CROWD – international dance exchange
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
The Goethe-Institut, in partnership with Arts Council England (UK), NRW KULTURsekretariat (DE),
Dance4 (UK), Dansateliers (NL), TaikaBox (FI), TanzFaktur (DE), Theater im Pumpenhaus (DE) and The Work Room (UK) calls for dance artists from across Finland, the Netherlands, the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (DE) and the UK to apply for our 2021 dance residency programme, CROWD – international dance exchange. Taking place across the 4 countries during 2021, each artist involved will have the opportunity to collaborate with other participating artists to share experience, develop their practices and build their networks.
CROWD is a residency programme initiated by the Goethe-Institut and developed collectively with all partners in a time when international sharing and human togetherness is needed more than ever.
The programme aims to support dance artists with an established practice in community engaged dance making to build their professional network, exchange with others in the field and develop their practice while generating new knowledge in the area of community engagement in dance.
Across the programme, CROWD invites six dance artists (two from the UK, two from North Rhine-Westphalia (DE), one from the Netherlands and one from Finland) to collaborate in two groups of three. Throughout the year, each group of three will come together for 3 two-week residencies, each hosted by a different institution. As a participating artist you will be grouped with two other artists for the sharing of practice and exploration of new ideas in the area of community engaged dance.
No performance/product is expected so you are not required to apply with an existing project plan.
International exchange is an important feature of the residency programme and we are therefore looking for artists with a collaborative outlook who are interested in how non-professionals can feed your creative practice in different contexts, across borders as well as how communities can benefit from engaging with dance and creative projects.
Alongside the three residencies that each artist will undertake, the partners will host a series of digital sessions exploring the artists’ research in greater detail, allowing those participating to disseminate their learnings and have feedback or input from other experts working in the field. Research documentation will be collected throughout and shared within the networks of the partners, encouraging international dialogue.
Key information:
Dates: Application deadline – Sunday 21 February 2021
Applicants must be available for six weeks of residency time in 2021 (details in attached form).
Location: Each artist will attend residencies in three of the following:
Oulu (FI), Rotterdam (NL), Nottingham (UK), Cologne / Münster (DE)
Fee: €3600 per artist to include residencies (6 weeks), any preparation and the additional digital sessions across the year.
Expenses: Travel, accommodation and per diems are covered in addition to fees. A small materials budget is available if needed. Alongside artistic fees we are able to offer bursaries to those with additional access needs or caring responsibilities (see below).
Eligibility
This call is open to dance artists with demonstrable experience in engaging with community members in the ideation, creation or performance of their work. Applicants should come with an excitement and willingness to collaborate and share knowledge internationally, between artists and institutions.
Participants must be based in the UK, North Rhine-Westphalia, the Netherlands or Finland and will need to be able to work in both the UK and the EU. We will support with obtaining visas (where required). The working language across the programme will be English so a reasonable knowledge is required. Artists are to take care of their own insurances (health, travel, etc.). Selected artists must be able to commit to the proposed residency dates (see form attached).
Ethical statement
CROWD is designed to be delivered in line with the partners’ ethical and sustainability standards. We will endeavour to minimise the project’s ecological impact through digital communication and limiting air travel. We are committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community. We therefore encourage application from those from under-represented backgrounds and seek to accommodate those with additional access needs or caring responsibilities. Our decision making team will include diversity and disability. Where venues have access limitations we will discuss possibilities with the artists involved. Bursaries are available for those with additional access needs or caring responsibilities on a case by case basis, please provide your details in the attached form.
Covid-19
All planned activity and dates may change due to the progress of the pandemic and restrictions to travel and social interaction across the host countries, therefore we remain flexible. You may be required to take Covid tests or prove vaccination in order to travel and attend the residency phases.
Application
Please send your application as a single PDF document to residency-london@goethe.de by Sunday 21 February 2021, including: the completed form below a letter (max 1 page) or video/audio (max 5 minutes) of motivation for taking part, relating to your experience and willingness to share with and learn from peers a current CV or career biography (max 2 pages or as part of same video/audio) links to documentation of recent, relevant work if possible (in form below)
Applications must be submitted in English. Should you have any questions or special requirements please email residency-london@goethe.de. Decisions will be made by the partners by the end of March 2021.
CROWD is funded by the Goethe-Institut, Arts Council England and NRW KULTURsekretariat. Thanks to all partners for their in-kind contributions.
Partners
Dance4 – Nottingham, UK
Based at the international Centre for Choreography (iC4C), a research, creation and presentation
space, Dance4 aspires to reflect its home to reveal new knowledge, approaches and practices. This is at the heart of what Dance4 does, formed through the inspirational and pioneering voices of artists that inform the present and future of dance and choreographic practices locally, nationally and internationally. Having commissioned and produced work through activating national and international markets and by continuing to disseminate and extend the reach of work, Dance4 is poised to increase its national leadership in developing new knowledge and extending discourses.
