Dance>Money

In times of unknowing, following a time of immobility, we choose to initiate the first (un)conference after lockdown, in a series to be followed in 2021 from a global perspective, about dancing and professional survival.

This June, Dance>Money Growing Markets addresses our closer neighbours, the ones allowed to join us. We turn to experienced performing arts professionals from Central, Eastern, South Eastern Europe and Baltic countries, people committed to dance and audiences. Organizers and artists, curators and producers, who have tried to negotiate and navigate the presiding market until the pandemic levelled it to the ground.

Our aim is a call for action for enlarging international cooperation. When the market no longer grows, we grow our own markets.

We invite you to a midsummer in Ljubljana, to explore in unconventional ways some strategies for cooperation. Spending time in green spaces, planting a future full of dance.

Live streaming: www.facebook.com/danceismorethanmoney/live/

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Pekinpah Association brings together internationally acclaimed designers, theorists, architects, choreographers, dancers and musicians. Its main activities feature dance production; publishing and presenting theoretical and practical reflections on design; and managing the musical band Silence. Among its activities is Spider, an annual festival of radical bodies and a transnational artistic network.

Centre for Creativity (CzK) is an interdisciplinary platform that connects, promotes, presents and supports the activities and development of Slovenia’s cultural and creative sector. CzK promotes the development of projects that take shape at the intersection of art, culture, experiments, the market, entrepreneurship and the business sector, and which employ creativity, production and the distribution of goods and services that bring or express culture-related or otherwise creative content.

Dance>money project is a part of a partnership network Platform Center for Creativity co-financed by European Union from European Regional Development Fund and by Republic of Slovenia.

With support of Teatroskop, a regional program for performing arts, initiated in 2011 by the French institute in Paris, the French Ministry of Culture and the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs.

Annika Üprus (Estonia)

holds a BA in choreography, but instead of creating art she has dived into creating conditions for the evolving contemporary dance scene of Estonia. Annika has witnessed the non-profit organization promoting contemporary dance grow into an independent venue Kanuti Gildi SAAL – presenting curated programme, offering residencies and co-producing local and international artists, organising a variety of festivals and other thematic events. Since 2017, she is curating the SAAL Biennaal festival (former August Dance Festival).

Arcadie Rusu (Romania)

is the manager of LINOTIP Independent Choreography Center. He pursued Master studies in Choreography at National University of Theatrical and Cinematography Art I.L.Caragiale in Bucharest, where he received the award for the best Choreographical performance at the graduation gala. So far, he created 14 performances, working regularly as a choreographer in theaters.

Christina Liata

From 2003 to 2005 Christina Liata worked at the Pompidou Centre in Paris for Videodanse Festival and collaborated with various French theatre groups and associations. Returning to Greece in 2007, she worked mainly for performing arts and film festivals: Kalamata International Dance Festival, Athens Street Art Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. 2008-12 she worked in Athens for the international independent Festival MIR and 2011-13 she collaborated with the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece as projects coordinator for EU Funds. In November 2013 she has been appointed Head of Tours and International co-productions at the Onassis Cultural Centre – Onassis STEGI.

Chris Torch

is an independent cultural expert, project designer and policy consultant. During the StartUp Phase he led the Artistic Unit at Timisoara 2021 - European Capital of Culture (Romania). In 1996, he founded Intercult, a production and resource unit focused on culture, ideas and arts. Torch joined the artistic leadership for winning bids to become European Capitals of Culture for both Matera 2019 and Rijeka 2020. He co-authored a major study on audience development, commissioned by the EU (2016). From 2006 to 2018, he served on the Executive Committee for Culture Action Europe.

Grzegorz Reske (Poland)

is a curator and producer of performing arts projects. Part of ResKeil tandem and Performing Arts Institute collective. With Marta Keil, he co-curated Konfrontacje Teatralne – international festival of performing arts in Lublin (2013-2017). In the past years he is involved in numerous theatre and performing arts projects in Poland and abroad. He is permanent associate of East European Performing Arts Platform where he coordinates international collaboration projects: Identity.Move! (2014-15) and Reshape (2018-20). He is Board Member of IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts.

György Szabó (Hungary)

In 90s György Szabó (Hungary) was artistic programmer and event manager of Petofi Csarnok. In 1998, he founded Trafo – House of Contemporary Arts – the first public interdisciplinary contemporary arts institution of Hungary. After resigning as the executive director, from 2012 to 2017 he acted as its managing director, in 2017 becoming its artistic director.

Iva Sveshtarova and Willy Prager (Bulgaria)

In 2005, Iva Sveshtarova and Willy Prager (Bulgaria) founded Brain Store Project foundation. In 2008 they expanded it into Antistatic International Festival for Contemporary Dance and Performance, which in 2015 hosted the International Advocacy Meeting for Contemporary Dance Advocates of Dance realized in partnership with Nomad Dance Academy Balkan Network and Life Long Burning – European Network for sustainable development of contemporary dance supported by the EU Programme of Culture. In 2018 Antistatic founded the Bulgarian Dance Platform and in 2019 started to co-produce the first annual dance magazine in Bulgaria Magazine for dance.

