Financing & Touring Performing Art Projects

This three day course on cultural funding in Germany includes application writing, project calculation, networking, conversation exercise and touring of work. It is designed for young or emerging artists, managers and producers in the field of performing arts.

Emerging artists often have a lot of questions regarding the funding and distribution of a project: How can I finance my project? How do I apply for public funding? How do I "sell" it to programmers or find a co-producer? This three-day course will supply information and help answer these questions.

The course starts with some basics on professional networking in the field of performing arts. An exercise in typical situations of conversation helps to develop a personal approach of introducing oneself and the own project. Afterwards the participants will be given an overview of possibilities of cultural funding in the field of performing arts in Germany.

Day 2 will be dedicated to the distribution and touring of work: how to contact programmers, what kind of material they are interested in and how to calculate the required fee. The topic of "co-producing in Europe" will be discussed with another expert guest, performing arts manager Kerstin Schroth.

Application writing will be the focus of Day 3. A good project description, an abstract and a coherent financial plan are essential for a successful application. Gabi Beier, an experienced member of different juries in Berlin (dance and research stipends, project funding Berlin-Pankow), will provide an insight into the process of decision making by a jury and can be asked questions about the dos and don’ts.


Contents

• Day 1 Networking: basics, situations of conversation. Types of cultural funding (for performing arts) in Germany
• Day 2 Touring: communication, information material, fee, negotiation, co-producing with European partners
• Day 3 Writing applications: project description, budget, formalities

Methods

Main focus is the transfer of information, supported by discussion, exercises, tips and written information.

Participants

The course is aimed at young or emerging artists in the field of performing arts (choreographers, dancers, directors, actors, etc.) as well as young managers and producers.

Karin Kirchhoff is a freelance curator, production manager, and dramaturge. She has worked with institutions and artists in Berlin such as Berliner Festspiele, Sophiensaele, Tanzfabrik Berlin, Sasha Waltz & Guests, Rubato, Jo Fabian. From 2005 to 2008 she has worked at the Tanzbüro Berlin and held numerous seminars on cultural management since then.

Since 2009, she has been curating Tanz! Heilbronn, an annual international festival at the Theater Heilbronn. The festival represents a variety of contemporary dance productions, from large companies to works created by young choreographers, including educational formats such as community projects, workshops, dance film, work introductions, etc.

Gabi Beier is a dance dramaturge and production manager. She has been working since 1996 for a wide range of artistic projects and theatres, both for contemporary and classical choreographers, such as Jess Curtis, Britta Pudelko, Petra Sabisch, Kazue Ikeda, Milla Koistinen.

In 2006 she co-founded ada Studio, a venue for contemporary dance in Berlin. ada is a space for rehearsal, creation, production and presentation focussing on emerging professional choreographers and on artists who are „new arrivals” to Berlin. Since 2015 Gabi Beier has been regularly teaching dance dramaturgy and production management at Dance Victoria (Canada, BC) and at The Dance Centre (Vancouver, Canada, BC).

Kerstin Schroth manages such international artists as Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen and French performer musician Gérald Kurdian. Kerstin works and lives in Berlin and Paris. She founded and had curated the annual sommer.bar (2006 - 2011) within the festival Tanz im August, Berlin for 6 years. She teaches at the University of Gießen, K3 Hamburg, Sommerakademie Berlin and the University of Dance and Circus in Stockholm.