Access Culture and five Portuguese artistic companies/groups will participate in the IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts plenary meeting. This meeting will take place on 23-26 November in Brussels and the theme will be Can we talk? Art in the age of populism.
IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts is an association of over 500 organizations and individual members from the performing arts field from all over the world. In relation to this next meeting, IETM expressed the wish to include Portuguese cultural managers and artists developing their work in the areas of disability, special needs and cultural minorities.
Considering that the participation of Portuguese companies/groups in this meeting is of public cultural interest, and recognising that Access Culture has a good knowledge of the companies at a national level that carry out their work in the above mentioned areas, General Direction for the Arts (Direcção-Geral das Artes – DGArtes) has given us specific funding to organise this participation. One of the attributes of DGArtes is to support and promote the work of portuguese producers, artists and other cultural agents at an international level, facilitating access to promotion and distribution channels and creating the mechanisms and incentives which are appropriate for their realisation. The interest expressed by DGArtes in the participation of Portuguese cultural agents in this IETM meeting is also a result of the recognition that integrating into the cultural practices themes related to disability, special needs and cultural minorities is essential for our social development and cohesion.
Faced with this challenge, Access Culture has taken the responsibility of organising, monitoring and reporting on the participation in the IETM meeting of the following five Portuguese companies:
CRINABEL Teatro
Dançando com a Diferença
Sociedade Artística Musical dos Pousos
Teatro GRIOT
Vo’Arte
We believe that this participation will contribute to the international projection and promotion of the creative work of our colleagues, as well as to their integration in international cooperation networks. We also believe that this is only a first step. Work in the areas of disability, special needs and cultural minorities is not undertaken exclusively by these five companies. We wish to bring attention other initiatives and contribute for their promotion. Taking this step now, we are, at the same time, thinking about the next.
With the support of
Access Culture 