APAP – ADVANCING PERFORMING ARTS PROJECT
apap - advancing performing arts project is an international network of 11 cultural organisations from all over Europe. The network exists since 2000. Funded by different EU cultural programmes apap has managed to collaborate continuously on supporting a high number of artists as well as developing new formats according to changing artistic practices and needs throughout the years.
The last completed project, apap - FEMINIST FUTURES, took place from 2020 to 2024, was co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and aimed for an even more ambitious undertaking: initiate powerful social changes through art.
The main goal of the project was to address inequality in the contemporary Performing Arts, using the body of thought consolidated by the term Intersectional Feminism to find concrete structural answers and raise public awareness. Not only artists, art works and formats operated under this focus, but also the network itself, each partner with their working methods and relations, considered themselves as object of inspection under this thematical umbrella.
What apap did during these four years:
- Supported 20 artists on a long-term base, some of whom had been selected by their artists colleagues. Each of them received co-production grants, as well as residencies and performance possibilties.
- During the four years apap initiated more than 50 co-productions of the artists supported and around 100 presentations, also more than 50 residencies were hosted.
- Five Feminist Futures Festivals were conceived and realised by two to three partner organisations each. While working together on curation as well as production and PR, they exchanged, learned from each other and moreover found sustainable production structures. Each festival appeared in two similar but not identical versions in two cities, one after the other.
- A task force accompanied the festivals, observing the experiment of sharing resources, and assessed it as a new business model under the condititons of feminist principles.
- A Feminist School was implemented in each partners location during the Feminist Futures Festival. Designed as an exchange of practices and knowledge among partners, artists and audiences in a non-hierarchical, feminist environment, it offered all participants the opportunity to acquire new skills. Teaching and learning were meant to be mutual, horizontal and engaging.
- In total 55 Ventures, which were part of the regular program of each partner, provided access for local groups to Performing Arts. These outreach-projects offered the possibilty for artists to place their interests and practice in various contexts, engage with different audiences, and cooperate with specific local organisations.
- A Learning Exchange with the School Escola Livre de Dança da Maré directed by the choreographer Lia Rodrigues in Rio de Janeiro. In her educational programme socio-political and schooling work overlap. Residencies for apap artists in Rio as well as Brazilian dancers in the partner’s organisations (each three) were accompanied by Lia Rodrigues’ mentorship of the network.
- A new edition of the mentoring programme Critical Practice (Made in Yugoslavia) which enabled young critics, writers or writing artists to produce texts, artistic talks, short podcasts, etc. Two cycles of writers visited seminars and workshops hosted by apap-partners as well as partners of the NOMAD dance academy-network
apap Partners:
BIT Teatergarasjen
Bergen, Norway
bit-teatergarasjen.no
Centrale Fies
Dro, Italy
centralefies.it
Kunstencentrum BUDA
Kortrijk, Belgium
budakortrijk.be
Maison de la Culture d´Amiens
Amiens, France
maisondelaculture-amiens.com
Performing Arts Institute Warsaw
Warschau, Polen
Reykjavik Dance Festival / LÓKAL
Reykjavik, Iceland
reykjavikdancefestival.is
STATION – Service for contemporary Dance
Belgrad, Serbien
dancestation.org
SZENE Salzburg
Salzburg, Austria
szene-salzburg.net
Tanzfabrik Berlin
Berlin, Germany
tanzfabrik-berlin.de
Teatro Nacional D. Maria II
Lisbon, Portugal
tndm.pt
Theaterfestival Boulevard ’s-Hertogenbosch
’s-Hertogenbosch, Niederlande
festivalboulevard.nl
Associated Partner:
Escola Livre de Dança da Maré, Lia Rodrigues
Rio de Janeiro, Brasilien
redesdamare.org.br
---
apapnet.eu
facebook.com/apapnet.eu
instagram.com/apap_performing_europe
apap - FEMINIST FUTURES has been funded with support from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Commission. This publication reflects the views of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
