The iCoDaCo 2024-2027 series of online conferences will explore, throughout the 4-year project, what sustainability means in the context of artistic practice, considering everything from time management and self-care to navigating political and social pressures, from the environmental disaster to the AI revolution.
We are pleased to announce the first iCoDaCo conference, “Are artistic collectives sustainable?”, which will take place online on 21st of November 2024 from 16:00 to 17:30 CET.
This first conference invites participants to explore contemporary dance beyond the act of artmaking itself. We will delve into how dance as a collective practice is situated within society and influenced by the environments which surround it such as climate action, migration, gender, or labour rights.* The conference will seek to foster a dialogue on the sustainability of artistic practice in the 21st century, considering not just the artistic process, but the necessary conditions that surround and sustain it.
In some regions, dance collectives operate within a supportive infrastructure which allows for a flourishing of experimental work. In other places, dance artists function in frameworks that are more constraining, navigating lack of resources and opportunities. At a time when the cultural ecosystems across wider Europe are being disrupted by increasingly restrictive frameworks, further marginalising artistic practices,** we will ask ourselves what strategies artistic collectives can develop to prevent, address, or resist the challenges of limited resources, censorship, and repression in its various forms.
Artistic collectives have long been investigating alternative methods of creating, presenting, and making art accessible. They test out strategies to align their work with the values they champion and encourage the proliferation of voices. Here, dance becomes a powerful tool for political expression and community engagement, challenging dominant narratives and addressing societal inequalities.***
While the theme of politics will inevitably surface in our discussions, we will explore how power structures, exclusion and dismantling processes, represent dangers on sustainability. Through the lens of contemporary dance and socially engaged artistic practice, the conference will also address what does it truly mean to operate collectively in today’s local, political, and social conditions; How do we apply the artistic knowledge gained through such experiences to the real-world challenges artists face today?
* See for example the Manifesto for Fair Practices available at https://www.reso.ch/fr/tools/manifesto-for-fair-practices
** See Culture Action Europe’s latest research The State of Culture available at https://cultureactioneurope.org/news/the-state-of-culture-report-published/
*** RESHAPE A Workbook to Reimagine the Art World (June 2021) available at https://reshape.network/uploads/prototype_config/document/1/RESHAPE_A_Workbook_to_Reimagine_the_Art_World.pdf
Programme
Welcome words by Yohann Floch, director of FACE and host of the conference
Provocation by Dr Katja Praznik, associate professor at the University at Buffalo
Panel discussion facilitated by Mila Pavićević, dramaturge and PhD candidate at the department of Critical Dance Studies, Free University Berlin, gathering:
Israel Aloni, artistic director and co-founder of ilDance
Rodia Vomvolou, dance dramaturg and researcher
More information about the speakers
Katja Praznik is a sociologist and an Associate Professor at the University at Buffalo, where she teaches in the Arts Management Program and the Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is the author of Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism (University of Toronto Press, 2021) and co-author of Which Side Are You On: Ideas for Reaching Fair Working Conditions in the Arts (IETM, 2022). A scholar and activist, her work focuses on demystifying creativity and emancipating art as a form of labour, using Marxist feminist methodologies to confront the exploitation of unpaid artistic labour. Co-founder of the freelance art workers’ union Zasuk, Praznik’s research and writing are widely published in peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes, and international publications on labour standards for art workers. She is currently working on a new book, Why Art Workers Don’t Want to Get Paid.
Israel Aloni is the Artistic Director & Co-Founder of ilDance, which they initiated in 2012 together with Lee Brummer. ilDance, an independent production body which is dedicated to contemporary dance and is operating from Gothenburg, Sweden. Aloni is an independent choreographer, educator, performer, writer and provocateur. Their choreographic work has been commissioned and presented across Sweden and internationally since 2001 and they have been developing the movement research and development practice titled The I.Aloni Experience. They are also the architect and coordinator of iCoDaCo 2024-2027, artistic Director of COMPASS - a national infrastructure for young and emerging contemporary dance artists across Sweden.
Rodia Vomvolou is a dance dramaturg and researcher based between the Netherlands and Greece. Working both in and with theory and practice, she constantly finds ways to create artistic and discursive contexts for dramaturgy. She is currently doing her PhD research titled “Unpacking the self-positioning of the dance dramaturg: Labor, Practices and Discourses in the periphery and in the center” under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Maaike Bleeker in Utrecht University. As a freelancer dance dramaturg, Rodia collaborates with multiple independent dance artists in the Netherlands, Greece and Cyprus. As a mentor and teacher, she works with institutions, dance houses and universities all over Europe (Dansateliers Rotterdam, Onassis Stegi, PERA School of Performing Arts, Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava, i.e.), while since 2019 she is the mentor and co-curator of the Artistic residency programme “Moving the New” of Dance House Lemesos.
Mila Pavićević is a dramaturge and dance and theatre scholar. Originally from Dubrovnik, Croatia, she now lives in Berlin, Germany. She holds a MA Degree in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Drama Arts, University of Zagreb, and a BA Degree in Ancient Greek Language and Literature and Comparative Literature, from Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. She is PhD candidate at the department of Critical Dance Studies, at the Free University Berlin. Her PhD evolves around the dramaturgical practice from former Yugoslavia and its contribution to Western contemporary dance. She works as a dramaturge mostly in the frame of the independent dance scene in Berlin, collaborating with artists, such as: Sheena McGrandles, Sergiu Matis, Sebastian Matthias, Public in Private, Martin Hansen, Claire Vivienne Sobottke, Sebastian Matthias. For her fiction book Ice Girl and Other Fairytales, she received in 2009 European Union Prize for Literature.
Yohann Floch is the Director of FACE, a resource platform that facilitates European capacity building programmes in the contemporary performing arts field, and the Director of Operations of On the Move, the international network dedicated to artistic and cultural mobility. He is an international advisory board member of the Danish organisation IMMART–International Migration Meets the Arts.
Working for independent arts organisations and cultural institutions, Yohann has designed, coordinated or contributed to many European cooperation projects and pilot international collaborations over the years. He is an external expert for governmental bodies and private foundations, and leads or (co)authors European policy reports.
Previously, Yohann was the Secretary General of European Dancehouse Network, the Director of Skåne’s International Resource Office, the Coordinator of Dansehallerne’s Nordic dance network, and the Coordinator of Circostrada Network, among other leadership positions.
Resources
- The State of Culture by Culture Action Europe
https://cultureactioneurope.org/news/the-state-of-culture-report-published/
- The Decline of Political Trust in Culture: Where Did It Go Wrong? by Elena Polivtseva
- Culture is not an Industry by Justin O’Connor
- The Art Institution of Tomorrow by Fatoş Üstek
https://www.lundhumphries.com/products/the-art-institution-of-tomorrow
- Push: it will come later by the 2018 – 2020 iCoDaCo edition
https://circadian.co/product/push-it-will-come-later/
- Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism by Katja Praznik