For this PSR, the ICC team has invited artists who address diverse issues and topics related to queer identities, alternative dynamics of pornography, anal politics, the concept of holes as a seclusive system, and pleasure as politically relevant. Through collective practices of co-dreaming, co-thinking, and co-imagining, dance and choreography become active practices aimed at constructing softer and more accurate spaces for contemporary desires within our cultural landscapes.

ICI–CCN nominated choreographer and Performer Mariana Viana for an Artistic Exchange Residency at MDT Stockholm. She is working on her new piece Matière grise/Gray matter during these two weeks in Sweden.

Croatian Creative Crossroads artist Sonja Pregrad is in residency in Berlin! She also shows her work O at Uferstudios.

Our network partner in Montpellier – ICI–CCN – has opened a call for an artist / Choreographer / Researcher based in Occitanie to become one of the Creative Crossroads Artists of the upcoming cycle 2025/2026. 

Applications are open until 15 September 2024.

Save the date! The Choreographic Convention 2024 is taking place from 19–23 November in Zagreb, hosted by Antisezona, co-hosted by Nomad Dance Academy.

From 23.–29. August, the Performance Situation Room Pokretnica takes place within the 8th edition of Pokretnica Contemporary Dance and Performance Festival in Novi Sad. 

Adam Seid Tahir, our Creative Crossroads artist from Stockholm, is coming to ImPulsTanz – Vienna international Dance Festival for a residency end of July!

Sonja Pregrad is coming to Vienna for a Creative Crossroads residency. During her stay she will teach at ImPulsTanz a workshop Of drag, plants and other objects (of dance).

In the frame of her Creative Crossroads residency, Lee Méir will teach a costume workshop at ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival.

Belgian dance producer from STUK Leuven – Fien Aerts – joins ImPulsTanz in the course of our programme Outsetters Abroad. Welkom!

Our Bulgarian Creative Crossroads artist Marion Darova and her collaborator Martina Apostolova arrived in Vienna at ImPulsTanz, were she has a studio for one week and a huge performance and workshop programme to choose from.

Nomad dance academy Croatia is a guest at the Karlovac Dance Festival!

The summer edition of the 14th Karlovac Dance Festival brings collaboration and partnership with the Nomad Dance Academy Croatia through their Domino Residency and Modular School programmes.

Workshop Foundation Budapest is looking for artists active in the Hungarian contemporary dance scene for a LLB Co-production.

Deadline for the application is 22 July 2024!

Workshop Foundation Budapest is looking for artists active in the Hungarian contemporary dance scene as next Creative Crossroad artist.
Deadline for the application is 22 July 2024!

Veem House for Performance in Amsterdam opens a call for one professional dance and movement artist based in Amsterdam, for Creative Crossroads Cycle 2, who will be supported during a two year cycle from 1 January 2025 till 31 December 2026.

Deadline for applications is 4 July 2024.

Another Artistic Exchange Residency is coming up! Amsterdam based performer Flavia Pinheiro will research in Zagreb in June and July.

Lau Lukkarila and Zeynab Kirkou Gueye are currently in Budapest, working on their upcoming project Hold yr ache 2 my ache at Workshop Foundation and Trafohouse.

Sweden is facing a shift in art and cultural politics, and we’re not the only ones. As one travels internationally in Europe nowadays, almost everyone (with a few exceptions) is talking about the massive budget cuts and how artists and institutions are struggling. In some countries, this is also tied to democratic restrictions.

Our Finnish network partner Moving in November is currently looking for artists who are eager to visit STUK Leuven in November for an Artistic Exchange Residency. 

Applications are open until 28 June!

Moving in November is inviting to participate in a two-day workshop lead by Swedish choreographer Pontus Pettersson. Over these two days, Pontus will open up his practice to host the different methods and practices that are part of the work Pancor Poetics (which will be shown in this year’s Moving in November Festival), including one of his seminal pieces The Cat Practice. As simple as it sounds, it involves practicing being a cat. Applications are open until 27 June!

Julcsi Vavra starts her Artistic Exchange Residency at Uferstudios in Berlin these days!

Val Holfeld starts to work in the frame of On the Outset for danceWEB. Val supports the team with the coordination of this year's danceWEB scholarship programme, which is taking place during ImPulsTanz – International Dance Festival.

Our Swedish partner MDT announced their Life Long Burning co-production for this year: Ghost Dances / Spökdanser by Ellen Söderhult will premiere on 30 May and be shown three consecutive days.

This year's PRÉAC seminar will take place from 27–31 May at La Genette Verte, near Montpellier in the South of France. The seminar, organized and hosted by ICI–CCN Montpellier, is on Narratives and led by the guest artist Sylvain Prunenec.

Our Creative Crossroads artist from Berlin, Lee Méir, will premiere her new solo crying creatures crying at Uferstudios this May!