Ksenija Đurović (Serbia)

is a cultural worker focusing on organisation and production models in the independent art scene. She is active in Station Service for contemporary dance, Magacin cultural centre and since October 2018 she is the programme producer of Bitef Festival. As a Managing Board member of the Association Independent Cultural Scene of Serbia she works on projects involving participative governance, monitoring of public spending and decentralisation of culture in Serbia. Ksenija is a former fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart.

Mitja Bravhar (Slovenia)

has been employed at Kino Šiška in Ljubljana since 2009, holding the positions of Assistant Manager for Management and Finance, and Theatre and Dance Programme Manager. He has 20 years of experience working in public institutes from the field of culture and non-profit organisations. His tasks include curating the performance art programme and heading international art projects. Besides his work at Kino Šiška, he is also a producer and a member of the artistic board of CoFestival – International dance festival in Ljubljana. He also holds the position of European Dancehouse Network Treasurer.

Mojca Jug (Slovenia)

started working for Bunker in 1998 as the coordinator and administrator of the first Mladi levi festival. Since then, she has been in charge of artistic programming and program coordination at Stara Elektrarna venue, mentoring and co-creating the Mladi levi festival program. She participated in producing works by Slovenian artists and groups and in the production of performances of the Mladi levi festival. She is also co-founder of Triola Association, which focuses on organizing concerts as well as visual and performative events.

Mojca Kasjak (Slovenia)

is the co-founder of Plesna izba Maribor, within which in 2007 she established Platforma sodobnega plesa, international festival of contemporary dance art. She is the artistic and program director of the festival. In 2010-14 she acted as the leader of international project Modul – dance.. In the frame of this project she represented the Slovenian contemporary dance scene in the international arena, actively participated in numerous professional conferences across Europe, enabled performances of selected foreign artists in Maribor, and presentations of Slovenian artists in foreign countries. In 2017, she founded Moja kreacija institute in Maribor.

Nataša Zavolovšek (Slovenia)

is a producer and the director of Exodos Ljubljana, a non-profit, independent theatre and dance production centre. For the past 20 years, it has been organizing Exodos, International Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts. In 2012, Nataša was executive producer for international performing projects in Maribor - European Capital of Culture. From 2013 to 2017 she coordinated the Corners project and from 2015 to 2017 the One Space project spanning Europe, Middle East and Africa. She produced the 1st and the 2nd Summer Dance Camp in China (2015-6). Currently, she is the coordinator of project: Africa: Middle East project Share 2019-2025.

Olga Žitluhina (Latvia)

is a choreographer, dancer and teacher. From 1996 to 2012, she was the artistic director of Olga Zitluhina Dance Company, back then the only professional contemporary dance group in Latvia. She is Director of contemporary dance program in Latvian Academy of Culture and since 2016, she is Artistic Director of Contemporary dance festival LAIKS DEJOT in Riga. In 2019, she won the Latvian Dance Prize award.

Risima Risimkin

is one of the leading Macedonian choreographers and artistic director of Dance Fest Skopje and Skopje Dance Theater. She holds a PhD from the University of St. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, Macedonia that she completed with the thesis: “Contemporary dance styles in 20 century – Europe.” She now leads The Contemporary Dance Department at the State University Goce Delchev in Shtip, Macedonia. Risimkin worked as a choreographer in the USA, China, The Netherlands and other countries.

Sanja Krsmanović Tasić (Serbia)

is a performance artist, theatre director, choreographer, dance and drama teacher. Among other projects and festivals, she is the founder and artistic director of Hleb Teatar and Initiator of Days of Smiljana Mandukić project and festival focusing on the pioneer of modern dance in Serbia. Sanja is also elected officer of IDEA (International drama/theatre and education association) and member of the Coordination Committee of IDEA Europe. Curretnly she is an artistic director of festival Infant, Novi Sad.

Špela Trošt (Slovenia)

Since 2005, Špela Trošt (Slovenia) has been working as a production manager and artistic director for performing arts at Sploh Institute, the institute for art production and publishing. For Sploh, she has co-created more than 50 projects: music series, festivals, performances, intermedia productions, music CDs and workshops. Since 2002, she has been producer of Via Negativa, a platform for research, development and production of contemporary performing arts. Between 2003 and 2009, she was a producer at Studio za raziskavo umetnosti igre. In 2004 and 2005 she worked as a production manager at Maska, institute for publishing, cultural and production activities.

Zvonimir Dobrović (Croatia)

is the founder and artistic director of Domino, one of the major independent art NGOs in Croatia. He is responsible for curating several festivals in Croatia and internationally – most notably Perforations and Queer Zagreb. Annually, he curates over 100 performances. He has served on numerous panels and boards, juries and committees in the field of performing arts and film. Besides holding lectures and workshops, Zvonimir has edited books and magazines and has written articles on performance.

Žiga Predan (Slovenia)

is an art producer and manager with more than 10 years of experience in radical arts, especially dance. His expertise lies in developing and implementing strategies, production, artist management, international relations and organising of touring. Since 2010, he is the Executive Director of Spider Festival in the frame of which he realised more than 15 international festivals of dance and performance arts in Ljubljana, Athens, Lyon, Berlin, Zagreb and Brussels.