Nomad Dance Academy's regional advocacy event of the year brings together artists and decision-makers through performative presentations, informal discussions, games, and artistic displays.

Representatives of ministries of culture, city administrations, and other decision-making and funding bodies are invited to meet with artists, discover the world behind the stage, and gain a better insight into the potential of contemporary dance in today’s cultural landscape.

What's on the Agenda

1. Foundation of a Stable Platform for Dance Theory, Archive, and Practice-Based Research

Dance art has produced a vast amount of practical and theoretical knowledge. What is needed is a robust support system to archive this expertise. A database for students and scholars is essential, enabling them to feed their discourse and academic work while preserving the field's rich history for the future. Practice-based research is a key necessity for any further development in the dance field. The future institute would support and provide a solid and safe environment for artists to research, protecting the creative process from the liberal pressure of quantitative evaluations.

2. Stable and professional structure and strategy for emerging artists

The future of the dance field requires a serious strategy: the circumstances in the international context are changing rapidly, the number of new artists emerging from the educational system is growing, and the existing models of production and public funding are not adequately responding to the needs of the future scene. A stable structure would provide a framework for developing new strategies and production models for the emerging scene.

3. Long-term policy for regional and international collaborations

The Croatian dance scene (as well as other regional scenes) is connected to the international scene almost exclusively through individual efforts and initiatives. Institutional support is needed to foster a long-term policy of internationalization, which requires greater professionalization of the work of producers, curators, and managers in the field.

Dancing, Resisting, (Un)working

The convention sets the frame for the grand opening of NDA's exhibition that represents contemporary dance in Yugoslavia as a common cultural space while contextualizing queer bodies against the backdrop of oppression.

A formidable feat of context collection and co-curatorial mapping, the exhibition features materials that testify to the work and actions of more than a hundred artists and artistic collectives, as well as theorists and thinkers who have recorded social, cultural, artistic and political transformations of the body of dance and dance work in the region.

Digital Dance Archive

NADA - the (Non)Aligned Dance Archive is a digital database and developing archive of contemporary dance and performative practices and works from the post-Yugoslavian region.

It assembles artistic works and activities created by formal and informal communities, collectives, and organizations from the independent scene.

This archive represents the process of creating memory, heritage, and discourse of contemporary dance. It is a manifestation of public time that extends beyond the present moment, connecting communities, their artistic spaces, temporalities, and futures. It reflects the dedication of researchers and partner organizations who believe that artistic work is a shared and collective endeavor, fostering future commonalities.