Start for Dance Erasmus Project

Project Title

Start for Dance

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 : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

Start for Dance
This dance project was being implemented by three partners: The “Maastricht School of Management” and two dance companies, namely “Compagnie Irene K” based in Eupen, Belgium and “Compagnia Francesca Selva” based in Sienna, Italy.
Both dance companies also include a dance school and therefore have a very similar structure. They have one challenge in common: finding enough job seeking dancers with all skills needed (emotional, artistic, technical) to learn the company’s repertoire and to perform with the company abroad (across Europe and across the world). If there are many job seeking dancers on the labour market, not enough fulfil all these criteria.
This is why this project aimed at offering an appropriate training to twelve young job seeking dancers (professional or non professional, as long as they know the dance techniques). Dancers aged between 18 and 24 from all over the world could apply to participate in this training. (Selection was organised around one public call for applications and two selection periods).
The training (2 x 30 days) was composed of two parts: The theoretical part, on the one hand, was including warming up techniques, study of the company’s recent choreography and repertoire, exchanges with artistic directors and members of the company, two public performances, and workshops on the topic of “management”. The practical part, on the other hand, enabled the young dancers to discover everyday working life of two different companies with their respective artistic identity, cultural context, creative repertoire and functional structure. Training participants discovered tools to manage real life situations and developed entrepreneurship skills adapted to the specific needs of the labour market in the world of dance.
To sum up, “Start for Dance” offered candidates an opportunity to increase their employability and to strengthen their professional development. Throughout the whole training period, participants were supported by experts, trainers, and pedagogues from the world of dance and the business management sector. Moreover, project partners gathered and exchanged experience, knowledge and best practice and hoped to be able to hire some candidates into their company, which it was the case. Indeed, several dancers have been hired on an ad hoc basis for certain projects.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 35095 Eur

Project Coordinator

Compagnie Irene K. & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Stichting Maastricht School of Management
• CONSORZIO COREOGRAFI DANZA D’AUTORE