Photo (c) Anna Kushnirenko

2024 is for Care and Wellbeing

How can embodied knowledge & practices of care in contemporary dance improve the health and wellbeing of societies?

What role can practices of care and wellbeing have in informing better working conditions for artists and other contemporary dance professionals?

How can embodied knowledge & practices of care in contemporary dance inform other sectors striving to improve health & working conditions of citizens?

Mapping of practices

Each year, the EDNext project investigates important topics relevant to the development of the contemporary dance sector and disseminates the findings.

In 2024, EDN members hosted a series of workshops, think-tanks and online meetings to explore multiple aspects of the topic and apply different perspectives to this cross-sectoral inquiry.

Research publication

We are delighted to announce that dance dramaturg Monica Gillette will follow EDN's activities dealing with the topics of care and wellbeing in 2024. Monica will author the 2024 research publication on Practices of Care and Wellbeing in Contemporary Dance: Evidence from the Field.

About the author

Monica Gillette is a dance dramaturg and facilitator. After dancing professionally she now guides multiple projects with dance as a pathway for social engagement and multigenerational cultural exchange. As a dramaturg she accompanied several European funded projects – Migrant Bodies - Moving Borders (2017-2019), Empowering Dance (2018-2023) and Dancing Museums - The Democracy of Beings (2020-2021) and continues to accompany Dance Well (2022-2025) and Moving Borders (2023-2025). For each of those projects she authors and edits digital publications for the dissemination of the knowledge and skills developed in the project. 

For the writing of this report, Monica Gillette draws on her experiences as a former professional dancer and ten years experience of working in socially engaged settings with local citizens. She also draws from the experiences of facilitating embodied sessions and the transformation process with the team at Tanzhaus Zürich. Together with Gwen Hsin-Yi Chang she is newly appointed as the Artistic Direction team for the Tanztriennale, taking place in Hamburg in 2026.

Background

EDN's thematic inquiry into practices of care and wellbeing began as a response to the crisis brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

The conference What’s Next in Restructuring the Dance Ecosystem included an intervention by Monica Gillette and Roberto Casarotto, entitled Practices of Well-Being for Spaces of Change.

In 2021, EDN issued a research publication Dance and Wellbeing: review of evidence and policy perspectives by Jordi Baltà Portolés.

Current projects

Dance Well is a cooperation project led by several EDN member organisations. It supports the development of dance artists and organisations whose practice engages with people living with Parkinson’s, or other movement disorders.

EDN members are involved in the DanceBrainRehab project, which aims to develop an introductory training program for dance artists and other dance professionals who wish to work with groups with special needs through creative movement.

EDN's 2024 programme, research and publication are brough to you with the support of the European Union's Creative Europe programme as part of the EU-funded project 101053456 EDNext.