Project W-Est_Where’s foremost function was to potentiate the dialogue
and exchange of experiences between East and West Europe
in the realm of contemporary dance. The organic structure assured,
from the start, a representative and balanced geography with the
partner organizations including two cultural structures from Western
Europe (Cie Jasmina, France; Teatro Viriato, Portugal) and two
cultural structures from Eastern Europe (HIPP, Croatia; Trafó House,
Hungary).
Expectations weren’t very ambitious, at least as far as Teatro Viriato
was concerned, because the partnership hadn’t sprout up organically
from previous relationships that all wanted to consolidate. But
at the same time it was a given fact that the project included actions
that gave the opportunity to involve national artists in international
contexts, specially maturing choreographers. And, also, it created
collaborative situations implying the sharing of information and
work methodologies, both artistic and organizational. Strategies that
could be used to help share mutual learnings, narrow relations and
potentiate the design of future, better grounded, projects.
Heterogeneity, in terms of dimension, mission statement and objectives
of the four co-organizing structures, effectively contributed to
enrichen the debate and exchange of thinking and acting policies,
thanks to the diversity of their respective organizational skills and
unique points of view. Although it also brought some discomfort between
programmers and artists concerning the priorities when designing
the activities to develop and the actual choice of participants.
It was also interesting to verify that notwithstanding being based
in different countries, and under the influence of different cultural
development strategies, all structures let transpire a sentiment of
frustration in the way that Dance is persistently considered secondary
by national and communitarian cultural politics. A situation
which is extensible to all performing arts.
