessica Greer, Project manager at The Place London visits Tanec Praha in the week of Česká Taneční Platform (Czech Dance Platform) and shares her experience.
The natural environment –as a vital space for survival, for man’s spiritual development and creation– is an inextricable part of culture. As part of the programme of Paphos 2017 European Capital of Culture, Dance Gate Lefkosia organised a workshop and an atelier to research ecological art methodologies as they pertain to a particular contested site located on the Akamas Peninsula.
The Atelier organised by K3 Hamburg discussed and practiced different models of solidarity within and between production structures and artists, investigated possible media of collaboration and explored choreographic forms of collaboration.
Tanzquartier Wien organised the "EDN Roadshow", an activity in order to discuss positions and developments in contemporary dance, structures, aesthetic strategies and practices of diverse cultural contexts of South-Eastern Europe.
The Atelier held by Dansens Hus Stockholm took the form of an international conference aimed to shake up, change perspectives, make visible, challenge and examine norms concerning body, disabilities and choreography within education and the dance field.
In February 2017 a group of eight representatives of EDN attended a very rich programme of initiatives, participated in speed networking sessions with artists and professionals, developing new connections and dialogues, being introduced to representatives of Asian funding bodies and supportive organizations. This was the first step in the collaboraiton with AND+.
Roberto Casarotto shares his report of the meetings.
In this Atelier organised by STUK, we examied how artists and more in particular choreographers, relate to the theme of Utopia today. What strategies do they employ in depicting a possible future together? Can embodied practices play a role in achieving that picture? And how can elements of participation and co-creation be used to further engage the public in this process?
As manager, do you know the tools and procedures choreographers in your house use to create? If yes, do you use some of the choreographic tools in the way you run your organization? If not, do you consider choreographic knowledge as valuable for the context of running a project?
This Atelier at Kino Šiška was conceived and facilitated by the Artistic Board of CoFestival and the Nomad Dance Academy.
EDN organized the Information Workshop on Dance Production and Funding in Europe in Brussels. The aim was to consider the current realities of producing dance for the contemporary dance sector in Europe, the impact of funding schemes on artistic practice and the possibilities for closer collaboration and information exchange with institutions involved in cultural funding in Europe.
360º - Building Strategies for Communication in Contemporary Dance (BSCD) supported dance artists and makers at all stages of their careers to communicate their work effectively.
A delegation of six EDN members attended Moultaqa Leymoun, the Arab Dance Platform organised by Maqamat Theatre in Beirut and the Chouf Mountains during BIPOD 2016. The 5th edition of this platform showcased and promoted the work of 20 Arab choreographers from Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Iran.
Arianna Economou, director of Dance Gate Lefkosia, shares her experience of this visit.
Tiia Lappalainen, Press Manager at Dance House Helsinki learns about presentation of season in front of audiences and work with video during her Carte Blanche in Lyon.
During the festival “Projeto Brasil”, HELLERAU hosted an Atelier which focused on new models of artistic work in the frame of community work an today’s shared economy values. Presentations and discussions from Germany, Chile, Colombia and Brazil presented different models of transnational co-productions and networks.
The Atelier organised by Tanzquartier Wien fed the artistic research related to Archiving. As part of the research series SCORES, the Atelier aimed to investigate the diverse practices and strategies of potential and constantly actualized archiving, the archives of the future, continuously arriving, the archives to come. It searched to distinguish tendencies, possibilities and means offered by contemporary choreographic practice in comparison to and in alliance with other disciplines.
The conference How to make dance relevant? Examples and practices took place in April 2016 in the Catalan town of Olot. Organized by Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona, the conference proposed a community-based working space to generate questions and encourage collective thinking around the topic of relevance.
This Atelier took place in March 2016 organized by Dansmakers Amsterdam. It explored how we can make dance more relevant in our society and what dance can do for our society in return, focusing in particular on new audiences, participation and education. The participants were invited to share their thoughts on dance and discuss its accessibility and openness in the light of participation, commitment, interaction and education.
Leaders have ultimate responsibility for everything. They set the vision and direction of travel, inspire and nurture others, and make decisions that cannot always be popular. Other people may offer advice and opinions, but in the end it is up to the leader to juggle different demands, make sense of diverse views and shape the future. Leadership is a lonely dance.
The Atelier took place at Cable Factory in Helsinki in February 2016. Organized by Dance House Helsinki, it focused on the sharing of best practices of international co-operation from the viewpoint of creation and dissemination. The main question was: what are the current and future strategies and models of co-production to best support artistic creation and its international dissemination and touring?
