Companhia de Dança de Almada is currently involved in the Up2DANCE project, whose main objective is to promote the collaboration exchange of good practices at EU level, in particular regarding the development of specific skills for today and tomorrow contemporary dance professions. This project is the result of a collaboration between Balletto di Roma (Italy), Derida Dance Centre (Bulgaria), Magenta Consultoria (Spain), Polish Dance Theatre (Poland), ICK (Holand) and Companhia de Dança de Almada (Portugal).

Contemporary Dance is going through a time of enormous vitality, with the emergence and implantation of many innovative and remarkable projects in the European artistic environment, standing out in the most diverse stages and driven by social networks and some media more attentive to cultural activities. However, the recognition of professional figures linked to this area is still scarce and fragmented, with negative consequences for the employability of professionals. At European level, there is no uniformity in training or in the recognition of the necessary skills and characteristics of each profession, or in the definition of the respective profiles, which can hamper the movement of professionals in the sector.

The Up2DANCE project aims to survey the situation at European level, in order to support the modernization of education and training systems, in particular through better use of EU transparency and recognition tools and the exchange of good practices related to dance industry at European level, in order to boost the process of harmonizing and updating the curricula of professional profiles according to the requirements of the contemporary scenario.

As a starting point, the main activity to be carried out will be the organization of round tables with local, regional or national stakeholders, with the aim of detecting the state of the art in recognizing professional occupations, discussing skills and the type of training at different levels, looking for existing gaps and ways to overcome them.

The Up2DANCE project is co-financed by the European Union's programme Erasmus+, ID 2019-1-IT01-KA202-007609.

Get to know and follow the activity of Up2DANCE!
https://www.facebook.com/up2danceproject/

Round table on the “Professionalization of the Dancer: The role of Schools of Artistic Training Specialized in Dance”, which will be carried out with transmission via Zoom (https://zoom.us/j/7865700512 | ID: 786 570 0512), on the 22nd of July from 6pm at 8pm (Portugal time). The debate will be spoken in Portuguese and will have free access.

This initiative is part of the European project “Up2Dance” in which we are involved with some European companies - Balletto di Roma, Derida Dance Center, Magenta Consultoría, Polski Teatr Tańca - Polish Dance Theatre e ICK Dans Amsterdam - and which proposes, in particular, to compare the situation of the training of dance professionals in different countries and to promote a process for the recognition and validation of their knowledge, skills and competences, in accordance with the principles of the EQF (European Qualifications Framework).

Read more ...

This round table will take place on Saturday, October 3, 2020, at Forum Municipal Romeu Correia, in Almada, between 11 am and 1 pm, and should cover topics such as:

• Fundamental knowledge, techniques, and skills for practicing the profession of classical or contemporary dance teacher today.
• Role and existing difficulties in the training of teachers in the dance area.
• Training models for dance teachers.
• Recognition of the profession of dance teacher and regulation on the necessary qualifications for teaching.

Read more ...

This round table will take place on October 7, 2020, Wednesday, at the Forum Municipal Romeu Correia in Almada, between 6 pm and 8 pm, and should address topics such as:

• Basic knowledge, techniques, and skills for the exercise of the profession.
• Role and difficulties in exercising the profession of rehearsal director / repetiteur in dance.
• Recognition of the profession.

Read more ...

We are please to announce that between 12th and 15th of April 2021 the fourth Peer Learning Workshops is taking place and will be hosted online by ICK Dans Amsterdam. This time, the aims of these workshops are first to analyse the training methods are the documentation of artistic work related to those trainings in order to identify the core skills and capacities which are being expected from dancers. The second goal is to introduce and discuss the role of Dancer, Dance, Teacher, Choreographer, and Repetitor.

Read more ...

Between July 5 and 9, Companhia de Dança de Almada receives partners, for an intensive workshop dedicated to sharing and discussing methods in dance training. In Almada, we will have the participation of Agnieszka Jachym (Polish Dance Theatre), Jivko Jeliazkov (Derida Dance), Marley Braff and Vincent Colomes (ICK Amsterdam), Azzurra Schena and Emanuele Burrafato (Balletto di Roma).

Read more ...

After conducting several workshops aimed at new models of management in the field of contemporary dance and new contemporary dance languages, the realization of the Up2DANCE Project (Project code: 2019-1-IT01-KA202-007609/ Project National ID (CUP): G85G19000110006) continued with the third transnational meeting among partners, which was held online, and organized by Magenta Consultoria Projects (Spain).

Read more ...

Peer learning workshops in Portugal

The realization of the Up2DANCE Project (Project code: 2019-1-IT01-KA202-007609/ Project National ID (CUP): G85G19000110006) proceeded with the organization and conduction of two more Peer Learning Workshops held by Companhia de Danca de Almada (Portugal) in July and in October.

Read more ...

O incrível percurso do projeto Up2DANCE (Project code: 2019-1-IT01-KA202-007609/ Project National ID (CUP): G85G19000110006) chegou ao fim.

A realização do projeto passou por diversas etapas.

