Léim Live

Bassano del Grappa

Author, Natalia Álvarez Simo

In welcome, the director of the OperaState festival explained the direction their work was taking. Each day we worked on different issues.

The Festival was celebrating its 33rd edition with over 300 evening shows in different venues in the Veneto region. Artist from all over the world, with different styles from avant-garde to the more traditional, had come to Bassano del Grappa.

The Director’s team looks for support to maintain the festival’s level of resources: for example the Nardini family gave a venue in which to set up a dance space called CENTRO PER LA SCENA CONTEMPORANEA.

The Director’s team had organised workshops through an open call for 24 artists, 12 resident in Italy and 12 from outwith. The artists were involved in “work in progress” and public presentations.

Another of the team’s objective is to introduce the concept of Transnationalism; and they have started to set up European projects and networks like: Aerowaves, Choreoroam, the European Dance House Network, Act Your Age, modul-dance, Migrant Bodies and Léim.

On the other hand we attended different presentations of projects such as the one by the Director of the Dance Umbrella festival in London, Betsy Gregory.  She talked to us about how the festival had been set up and how it has been developed. Theresa also explained to us how the British Council and the subsidy sector work.

The Bosch project
The way to introduce us to this project was through a game. During the dinner, in pairs, we had to talk with the choreographers and the Bosch Project partners and interview them about their experience on the Bosch Project:  how it works, and what the essence of the project was.

The next day we were with the Director of the Bosch Project and he explained to us all the aspects of this huge project from 2010 to 2016, with different countries, and different fields within the arts. The dance project within the Bosch Project was the group of choreographers who presented their “work in progress” in diverse venues of a museum on the Saturday afternoon.

Another part of this visit was working in groups. First we analysed an EU evaluation of a European project, and saw what their priorities are. Another exercise was in pairs; we had to develop a dance project specific to Bassano del Grappa.  On the last day, each pair presented its project to the others.

The experience was wonderful, in a marvellous environment, with a river, stunning architecture, exquisite food and an intense learning experience.

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