Twinning Program Pilot 2022
14. 04. 2022.
From December 2021 to April 2022, 12 organisations took part in an exciting learning endeavour with the creative impact on several communities in 5 countries of Southeast Europe. Our Twinning pairs were involved in different creative practices including theatre production, open style choreography, poetry, circus performance and journalism with inspiring learning results.
~ TWINNING STORY #1
“Otvoreni krug Novi Sad” from Sremski Karlovci, Serbia, and “Cirkultura” from Samobor, Croatia as Twinning partners exchanged knowledge and experience in the following subjects: independent artistic association management; online presentation and visibility; communication; and collaboration with local government and communities. The first exchange visit took place in February in Samobor and the other two visits took place in March and April in Sremski Karlovci. Twinning partners also organised workshops with pedagogues from the region in artistic skills for adults and for the primary school children stressing the importance of the informal education and community art.
~ TWINNING STORY #2
Kolektiv SKLOPKA and Poligon Festival, collaborated as Twinning partners in Mostar and Kragujevac. Their exchange program included two workshops focused on audience engagement. In addition, the pair collaborated on the production of online collection of poetry, which was presented in both cities. Public program was realized between March 31 – April 3 in Mostar and April 7 – April 10 in Kragujevac.
~ TWINNING STORY #3
The Twining partnership between Beatrix Cultural Center from Skopje and Urbana Scena from Ljubljana consisted of two mobility activities in which the partners from both countries visited each other and were involved in educational workshops in street and contemporary dance. In the first mobility activity, they conducted a residency with the dancer and choreographer Alexander Tesch in Skopje, within which, in a period of two weeks, he worked on both training and performance development with the teachers from Beatrix Cultural Center, as well as open workshops for the local community with Teja Modrijan from Urbana Scena. They performed the results of their collaboration at Youth Cultural Center in Skopje. Within the second mobility activity, the team from Beatrix Cultural Center visited Urbana Scena in Ljubljana, where they both held dance workshops for the local community. This opportunity allowed them to better understand the Slovenian dance system and to share experience in the field of street and contemporary dance. Overall, the whole project was of immense importance for future growth of both Beatrix and Urbana Scena and established a context for future collaboration and mutual production.
~ TWINNING STORY #4
Smiling Depression is a Twinning project that brought together two Twinning organizations – Empiria teatar from Zagreb and Presvrt from Skopje, and explored a delicate subject of functional depression and its relation to socio-economical issues in Croatia and North Macedonia. The results of actors’ practices as research process provided bases for their performance – showcases of four storytelling forms which took place at Pogon Jedinstvo in Zagreb between 21 and 30 March. Croatian and North Macedonian actors, artists and producers explored socially relevant issues and discussed them with Croatian audience which was engaged in the programme afterwards. The project pointed out to the importance of connecting two different, yet similar, cultures and speaking out openly about the manifestation of functional depression in society. The audience’s response and the actors’ connection made the topic even more important and visible.
The Twinning Program focuses on bringing together two organizations in the field of art and culture with the aim to work closely for a period of time and to create a space for mutual learning and engagement, capacity building and networking.
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The program is supported by Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the USAID and co-funded by the European Union, as part of the open call for proposals EACEA 39/2019 Cultural Cooperation Projects in the Western Balkans “Strengthening cultural cooperation with and competitiveness of cultural and creative industries in the Western Balkans”. The Call for Proposals is entirely funded by the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II).