Expose brings together authors and artists from various fields of art who practice (self)archiving, (self)musealization, (self)documentation, (self)recording or/and (self)mapping through mixed formats and media. This three-day public event will explore these practices and their relation to the fields of dance and new media art.

Bulgarians only print magazin entirely dedicated to dance – Dance Magazin – releases its 2024 edition The Value of Dance in May.

daneWEB selected Lara Cortellini as the young dance critics/researchers/independent dance curators/artists to visit the 4th edition of the Bulgarian Dance Platform.

The artist Jason Respilieux, one of the collaborators of Anneleen Keppens in her performance Blue Moon Spring, part of the Creative Crossroads programme, will be an artist-in-residence of the 17th edition of the Antistatic Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria in May.

HOT BODIES, organised by ICC (Imaginative Choreographic Center), supports, stimulates, and nurtures new generations of artists in the field of choreography and dance. The 4th edition of the programme takes place in Burgas, Veliko Tarnovo and Sofia, Bulgaria for 3 weeks in May!

The Without Distance educational platform is an integral part of the International Festival for Contemporary Dance and Performance Antistatic in Sofia. This year's programme features three lectures by Boyan Manchev, Margarita Dorovska, and Angelina Georgieva, alongside a workshop led by Jason Respilieux.

ICI–CCN is presenting a work in progress showing of the LLB Co-production Matter by Anat Bosak and Nina Traub. The premiere will take place in August during the Israel Festival 2024. 

This is already the last episode of our first podcast season! Welcome today’s guests, theatre director Olivia Axel Scheucher and actor Nick Romeo Reimann.

Their collaborative work FUGUE FOUR : RESPONSE was first developed for the Porn Film Festival Vienna. The satirical investigation of how sex and bodies are commodified in the digital age was then adapted for Volkstheater Dunkelkammer. 

Episode 8 out today! Listen to the conversation of Sean Pfeiffer and Sebastiano Sing. The work of Sebastiano, a Vienna-based choreographer and performer, has long been occupied with making space for big emotions. His piece MATHIEU was first developed in a TURBO residency at ImPulsTanz Festival 2022. Following its premiere in WUK Vienna’s project space, it was then presented at Schauspielhaus Vienna in the frame of [8:tension]. 

New Episode out now! Hello, Anne Lise Le Gac and Loto Retina. Her work La Caresse du Coma ft. YOLO is a multi-media performance, a lecture on digital chimeras, and an invitation to a strange and yet strangely familiar world. Together with musical collaborator Loto Retina, Anne-Lise transformed the Kasino am Schwarzenbergplatz into a misty, spa-like space of uncertainties and fabricated truths. 

After their showings, the two of them sat down with writer Sean Pfeiffer. They discussed the role of levity and humor in their work, the productivity of not knowing for sure, and how their residency time at ImPulsTanz stimulated their creative partnership.

MDT Moderna Dansteatern in Stockholm and ICI-CCN in Montpellier launch a joint open a call for two research residencies for artists based in Montpellier or Stockholm! This call is open to artists from the field of choreography and dance. Deadline for applications is 12 May 2024.

New Episode out today! Welcome Marga Alfeirão and her team. Marga’s work opens up spaces in which she is able to explore feminine sensuality and sexuality at her own pace. She and her team joined writer Sean Pfeiffer for a conversation before the second showing of their “lesbian lap dance duet” LOUNGE.

They discussed the reciprocal effect between the music and the dancers and the piece’s ebb and flow of energy and slowness. They also talk about the difficulties in balancing the public and the private while performing intimacy on stage.

James is a choreographer, dancer and dance teacher from Australia. Now based in Berlin, he works internationally. Before the second showing of his piece Shortcuts to Familiar Places at Schauspielhaus Vienna, James sat down with Chris Standfest. They discussed the ways in which James’ mentor Ruth Osborne as well as the legendary Gertrud Bodenwieser shaped the work.

They also touch on the specific excitement of showing it in Vienna, where Bodenwieser Lived before she had to flee from the Nazis. They further reflect on how expression or Ausdruckstanz is reentering the current dance landscape.

As an extension of her exploration into lesbian subjectivities in dance and the performing arts, Pauline L. Boulba seeks to make queer practice visible through artistic creation. In this way, she explores the extent to which imagination, somatic practice and fiction act to repair damaged bodies. A two-headed combo of narrative and choreography foster reflection on patriarchal violence. Re-territorialising bodies, to fictionalise life, pumping reality back onto the stage.

Free admission by reservation only.

Harald’s first solo Batty Bwoy is both bleak and playful in its re-appropriation of racist and homophobic stereotypes. By embodying this harmful imagery, they emerge on the other side as a newly ambivalent figure, impossible to grasp. 

Writer Sean Pfeiffer and Harald talk about his inspirations for the piece, the musical collaboration with a Norwegian prog-rock band, and the delicacy of involving an audience directly. 

Esben is a Danish visual artist whose sculptures and performances have been shown at numerous galleries and festivals. Esben’s works tap into his generation’s habits of visual consumption. He has introduced short-attention-span tools like social media livestreams into traditional museum spaces in pieces like BURN!.

