Developing Digital Skills for Young Actors and Young Performing Arts Technicians in the era of pandemic – DigitACT Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing Digital Skills for Young Actors and Young Performing Arts Technicians in the era of pandemic – DigitACT

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Creativity

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The pandemic of COVID-19 has highly affected performing arts, acting, theatre, cinema and TV advertising included. Rich research indicates the huge impact of the restriction measures which were taken across EU countries on the Performance Industry.
While navigating in these unchartered waters, the New European Agenda for Culture adopted by the European Commission in 2018, has set specific relevant objectives for cultural production, evolution and transformation. Specifically:
4.1 Social dimension – harnessing the power of culture and cultural diversity for social cohesion and well-being
– Foster the cultural capability 13 of all Europeans by making available a wide range of cultural activities and providing opportunities to participate actively
– Encourage the mobility of professionals in the cultural and creative sectors and remove obstacles to their mobility
4.2 Economic dimension – supporting culture-based creativity in education and innovation, and for jobs and growth
– Promote the skills needed by cultural and creative sectors, including digital, entrepreneurial, traditional and specialised skills
4.3 External dimension – Strengthening international cultural relations
– Support culture as an engine for sustainable social and economic development
Young actors and technicians who are about to enter the respective job market or have just entered it are facing huge difficulties in adapting to these new circumstances for which they were most probably note trained in their drama schools and faculties. In countries with low national budgets for the digital promotion of theatre, lots of plays were streamed through the web in very low quality, thus, degrading the image of the artistic product and the artists themselves. On the other hand, young actors, who are now trying to build their professional profile will have to upgrade their digital skills to be able to present themselves digitally, to possibly pass much more digital auditions and to build their personal digital marketing.
«DigitACT:Developing Digital Skills for Young Actors and Young Performing Arts Technicians in the era of pandemic» project addresses the above-mentioned challenges seeking to help young actors and young technicians form the show business sector to be better included in the under-transformation job market of performative arts.

This will be achieved through:
– Α state-of-the-art research on the current needs and gaps in the partner countries and the creation of 2 workshop curricula (1 for actors and 1 for technicians) focusing on digital skills
– The implementation of workshops with young actors and technicians in the partner countries
– The creation of a high-tech mobile application for registering and creating a professional profile.
– The establishment of a pool of Young Ambassadors who will spread the message of the project in drama schools, universities, artistic associations etc.
– The promotion of a Charter for Digital Skills in Performing Arts in the partner countries.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 205095 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kentro Parastatikon Technon MITOS & Country: CY

Project Partners

• REON
• CSI CENTER FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION LTD
• Menu agentura Artscape
• Teatro Pubblico Pugliese – Consorzio Regionale per le Arti e la Cultura
• MVAC – mala voadora associação cultural