Dance forum: towards making excellent theatres
Opera Europa’s first Dance event was hosted early November in the run-up to the Dance Brno festival, at the invitation of their Ballet Director Mario Radačovský.
With over 50 Ballet Artistic Directors and Managers, this meeting was a great way to open up discussions with a strong artistic force of over half of our member theatres.
“We have to find a way to make excellent theatres, no matter if you dance, sing or speak.”
Martin Glaser, General Director Brno
The Ballet Administrators and the gathering of Ballet Directors convened by Ted Brandsen and Assis Carreiro of Positioning Ballet had joint meetings on common topics and parallel break-outs to address particular practical issues.
Discussions on sharing a theatre’s infrastructures with other art forms revealed the array of different structures and arrangements within houses, and some had managed to capitalise on major changes – whether new management, new legal frameworks or new dynamics following the pandemic – but there was a general feeling that the ballet departments needed a stronger voice at the table at least when making scheduling decisions, and ideally when making strategic decisions for the theatre.
Rights issues for presenting dance include levels of complexity when taking into account commissioning fees, licensing rights and royalties, with disparities in regions and extra challenges when touring. The Administrators expressed the need for a more unified approach.
The participants were treated to wonderful performances. On the first night, a triple bill by Ballet NdB in presence of choreographers Jiři Kylián and Radu Poklitaru ; on the second night, a triple bill danced by the junior company Ballet NdB2 ; and on the final night the Ballet ND Prague opening Dance Brno.
There was tremendous support for the creation of a Dance forum, but also the integration of dance in our other forums’ discussions. Operabook will also integrate dance performances, in order to encourage production rentals and co-productions.
Members of the Dance forum will be welcome at our Artistic Administration & Producing forum in Zagreb, where co-productions hold the centre stage, and at our spring conference in Vienna, where the interactions between opera and ballet will be discussed.
Audrey Jungers
General Manager