With the writer Sean Pfeiffer, Esben discusses his experiences as a visual artist at a contemporary dance festival. They also talk about the heavy use of pop-cultural signifiers and accessing the authentic through the artificial.

Uferstudios Berlin und Workshop Foundation Budapest are offering two differently designed exchange residencies for professional movement and dance artists who work in Hungary or who are based in Berlin! Application deadline is 14 April.

Serbian dancer Nemanja Bošković joins workshops by Mathilde Monnier & Stéphane Bouquet, Nadia Lauro and Jassem Hindi in the frame of exerce by ICI–CCN.

The workshop is taking place on Thursday, 21 March from 3–6pm at ICI—CCN

Free admission by reservation only.

Thursday, 21 March, 7–8pm

J.J is named after Jill Johnston (1929-2010), dance critic, performer, and uber-determined and angry lesbian feminist. The work is a journey through the real and fictional lives of this very American figure. Through the invention of archives and the use of quotes, voices and drag-kings, the two performers reflect upon lesbian practice in art.

→ Screened in partnership with Rainbow screen festival

Free admission by reservation only.

Anna is a Hungarian dancer and choreographer based between Vienna and Stockholm. Her work often deals with bodily memory, cultural identity, and dance as a means of communication. The group choreography DELICATE has been equally shaped by these themes. The work features three female dancers who grew up in different European and Eastern European contexts – namely Karin Pauer in Austria, Adél Juhász in Hungary and 
Sasha Portyannikova in Russia.

After presenting DELICATE at Kasino am Schwarzenbergplatz, Anna sat down with author Sean Pfeiffer. They discussed the role of writing in the development of the piece, Anna’s decision not to perform herself, and her collaboration with musician Rozi Mákó.

Chara is a performer, choreographer and dance instructor based in Athens, Greece. She has studied Theatre Studies as well as Social and Cultural Anthropology and is musically trained. Her artistic practice merges choreography with field recordings, sound collage and writing.

She sat down with author Sean Pfeiffer to discuss her first solo work to be possessed. It premiered at the Onassis Dance Days in Athens before being presented at Schauspielhaus Vienna in the frame of ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival. In their conversation, the two touch upon the myth of artistic ecstasy, the comfort of routine, and the similarities between contemporary dance and poetry.

The artists of the [8:tension] Young Choreographers' Series of 2023 were in conversation with Chris Standfest and Sean Pfeiffer and we are excited to publish this podcast from today on. 

The first released episodes will be with Chara Kotsali and Anna Biczók. They are giving insights into their working methods and artistic approaches, the making of their pieces To Be Possessed and DELICATE, respectively, and their experience in Vienna.

The release will start on Thursday 21 March, with weekly new episodes. Save us on Spotify Apple Podcast, Podcastaddict or Deezer!

This weekend Festival Programme Commun is kicking off in Lausanne! Apart from a vivid performance programme Arsenic invited to a Life Long Burning meeting, which includes a three days watch-and-talk programme for our Creative Crossroads artists, led by Ysaline Rochat.

Pauline L. Boulba is on a residency at ICI–CCN in Montpellier this March!

HOT BODIES #4 is intended for dance artists who haven't yet encountered the dynamics of freelance work in this field, or who are just starting out.

Apply now and spend three weeks in May in Bulgaria. Do studio work, sessions with other dance artists, co-sharing lectures, co-sharing workshop and presentations – accommodation, rehearsal and performance space as well as per diems are covered.

NOTE: The application end got changed to 21 February!

Our Creative Crossroad artist Sonja Pregrad from Zagreb received the Croatian Professional Dancers Associations Award for the best performance in 2023, for her solo performance OBJECT OF DANCE. 

In 2021 a round table discussion between artistic teams of Tanztage Berlin, Bâtard in Brussels and Les Urbaines in Lausanne got published in the book DANCEOLITICS, supported by Life Long Burning.
Starting from this publication, a panel discussion at Tanztage Berlin continues the conversation about this fragile state tonight.
 

Together with colleagues from different European scenes – curators, artistic coordinators and organizers (from Vienna Chris Standfest is joining, artistic director of [8:tension Young Chreographes' Series] at ImPulsTanz Festival) – they would like to exchange on the intertwinement between the lives of artists at the beginning of their career and the platforms presenting artists and aesthetics that need to “emerge”.

Further information and free download of the book DANCEOLITICS here.

danceWEB is looking for a dance/performance artist/dance writer/dance teacher interested in participating in PRÉAC at La Genette Verte in France!

The seminar PRÉAC (Pôle de Ressources pour l'Éducation Artistique et Culturelle), organized and hosted by ICI-CCN Montpellier, is on Narratives: can we make fiction without making stories? The place of narrative in choreography: the relationship between abstraction and narration, and fictional modalities in choreographic composition, in particular.