Wiener Tanzwochen (Vienna, Austria), Kaaitheater (Brussels, Belgium), Centre National de la Danse (Paris, France) and The Place (London, UK) will work together to develop a new audience for contemporary dance performance amongst blind/partially-sighted people by creating and touring dance works made specifically to include that community as spectators and participants.
We are aiming for a step-change in the way artist and dance organisations create work with an awareness of this audience. Our arts organisations will thus be better equipped as cultural businesses to connect with these citizens and the networks that support them. Through our status amongst European art networks we will be able to share both the developed artworks and our learning easily across the EU, providing a model for best practice and a pathway to sustain engagement with this underrepresented audience.
To do so, the work program will consist of:
How can a choreography be conveyed through kinesthetic sensation only? With Blind Spot Anne Juren creates a choreography of your organs and body-functions. While the audience will be lying on mats with their eyes closed, Juren provides a setting open for everybody: a guiding voice and sounds will invite on a trip through body and mind. In the research phase the French choreographer will work with partially sighted and blind people in several private choreographic sessions, relating to the notion of blind spot and the premise that the body is a fiction and does not "exist". Their experiences will influence Juren's "choreography inside the body".
