Perform Europe is calling for performing arts companies, artists, collectives, venues and festivals to support experiments

Perform Europe

Perform Europe is a pilot scheme funded by the European Commission. Its aim is to support experiments to make touring of performing arts works in Creative Europe countries more sustainable and inclusive. The project is an 18-month journey, which includes a research phase, testing a grant-giving programme, and designing policy recommendations.

Call for performing arts companies, artists, venues and festivals

This is a call for performing arts producers and presenters motivated to shape cross-border partnerships meant to explore and test alternative ways of bringing artistic work(s) to people and places.

• By producers, is meant performing arts companies and collectives, individual artists, or presenters which have produced an artistic work or developed an artistic concept that can be implemented in various contexts. By presenters, is meant venues, festivals or other types of organisations offering a presenting context.

Applicants may apply in a double capacity: both as a presenter and a producer.

• By artistic work, we mean productions and artistic initiatives and concepts that are ready to be applied and practiced in different environments. Perform Europe does not support production costs.

Please note that Perform Europe’s research showed that there is a strong will in the European performing arts sector to reinvent the touring and distribution practices. Artistic work should be brought to people and places in ways that cherish artistic values, create just relations, empower diversity of voices, care for the environment, and are meaningful and inspiring for local communities and artists.

The current landscape of performing arts collaboration in Europe is not balanced and inclusive enough, neither is it sustainable. There are some gaps – lacks, issues, obstacles – which prevent a dream picture from becoming a reality. Here are some of the most evident gaps experienced by the performing arts organisations and professionals touring across borders or willing to tour: 

• money,
• time,
• infrastructure,
• skills and capacities,
• knowledge and awareness, 
• visibility and recognition,
• connectedness and collaboration,
• curiosity and inclusivity,
• solidarity and fairness,
• equity and equality

In this first step, Perform Europe is eager to discover organisations and artists with bold and courageous visions and ideas on how to innovate cross-border touring and distribution in a truly fair, inclusive, ecological, and human-centred way. These new ways should try to bridge the current gaps (above) in the cross-border landscape of showing artistic work and bring change to our performing arts ecosystem.