NDA Educational Programme, 2008–2010
In 2008, with a grant from the Swiss Cultural Programme for the Western Balkans, the network launched a three-year educational dance and choreography programme under the name NDA Educational Programme which provided groups of regional and international dance artists with a multi-month travelling study programme, which included various theoretical and studio dance practices, organized by partners in different Balkan cities (Sofia, Skopje, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Kanjiža, Zagreb, Ptuj, and Ljubljana). The partners invited some of the most outstanding regional and international dance pedagogues, artists, dance theorists and historians, philosophers and thinkers. Between 2008 and 2010, the educational programme concluded each time with a series of artistic productions and performances which took place at various locations around Ljubljana as the Short Cuts festival (Kratki rezi). During those years, 45 students and their educators created a base for a resilient and tenacious dance community, from which all subsequent NDA projects have developed. In 2013, the Swiss Cultural Programme for the Western Balkans awarded NDA with a prize for the best project.
From 2010 until 2011, NDA declared ‘a resting body’ status, dedicating time to reflection and accumulation of materials and ideas for advocating further needs. They worked on a publication during this time, and in July of 2011, the ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival invited NDA to a festival residency, where NDA presented, among other things, the publication which summed up its first five years of work. At that time, NDA started to think about diverse advocacy actions as the need for spaces, formal education and sustainable support for dance were not recognized from the policies in most of the republics. Among other initiatives and actions, Go Out and Dance (under the aegis of UNESCO) was inaugurated in 2010 by Goran Bogdanovski, then a member of NDA’s DMB, with an aim to promote contemporary dance and raise its visibility in the cities of the Balkan region on International Dance Day (29th of April). In order to learn more about the development of policies and dance, NDA representatives were invited to visit Stockholm in December 2010 with the support of the Swedish Cultural Institute to see the contemporary dance production conditions in the country and establish contacts with local organizations.
