Dancing in Your Shoes

Follow-up to Performing Gender

Studiopresentation Love Rituals – Performing Gender 2 © William van der Voort

The Dancing in Your Shoes project plan (2021-2023) was positively assessed in Brussels by the Creative Europe committee. DIYS can start this fall and focuses in a European context on developing new working methods in working with local communities. Showing stories of people who are usually not heard is one of the themes.

DIYS proposes a paradigm shift: to question the usual hierarchies of power where artistic directors and artists are in a decision- making while the audience is seen as a merely passive receiver. Considering cultural production as an isolated act doesn’t function anymore: artists and cultural organizations have to be in contact with their audiences beyond the mere presentation of works. They have to open up their processes of creation and programming, considering their audiences as a crucial part of their productions. By scattering the hierarchy of power intrinsic in culture production and by using gender as a tool of reflection on these dynamics, the project improves audiences’ access to culture and creative works, going beyond passive transmission and fostering a more active involvement and participation in cultural life.

DansBrabant collaborates with Dutch partner Theaterfestival Boulevard. The project is a follow-up to their previous collaboration within the European project Performing Gender 2: Dance Makes Differences (2017 -2019). Collaboration partners: Gender Bender Festival and Il Cassero LGBTI Center and Alma Mater University of Bologna [ITA], City of Women [SVN], Paso a 2 [ESP], Yorkshire Dance and British Council [GBR], KLAP Maison pour la Danse [FRA ], SÍN Cultural Center [HON], Norrlandsoperan [SWE].

The project starts with a kick-off this November in Leeds, UK and will be further developed with community workshops, labs and residencies towards the closure of the project in 2023 in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, with sixteen European artists, all partners and representatives and productions of their communities from eleven European cities.