18 mesas redondas focadas nos perfis profissionais em dança contemporânea, nomeadamente bailarinos, professores de dança, coreógrafos/as, diretores de ensaio, foram referidos por todas as organizações parceiras – Balletto di Roma (Itália), Derida Dance Center (Bulgária), Polish Dance Theatre (Polónia), Magenta Consultoria Projects (Espanha), ICK Dans Amsterdam (Holanda) e Companhia de Dança de Almada (Portugal) com o objetivo de definir o estado da arte, atualizando os perfis profissionais mencionados na dança contemporânea.

Read more ...

WOMAN MADE is a project of valorization, diffusion and implementation of international female choreographic production.

Starting from Italy, the driving force behind the project, the creative work radiates in the direction of other 7 countries with a view to sharing intentions and achieving common goals such as: the positioning of women in apical and powerful roles in working contexts (the dance sector, our field of action, is in this case emblem and symbol of a struggle for the emancipation of women in the world of work); the overcoming of the sterile social antagonism between men and women; the overcoming of mental barriers, traditions and customs that still today do not allow women to determine their own destiny in the working field free from preconceptions and prejudices.

Through this network of women-choreographers, we intend to make the production of artistic content of great depth and value shine, with a strong visual and emotional impact, the result of creators from 8 different origins. This is a transversal collaboration whose beating heart is in the right to be recognized as professionals, choreographers and creatives, in the same way as their male colleagues.

The network brings together the collaboration between several Italian artistic institutions, having as its leader the cultural association ArtGarage - Centro Coreografico e delle Arti Performative Contemporanee, under the artistic direction of Emma Cianchi, which is joined by the cultural association Dance Gallery/Residenza HOME (Perugia), directed by Valentina Romito; the production company Associazione Adarte (Siena), directed by Francesca Lettieri and Paola Vezzosi; the production company Associazione Culturale Borderline (Salerno), directed by Claudio Malangone; and the company Associazione Campania Danza (Salerno), directed by Antonella Iannone.

The project thus starts from the Italian region of Campania, important in the area of Contemporary Dance thanks to the NID Platform project that is being developed there.

Internationally, the WOMAN MADE project is developed with other partners from several countries:

United States of America: American Dance Abroad
Greece: Milos International Dance & Theatre Center
Israel: Machol Shalem
Mexico: Conjunto Santander de Arte Escenica
Portugal: Companhia de Dança de Almada
Tunisia: Hayyou'Raqs
Vietnam: Arabesque Dance Company

WOMAN MADE won the Boarding Pass Plus '21/'22 from the Italian Ministry of Culture, to give voice to women choreographers, directors and curators in artistic creation and programming, converging the female perspective on Contemporary Dance.

Companhia de Dança de Almada is a partner of the European project “CLASH! - When classic and contemporary dance collide and new forms emerge ”, led by Balletto di Roma (Italy), along with its other partners; 420PEOPLE (Czech Republic), Polish Dance Theatre (Poland), Art Link Foundation on behalf of Derida Dance Centre (Bulgaria) and La Sapienza Università di Roma (Italy).

The CLASH! project proposes to study the state of art in Europe with regards to the encounter between classical and contemporary dance in the different sectors concerned with aesthetic and artistic issues, addressing not only the training of dancers, but also the policies for the development of audiences and management of dance companies. This study also included seminars and public meetings with cultural players active in these areas, which took place mainly during 2019.

Thus the great challenge for the CLASH! project has been to develop a Professional Training strategy, using a common approach in confronting the problems arising from the three macro areas of the project: Dance Training; Audience Development; Marketing and Communication. The partner teams worked in dialogue seeking to achieve this goal. We recognize as a principle the body as a place of knowledge capable of providing models and valuing the social commitments and community exchanges that the practice of dance can produce. The contemporary partners are focusing on exploration, understanding, feeling and research in the field of dance with and within the body as a tool of human expression.

Thanks to the project, the investigation underlined the need to redirect artistic practices in order to rethink the pedagogical approach used in the field of dance. The aim of which is developing ways to combine various techniques capable of leading us to processes of discovery, producing new ways to express ourselves and communicate with others. Within this strategy, the role of a teacher was recognized as crucial to the dancer's training. By educationalist, we understand a specialist with theoretical and practical training in the subject, capable of developing a training regimen that combines tradition and innovation, providing the dancer with tools to improve not only their physical skills, but also creativity and ability to talk about the practical dance experience in order to value and develop the importance of this knowledge base in the local and international community.

The five dance companies involved in the CLASH! project have studied ways of combining the good practices learned during the workshops held in Europe with the requirements that each organization considers important, in order to improve the impact of the dance culture in their own country.

In 2020, in addition to some of the dissemination events already presented, most attention is being paid to the artistic creation project resulting from the previous research which should result in a touring festival to be presented in the host cities of the partner companies between October and December. In view of the difficulties created by the current health crisis, we are now studying new ways to present the resulting developed choreographic work which will be announced in due course.

The CLASH! project is co-financed by the European Union's Creative Europe Programme (Grant Contract No. 2018 – 2032 /001 – 001) and, in Portugal, by the Portuguese Government | Ministério da Cultura, through Direção-Geral das Artes.

Get to know and follow the activity of CLASH!
http://clashproject.eu/
https://www.facebook.com/clashprojecteu/ 

Photos