Partnerships
COMMON STORIES
Common Stories has been initiated by the Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, MC93 (Bobigny, France), in partnership with the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles (Brussels, Belgium), Alkantara, Culturgest (Lisbon, Portugal), africologneFESTIVAL (Cologne, Germany), Riksteatern (Stockholm, Sweden), in association with TR Warszawa (Warsaw, Poland).
Orient Productions – D-CAF Festival (Cairo, Egypt, 2023), CulturArte (Maputo, Mozambique, 2024) e Les Récréâtrales (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 2025) are the cultural structures involved in the project on the African continent.
Over three years, from February 2023 to December 2025, Common Stories will set out to discover other, often invisible, stories and practices, while reflecting on the development of frameworks that are more conducive to welcoming and listening to different voices and perspectives.
Over the past 30 years, the European society has undergone profound demographical transformations. The question of the “Other” is shaking up national political debates and the very values of the European project. Performing arts, the art of representation par excellence, dealing with imagination and narratives, should mirror this increasing diversity, as well the complexity of European societies today. But on stage, among our audiences and within our teams, there is still a long way to go.
At its own scale, Common Stories will address the diversity issue in the performing arts through a multiple approach.
Each year, Common LAB brings together eight emerging artists based in Europe and working in the field of theatre, dance, and performance. Experimenting with collective and individual devices and broadening European narratives, this moving laboratory offers opportunities to learn and discover practices, artistic universes, professional environments and urban work contexts. The process allows knowledge and experience sharing, as well as the development of a personal artistic research.
Project co-funded by the European Union under the Creative Europe programme
EUROPE BEYOND ACCESS
Across the performing arts and across Europe, disabled artists are pushing the boundaries of form, and are presenting audiences, fellow artists and arts professionals with one of the creative opportunities of our time.
Since 2018, Europe Beyond Access has:
- Supported disabled artists to internationalise their artistic innovations and their careers
- Developed a network of leading mainstream organisations with a commitment to present and commission at the highest level
- Built European audiences interested in high-quality innovative work by Europe’s disabled artists
- Developed tools and understanding in the wider performing arts market
- Collaborated with many of the world’s leading arts networks to champion excellent artistic works, and to educate arts professionals
- Advocated for change in a cultural sector that systematically marginalises disabled artists and arts professionals
In 2023 Europe Beyond Access has once again been funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and will run for another 4 years, from 2024 to 2027.
An enlarged consortium will continue to support disabled and Deaf performing artists across Europe. The second generation of the project will be run by 10 high-profile European cultural organisation: Skånes Dansteater (Sweden), Holland Dance Festival ((Netherlands), Onassis Stegi (Grece), Oriente Occidente (Italy), Kampnagel – Internationales Zentrum für schönere Künste (Germany), CODA Oslo International Dance Festival (Norway), Centrum Kultury ZAMEK w Poznaniu (Poland), Project Arts Centre (Ireland), Mercat de les Flors (Spain), Culturgest – Fundação CGD (Portugal).
British Council (UK), who initiated and led the first Europe Beyond Access programme from 2018-2023, is now associated partner.
REDE PORTUGUESA DE ARTE CONTEMPORÂNEA - RPAC
A RPAC apoia a criação, produção e divulgação da arte contemporânea, das suas coleções, artistas, criadores e dinamizadores públicos e privados existentes em Portugal. Promove objetivos de responsabilidade social, cultural e artística, nomeadamente através da aproximação dos cidadãos à arte, na formação das equipas e na profissionalização dos espaços, na multidisciplinariedade, na multiculturalidade, nas acessibilidades e na promoção da internacionalização.
É constituída por Instituições de diferentes tipologias, dispersas territorialmente, vocacionadas para a valorização e dinamização da arte contemporânea portuguesa, nas áreas das artes visuais e cruzamento disciplinar, cujos padrões de rigor e qualidade no exercício das suas atividades culturais e artísticas, são reconhecidos pelo Ministério da Cultura.
A Rede Portuguesa de Arte Contemporânea surge, em 2021, da vontade de priorizar uma política cultural sustentada e de proximidade, que promova a descentralização e desconcentração territorial, e um mais amplo acesso às artes, expressa no Programa do XXII Governo Constitucional.
A RPAC afirma-se como:
- Uma estrutura que reúne toda a criação e produção de arte contemporânea portuguesa e que apoia artistas e criadores, bem como dinamizadores públicos e privados;
- Uma rede potenciadora da divulgação nacional e internacional dos artistas e criadores portugueses e das diferentes coleções públicas e privadas existentes em Portugal.
- Promove objetivos de responsabilidade social, cultural e artística, nomeadamente através da aproximação dos cidadãos à arte contemporânea, na formação das equipas e na profissionalização dos espaços, na multidisciplinariedade, na multiculturalidade, nas acessibilidades e na promoção da internacionalização.
ACT - Art, Climate, Transition
ACT - Art, Climate, Transition is a European cooperation project on hope. The hope we’re interested in is about ‘broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act’ (Rebecca Solnit).
Ours is an age of climate breakdown, mass extinction and unprecedented loss of biodiversity. Ours is a Europe of increasing populist and nationalist tendencies, wearing out the resilience of civil systems and political reasoning. In only a few years since the Paris COP21-agreements the awareness and urgency of our climate issues is perceived broadly but acted upon too little, too late. These realities are not separated from each other, but closely interconnected. As a cooperation project of ten European cultural organisations, we step into this field and connect the arts to what we see as the most urgent agenda today: act, towards a just transition.
In the period September 2019 - August 2023, we work together in this cooperation project with these ten artistic organisations:
ArtsAdmin (London, UK), Bunker (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Culturgest (Lisbon, Portugal), COAL (Paris, France), Domino (Zagreb, Croatia), Kaaitheater (Brussels, Belgium), Kampnagel (Hamburg, Germany), Lokomotiva (Skopje, Macedonia), NTIL, (Riga, Latvia), Theater Rotterdam (Rotterdam, Netherlands).
Create to Connect
Create to Connect is an international project in which 15 European arts and research partners from 13 European countries develop a series of initiatives with the aim to further the aesthetic, political and social impact of contemporary creation in various art forms.
The Create to Connect partners are: Bunker (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Artsadmin (London, UK), AltArt (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen, Norway), La Villette (Paris, France), Noorderzon (Groningen, Netherlands), Theater Rotterdam (Netherlands), Arts and Theatre Institute (Prague, Czech Republic), Culturgest (Lisbon, Portugal), Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Drugo more (Rijeka, Croatia), Santarcangelo dei Teatri (Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy), NTGent (Ghent, Belgium), Museum of Contemporary Art (Tbilisi, Georgia) and United Artist Labour (Belgrade, Serbia).
Create to Connect develops a great variety of activities in all the countries where it is present, including the production and creation of new theatre performances and art works, an international research project on the impact of artistic practices, the realization of participatory projects and the realization of two international encounters of curators, artists and researchers.
The project runs from September 2018 till August 2022 and is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
