Open call workshop - SUSTAINABILITY OF DANCE MEDIA

Czech Dance News is announcing an open call for participation in workshops for art critics and editors focusing on dance, new circus and movement theatre, as well as cultural managers and workers in cultural organisations. This time the workshops will be focused on sharing approaches to the running of the arts' media, both print and electronic. The main theme will be sustainability in terms of economic stability, human resources and expanding readership. The workshops will be led by international lecturers in early October in Ostrava as part of the MOVE Fest festival and will conclude with a panel discussion with creators and critics for the general public.

The workshops will take place on Friday and Saturday 6-7 October under the guidance of publicist and founder of the Tanznetz platform Nina Hümpel (DE), Dancing Times editor-in-chief Jonathan Gray (UK) and critic Sanjoy Roy (UK), who has been writing about dance for Springback Magazine and other major media for over twenty years.

The speakers will discuss with the participants the issues of sustainability, fundraising, sponsorship, monetization of content, staff stability and setting up a system for honoring the work of critics. In addition, attention will be paid to the topic of print versus online media, the challenges and risks of transformation, and the specifics of how these two types of media operate. The third area will be audience development and marketing, PR and other strategies to increase reader interest.

A panel discussion for the public Echoes of Dance Criticism in Regional Media will then take place on 8 October. In addition to the speakers, other field figures from dance journalism and cultural PR will be invited to participate in the panel discussion.

The workshops will be held in English. Participation is conditional on writing one critical text for the website http://www.tanecniaktuality.cz. The text is paid for.

The number of workshop participants is limited, please register by 31 August via google form: https://forms.gle/i5S22qWhLRB67uyo6.

Participants of the workshops will receive a free accreditation for MOVE Fest 2023. Participants who do not reside in Ostrava will be provided with an allowance for transport and accommodation. Participation of regional authors is welcome.

Preliminary program:

Friday 6. 10. 2023:

10:00 - 12:00 - Introductionary meeting

13:00 - 15:00 -  Sustainability of dance media in terms of economics (led by Nina Hümpel)

Saturday 7. 10. 2023

10:00 - 12:00 - Motivation, education, and sustainability of the profession of dance critic (led by Sanjoy Roy)

13:00 - 15:00 - Sustainability of content of dance media (led by Jonathan Gray)

Sunday 8. 10. 2023

13:00 - 15:00 - Public discussion - Echoes of Dance Criticism in Regional Media

Program change reserved.

The project is implemented with the financial support of the European Union through the National Recovery Plan.

Presentation of the speakers:

Jonathan Gray (London, UK) was editor of Dancing Times from 2008 to 2022. He studied at The Royal Ballet School, Leicester Polytechnic, and Wimbledon School of Art where he graduated with a BA Hons in Theatre Design. He was on the Curatorial Staff of the Theatre Museum, London, from 1989 to 2005, assisting on a number of dance-related exhibitions, and helping with the recreation of original designs for a number of The Royal Ballet's productions including Danses concertantes, Daphnis and Chloë, and The Sleeping Beauty. He has also contributed to the Financial Times and The Guardian, written programme articles for The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet, and is co-author of the book Unleashing Britain: Theatre gets real 1955-64, published in 2005. 

Nina Hümpel (Munich, Germany) studied theater studies with an emphasis on dance history, and also literary studies and philosophy in Munich. Since 1996 she has been the publisher of tanznetz.de, the internet portal for artistic stage dance in German-speaking countries, for which she received the German Dance Recognition Award in 2014. She is a member of the initiative Access to Dance – Tanzplan München; with its broad network the initiative is committed to creating better access for contemporary dance in the city. To assist in accomplishing this, in 2005 she founded accesstodance.de, the dance portal for Bavaria. Nina Hümpel was a jury member of the Bayerischer Landesverband für zeitgenössischen Tanz (Bavarian State Association of Contemporary Dance); the Kultureller Ehrenpreis (cultural honor award) and the dance jury of the City of Munich's Department of Arts as well as the Fonds für Darstellende Künste (Fund for Performing Arts) in Berlin, Programm Kreativtransfer and the Deutscher Tanzpreis des Dachverband Tanz Deutschland (German dance award by the umbrella organisation dance Germany). She is a founding and board member of Tanz.Media and since 2021 has been a board member of Dachverband Tanz Deutschland (umbrella organization dance Germany).Together with Tobias Ehinger she curated the gala program for the German dance award in 2020, 2021 and 2022. She teaches dance history and dance journalism at several institutions and universities. She curated together with Dieter Buroch DANCE, the City of Munich's international festival of contemporary dance, for the first time in 2012. She was the sole artistic director for the subsequent editions of the dance biennale in the years 

Sanjoy Roy (London, UK) is editor of Springback Magazine, a Europe-wide dance writing development initiative by Aerowaves Europe, launched in 2018, and has been a dance writer for the Guardian since 2002. He was previously a production editor and designer at the specialist publisher Dance Books Ltd, where he was also co-editor of the print magazine Dance Now. He has written for many other publications including the New York Times, New Statesman, Dancing Times and Dance Gazette and Dancing Times, is London correspondent for Dance International magazine, and won the 2019 OneDance UK Award for Dance Writing. He studied contemporary dance at Laban, London, as well as sociology and communication at Goldsmiths, University of London. His writing archive is at sanjoyroy.net

The workshops are realized within the framework of the project Dance Criticism in a European Context with the financial support of the European Union through the National Recovery Plan.