During two days, the Atelier hosted by Dance Ireland focused on the professional dance practitioner informing by questions around identity, mobility and migration. The aim was to explore, from different perspectives, how the identity of the artists is constructed and maintained in a climate where mobility is necessary for the creative process and the professional practice.
In November 2015 Athens and The Isadora and Raymond Duncan Dance Research Center (DDRC) would be for the first time the host and meeting point of the artistic directors and curators of EDN.
Read here an overview of the whole proposal by Penelope Iliaskou, director of DDRC Athens.
Project Coordinator / Performative Program at Art Stations Foundation Poznań Marta Harasimowicz reports on her visit to Mercat de les Flors.
EDN representatives travelled to Chile to attend the 14th edition of the festival Danzalborde. Additionally, EDN members visited the School of Architecture of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Maria. Directors of dancehouses and students shared conversations about the buildings for dance.
José Laginha, director of DeVIR|CAPa, shares his experience of Valparaiso and Santiago de Chile.
Dance Connect (2015) aimed to facilitate the mobility of Indian emerging choreographers within European institutions including residency and presentation formats.
Many dancehouses in Europe have been created over preexisting buildings: convents, factories, industrial sites, brick houses, distilleries, to name some examples. This Atelier at CSC Bassano del Grappa took place in a series of meetings aimed at considering and tracing the European, as well as the international, dancehouses history.
Sanne Wichman, Production at Dansmakers Amsterdam, reports on her visit to CSC Bassano del Grappa.
In the Atelier that took place at O Espaço do Tempo, participants developed writing and editing skills, found help to organize research and got an update to the latest development in social and multimedia. One of the participants offers a personal approach to the “Communication Strategies” Atelier.
With this Atelier at Tanzhaus NRW, EDN aimed to gather knowledge about the relatively young history of the development of European dancehouses since the 1970’s. During the meeting EDN members set up a working group and defined research topics around the history, buildings and projects of dancehouses.
EDN celebrated its first conference in Vienna from 22 to 25 April 2015 under the title Imaginary Relationships.
Maison de la Danse proposed a two-day-workshop to share with the EDN’s members its video policy and activities in this context. Contents of the atelier focused on 2 topics: Preservation and dissemination of dance archives, and video as a tool for mediation.
The first EDN Outreach took place from February 6th to 12th 2015. A representation of 7 EDN members travelled to India under the invitation of Attakkalari coinciding with the celebration of the Attakkalari India Biennial.
During the first EDN Atelier “EDN Future Strategies” held at Mercat de les Flors, we worked together to reflect on how the network should continue acting in the short term on our two major criteria: relevance and sustainability for dance art.
The producer of Mercat de les Flors Barcelons spent one week at Hellerau Dresden. Find out about her experience in this short report.
Communicating Dance aimed to strengthen the European contemporary dance scene, contributing to its competitive edge and visibility within the international creative industry. Communicating Dance focused on recognizing and acknowledging these multi-layered aspects required for cultural leaders with responsibility for teams, funding, communication, distribution.
Léim (2013 - 2015) aimed to offer participants the opportunity to undertake a personal and collective professional leadership development journey in organisations with a high degree of expertise in dance, both in their own countries and across Europe.
The cooperation project European Video Dance Heritage aimed to encourage and support cultural cooperation within Europe in order to bring European common cultural heritage to the fore working across disciplines with the media.
From 2012 to 2014, Tanzhaus NRW led a project aiming to initiate long-term cooperative relationships between several dance centres in Africa (Mozambique, Mali, Tunisia, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa) and a number of key dance venues in Germany.
Kore-A-moves (2010-2013) provided an intensive introduction of Korean choreographer’s works to audiences in Europe and the establishment of horizontal exchanges for the future between choreographers and companies, structures and models between both regions.
Modul-dance was a multi-annual cooperation project with the participation of 20 European dance houses from 16 countries. Its main aim was to support development, mobility and exchange for dance artists.
One of the first international projects in the frame of EDN, Chin-A-moves aimed to nurture connections between younger independent artists from both Europe and China. Additionally, the project initiated and cultivated a network of European dancehouses and festivals and Chinese dance companies, theatres and performing arts festivals.
The very first step towards EDN, IDEE was proposed by 9 dancehouses working together for the first time as a network. It set out to work with emerging choreographers to help them to make connections across Europe and to contextualise their work for international audiences.
