Performing Gender - Dance Makes a Difference
Yorkshire Dance Centre Trust
Cooperation Projects
England
2017
Total project grant (euros)
200,000
Programme
Creative Europe
Sub-programme
Culture
Call number
EACEA 45/2016
Project date
1 Jun 2017 - 31 May 2019
Number of partners in project
6
Lead organisation
Comitato Provinciale Arcigay Di Bologna Il Cassero Associazione, Italy
Partners
Stichting Nederlandse Dansdagen, Netherlands
Yorkshire Dance Centre Trust, UK
Comune Di Bassano Del Grappa, Italy
Paso A 2 Plataforma Coreografica Asociacion Cultural, Spain
Mesto Zensk, Drustvo Za Promocijo Zensk V Kulturi, Slovenia
Performing Gender - Dance Makes a Difference is a two-year capacity building programme aimed at providing a new generation of European dance artists and professionals with a set of knowledge, skills and tools to develop a new form of narrative for LGBTI identities in Europe.
Citizens in different parts of Europe live today in dramatically diverse contexts of social recognition when it comes to differences in gender and sexual orientations. European artists and cultural professionals are asked to take charge of a challenge, creating cultural products able to trigger a debate and intercultural dialogue across national cultures. Dance is the perfect art form to investigate the theme, but new practices are needed to facilitate the process: the sector needs to test new training models, nurture specific professional figures and connect different players in the capacity building chain.
To do so, the project involves 5 dance makers, 5 dance dramaturgs and 50 dancers in an experiment of interaction and collaboration. The dance makers face together a traveling training programme, both theoretical and physical: lectures, meetings and exchanges allow them to dive into the issues of the project. With the help of the dramaturgs, they build a “sketchbook” of performances and design a training project themselves.
The second step is a one-week workshop for 10 young dancers led by each dance maker, in the context of one of the partner festivals. Each workshop ends by sharing the work to an open audience and an international group of potential producers. A closing event retraces the stages of the model and turn them into tools and recommendations addressed to a wide audience of European professionals.





