danceWEB Scholarship Programme 2015

The danceWEB Scholarship Programme 2015 is taking place from 15 July to 19 August in the frame of the 33th edition of ImPulsTanz - Vienna International Dance Festival and is celebrating its 20th edition!
The danceWEB Scholarship holders 2015 are accompanied by a mentorship collective, consisting of the members of Teachback! 2015! Learn more about it >>here

danceWEB scholarship recipients 2015

ARGENTINIA Juan Pablo CAMARRA | AUSTRALIA Chloe CHIGNELL | AUSTRALIA / NEW ZEALAND Rebecca JENSEN | AUSTRIA Julia DANZINGER / Naima MAZIC / Sara OSTERTAG | AUSTRIA / SPAIN Veza Mária FERNÁNDEZ RAMOS | BELGIUM Elisa YVELIN | BELGIUM / ICELAND Rósa ÓMARSDÓTTIR | BELGIUM/ UK Zen JEFFERSON | BRAZIL Rodrigo ANDREOLLI / Bruno Eduardo LEVORIN | CAMEROON Aurélien MOUAFO | CANADA Anouk THÉRIAULT / Andrew TURNER | DENMARK Adriano Wilfert JENSEN | EGYPT Hend EL BALOUTY / Noura SEIF HASSAN | FINLAND Mira KAUTTO / Sonya LINDFORS | FRANCE Solenn BARBOSA DIAS / Emma DANIEL / Julie GOUJU | FRANCE / CHILE Marcela SANTANDER | FRANCE / GREECE Katerina ANDREOU | GERMANY Susanne GRAU / Jule FLIERL / Jo KOPPE / Vera PIECHULLA / Annegret SCHALKE | GERMANY / SWEDEN Else TUNEMYR | GERMANY / RUSSIA Inna KRASNOPER | GERMANY / USA Hana ERDMAN | GHANA Felix DOMPREH | GREECE Martha PASAKOPOULOU | IRAN Saghar HOSSEINPOUR SANATY | ISRAEL Bar ALTARAS / Merav DAGAN / Shira EVIATAR | ITALY Sara LEGHISSA | NORWAY Ann Christin KONGSNESS | THE PHILIPPINES Nicole PRIMERO | POLAND Ewa DZIARNOWSKA / Zuzanna RATAJCZYK / Katarzyna WOLIŃSKA | PORTUGAL / GERMANY Helena DAWIN | ROMANIA Georgeta FINTINARU / Adriana GHEORGHE EUNACHE / Alina POPA | RUSSIA Anya KRAVCHENKO | SERBIA Frosina DIMOVSKA | SWEDEN Louise DAHL | SWITZERLAND / SPAIN Tamara ALEGRE | SPAIN Poliana LIMA | TURKEY Gizem AKSU | UGANDA Faizal DDAMBA | UNITED KINGDOM Jamila JOHNSON SMALL / Hamish MACPHERSON / Zinzi MINOTT | UNITED KINGDOM / SPAIN Pepa UBERA | USA Rachael DICHTER / Keyon GASKIN / Sigrid LAUREN / Angie PITTMAN / Alex RODABAUGH / Gillian WALSH

Celebrating its 20^th edition, the danceWEB Scholarship Programme 2015 welcomed 66 dancers from 40 countries in its advanced training program for contemporary dance and performance, taking place from 15 July to 19 August 2015 in the frame of ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival.
For the first time since its foundation in 1996, the scholarship holders were accompanied by a mentorship collective of 10 renowned international dance artists, who, at the same time, formed the teachback group 2015: Jennifer Lacey, Alice Chauchat, Alix Eynaudi, Anne Juren, Keith Hennessy, Mark Lorimer, Mårten Spångberg, Philippe Riéra, Raimundas Malašauskas and Valentina Desideri have been working together since 2014 in the frame of this research process on teaching practices and proposed this project as the “danceWEB mentor” 2015. They clarified in their statement to the scholarship recipients that they considered “[…] the role of the dance web coach as that of a facilitator, opening a culture and a potential method of communication or functioning amongst the webbers. This year a situation, rather than one or two artists, will take on that role“
            During the first days, situations were created that allowed the process of getting to know 66 dancers from various cultures and traditions – an almost impossible task to fulfill in three days. This is all the more important as each scholarship holder is following his/her individually designed schedule of workshops, research projects and performances during the danceWEB program. Europe’s biggest dance festival – ImPulsTanz – serves as the perfect infrastructure for the scholarship program. With its 257 workshops and 11 research projects run by 150 teachers and 146 performances it responds to the divers artistic needs and preferences of its participants and automatically creates a unique biotope that nurtures future collaborations and projects.      
            Twice the danceWEB participants gathered together as group for the so-called Salons – evening events designed by the mentorship collective that followed different aspects. The first one on 27 July was intended as Beauty Salon, to which they invited the Congolese artist Faustin Linyekula, who gave a lecture on his topic of expertise “Of Beauty and Revolutions” while the scholarship holders offered all kind of beauty treatments to each other. The second Salon on 2^nd August created a situation that allowed individual concentrated reading in an almost dark surrounding. Everybody was invited to bring flashlights, texts, books et al. for sharing during this reading practice. Despite the full working days with constant input the scholarship holders still felt the urge to organize another full day meeting where everybody could present his/her latest work or excerpts of it. The wish to know more about the scholarship colleagues artistically to spot possible future collaborators was very much evident since the very first days and was constantly accompanying the group throughout their daily routine of workshops and performances of the ImPulsTanz festival. This also lead to the following postcard practice: throughout the period of the program, 2-3 “Webbers” per day could send an email about their artistic practice to the whole danceWEB 2015 mailing list. Once the danceWEB program was finished, these digital postcards were replaced with real ones in the so-called “Riffing on a postcard”-practice: Everyone starts sending a real postcard with a question to the following person on the list. Once you receive a question, you have one month to reply to it. While responding, you send a question or query about your artistic practice to another person down the list as well. Through this way ideally everybody discusses artistic queries with everybody on the list.
The following extra activities merit a special mention: 27 scholarship recipients participated in the performance “The Planet, first location” by Mårten Spångberg, which was presented within the ImPulsTanz main program twice. Faizal Ddamba, scholarship recipient from Uganda, won the dance battle “Me Against The Music” of ImPulsTanz and is returning to the festival in 2016 for a residency.
            The danceWEB reception 2015 was held on 4 August at the Weltmuseum Wien and welcomed numerous representatives of embassies in Vienna and supporters of the danceWEB program, who had the chance to meet the scholarship recipients 2015 in person during this special occasion. The evening was concluded with the attendance of the performance “Future Memories” by the Swedish/Indian artist Rani Nair, who was a scholarship recipient herself in 2003.
During the last days of the program the scholarship holders made themselves further familiar with their different artistic practices and developed further plans of future collaborations. The communication amongst the danceWEB scholarship recipients 2015 continues intensively even after the program, they named their collective “Rennweg” under which projects shall be realized in the future.

Gallery photos by Kat Raynolds and Karolina Miernik.