Exploratory Mapping of Intermediary Organisations - Supporting Performing Arts Circulation in Europe

SPACE, December 2011, Netherlands

"Creating and performing across borders is key to develop and enrich the artistic experience for both creators and audiences. However operating within the European stages is complex and risky, yet challenging! Europe features an unbalanced scenario in what comes to the performing arts sector policies, infra-structures, working and social status and thus configuring disparate conditions for mobility.

The support of intermediaries in relation to mobility promotion is then essential. Actually, the role of intermediaries is integral to the whole artistic process. Alongside with creators, intermediaries allow for art processes and outputs to take shape and place, delivering and facilitating arts interaction with audiences.

The SPACE network linking national/regional organisations that promote performing arts mobility, supported by the EU as a pilot project for the period 2008-2011, invested on the improvement of the sector´s intermediaries capacity building in view of fruitful and sustainable mobility. This exploratory mapping is meant to initiate a reflection on the sector´s organisational models and dynamics.

This report discusses the intermediary position and features a set of profiles of organisations active in this domain, having the SPACE members as a case study, with a focus on the initiatives and tools put in place for mobility promotion. It contributes this way to draw the sector´s institutional panorama within the EU and shed light on its logics: the number and diversity of intermediaries in operation in each country/region, reflects the autonomy and regulation of the sector that in its turn, mirrors as well political, economical and geographical contexts.

The study finalises with recommendations for organisations and policy makers to integrate mobility as a structural feature to their practices. From local to international, across different institutional levels, the sector´s organisations may play an important mediation role in view of building up a (performing) arts community across borders."

Research conducted for SPACE by Christina Farinha

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