Dance4 continues to commission the research, development and production of new choreographic works that present current choreographic perspectives extending the influence of Dance4’s curatorial priorities. Dance4 prides itself in being a learning organisation, creating environments where people of all ages can discover their own routes into dance and develop their skills and experience to increase employability, knowledge and opportunities.
Dansateliers – Rotterdam, Netherlands
Dansateliers is a house for the development of contemporary dance. It is a space for research and development and a home for dance artists. Dansateliers is a learning organisation, moving and developing together with its collaborators, artists, dramaturgs, creative producers, professionals in communication and its audiences. The same learning, open attitude we bring into the collaborative projects we engage in or initiate on a local, national and international level. Dansateliers has a focus on developing emerging artists towards a self-standing artistic practice, which goes hand in hand with the development of collaborative projects around specific themes; how to bring dance to museum spaces, how to communicate through and about dance, how dance practice can be an empowering tool to develop soft skills. Dansateliers’ quality is to allow and create space for experiment, exchange, sharing and developing choreographic/ dance practices, knowledge and ideas using dramaturgy as a social and embodied practice.
TaikaBox – Oulu, Finland
With over 15 years’ experience of combining dance and technology, TaikaBox is dedicated to multidisciplinary collaboration, facilitating a safe space for creative experimentation and developing new strategies for audience engagement. A significant percentage of their work is focused on developing cultural activities in their local community of Varjakka, which provides a beautiful, quiet, natural location in a historically-fascinating area. The residency will take place in the abandoned buildings of a ghost island, and amongst the residue of a thriving industrial community that disappeared in the first half of the last century.
TanzFaktur – Cologne, Germany
TanzFaktur is an independent venue and interdisciplinary cultural hub for performances from the fields of dance, theatre and visual arts. The venue offers open classes, residencies and workshops, hosts festivals and presents works by local, national and international artists. Our center works and directly responds to these art fields and their impact on our local communities through engagement, exchange, research and pursuit of new ways of working in order to disseminate, present and develop somatic knowledge and dance practice in general. TanzFaktur hosts and cooperates with Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, and Deutsche Sport Hochschule dance department in the city of Cologne. The venue is located in the up-and-coming residential and commercial area of Cologne-Deutz and was founded in 2012. Most recently the venue has increased its size from 900 m² to 2000 m² for all to share including new dance studio and a multi-purpose performance space
Theater im Pumpenhaus – Münster, Germany
Founded in 1985, the Theater im Pumpenhaus consist of a large performance venue in a converted sewage pumping station and the nearby Probezentrum Hoppengarten with its four studio spaces and accommodation for up to 12 artists. Theater im Pumpenhaus has an established history in this region of Germany as one of the largest production centers for independent performing arts, supporting artists from across Germany and beyond. Theater im Pumpenhaus focuses on artists with a distinct perspective and presents around 200 events per year, (festivals and actions in public space), making this a reliable place for a wide audience to constantly change their perspective.
The Work Room – Glasgow, UK
The Work Room is an artist-led organisation, committed to supporting a sustainable environment for independent artists working in dance in Scotland. Our mission is to empower artists to lead in their practice, enabling them to make high quality, pioneering dance for diverse contexts at home and internationally. The Work Room was established by a group of independent dance artists and the priorities of our members continue to guide our work. We relish our responsibility to ensure that an expansive range of artists and artistic practices are visible and supported. Artists’ development is at the heart of all our work and we value an international perspective, supporting artists to place their work in a wider context beyond Scotland. We seek to be a supportive meeting point for local and international artists to nurture the development of new ideas and advocate for the role of dance in transcending geographic and political boundaries.
Institutional and funding partners
Arts Council England – UK
Arts Council England is England’s national development agency for creativity and culture. By 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high quality cultural experiences.
NRW KULTURsekretariat – Germany
The NRW KULTURsekretariat organises and promotes innovative projects, festivals and program series in the fields of theater, music, visual arts, literature and dance together with a large number of partners and cultural institutions in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia and abroad. The NRW KULTURsekretariat’s International Visitors Programme, in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia invites journalists, curators, artists, cultural mediators and politicians from all over the world to visit local peers in order to jointly build sustainable networks and, where possible, develop new projects and programmes.
Goethe-Institut – Germany, Finland, Netherlands, UK (and around the world)
The Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany with a global reach. We promote knowledge of the German language abroad and foster international cultural cooperation. We convey a comprehensive image of Germany by providing information about cultural, social and political life in our nation. Our cultural and educational programmes encourage intercultural dialogue and enable cultural involvement. They strengthen the development of structures in civil society and foster worldwide mobility. Particularly through residency programmes, we welcome artists from across the globe to connect and create new work and knowledge.