Partner´s Look Back

We asked all our project partners a simple question:

“The iCoDaCo 2024-2027 project is currently halfway through… What are your first thoughts looking back?”

Here are their responses:

Czech Republic

Lucia Kašiarová and Lucie Fabišiková

Looking back at the iCoDaCo 2024–2027 project at its halfway point, the first word that comes to mind is learning—slow, embodied, and often nonlinear. Our artistic collectives have spent a lot of time testing different strategies for engaging with the given tiers at the beginning of each residency: how to stay true to individual artistic integrity while genuinely deciding together and allowing every voice to be heard.

This process naturally brought up recurring questions. How much time should be given to discussion, and when does it need to shift into action and physical work? How can disagreement or individual needs be acknowledged without blocking the collective flow of research? Step by step, the groups explored which decision-making methods serve different situations best.

These experiences culminated in a workshop for the public, developed together with Veronika Uhlířová, an expert for collective decision-making. Over time, the collective also recognized the need for regular facilitated mediation to maintain a healthy working atmosphere. Inviting facilitator Dana Moore into the residency process opened up important insights and made us realize that an overly accommodating environment is not always supportive, and that saying “no” doesn’t mean stopping creation, but often allows it to move forward more clearly.

Denmark

Signe Sandvej

Looking back at the first half of iCoDaCo, our first thoughts are of gratitude and momentum. For us in CuntsCollective, it has been a privilege to collaborate with generous residency partners across Denmark, who have opened their spaces, communities, and ways of working to us. The ongoing involvement of inspiring guest artists has continuously expanded the collective, artistically and socially. Equally important has been the joy of local engagement: meeting people, building trust, and creating work rooted in specific places. Altogether, the process feels rich, connected, and full of possibility for what lies ahead.

France

Yohann Floch 

At the midpoint of iCoDaCo, the Continuous Professional Development Programme stands as a vivid reflection of both the contemporary dance field and the broader societal shifts we navigate. The programme doesn’t just address the practical needs of artists—sustainability, internationalisation, mental well-being—but mirrors the urgent questions of our time: How do we balance ambition with responsibility? How can creativity thrive in precarity? How do we build equity in a fragmented world?

Through peer exchanges and tailored mentoring, CPDP reveals the tensions artists face—local engagement vs. global reach, artistic integrity vs. financial survival—as microcosms of societal challenges. The focus on intercultural competencies and sustainable practices isn’t just professional development; it’s a response to rising nationalism, climate urgency, and the call for inclusive, resilient communities.

iCoDaCo reminds us that dance isn’t just an art form—it’s a space where artists rehearse the future, turning challenges into collective action and opportunity.

Georgia

Nina Gochitashvili

Looking back at the first half of the iCoDaCo 2024–2027 project, my initial thoughts are of strong connection, trust, and shared responsibility. The project has created a meaningful platform for dialogue between artists, institutions, and communities, especially within challenging political and social contexts. I see iCoDaCo as a living process rather than a fixed structure — one that allows flexibility, care, and critical reflection. The exchange of practices and the emphasis on solidarity have already strengthened our collective capacity to respond to urgency through art. This first phase has laid a solid ethical and creative foundation for deeper collaboration in the years ahead.

Germany

Mila Lanz

Answer (approximately 100 words): We feel grateful to be in charge of the research aspect. It has given us time to notice, articulate, and connect what might otherwise remain scattered. We are struck by the range of contemporary dance across Europe, with different histories, aesthetics, and working conditions, and by the many ways artists compose and work together. The project has revealed varied modalities of collective work, from negotiated collaborations to shifting groups formed around shared questions. Our main challenge remains the digital platform: working without proximity, touch, and the social life usually becomes part of a dance production.

Hungary

Luca Kövécs and Anikó Rácz

The project involved various levels of experience: on one hand we had to understand and learn how the various partners work, what their context is and on the other hand, we designed within SÍN a framework and a structure to work with a collective that formed in a very different way than artist work on a regular basis.

Following the practice of SÍN the horizontal and transparent decision-making processes we made an open call to the scene and invited the artist to form a collective themselves. 

Navigating the requirements of the project and the needs of the artists and the local scene has been sometimes challenging. 

Latvia

Inta Balode

The first half of iCoDaCo for LAUKKU was an intense and satisfactory learning time on different levels. First, getting to know partners we haven’t collaborated with before and learning about the vast range of realities in partner countries both in the dance field and social and political aspects. Second, through open call bringing together artists who have never worked together and going through an exciting process of sharing views, backgrounds and building trust. Third, wonderful interactions with local communities, being touched by their open hearts and minds and cheerful spirits. Fourth, seeing how the project and artists’ collective gets more and more visible, recognised and valued in the professional dance community and among students. It is great to hear feedback from the colleagues saying that they can see how members of the collective grow professionally, become more visible, outspoken and share the sense of belonging to the collective. Fifth, on the administrative side of the project it has been a lot of learning and navigating requirements, also moments of confusion and tiredness but we got through that. Also some matching funds came in, the other attempts failed. In general for such a large scale project things have been going well and we are excited to see how the second half of more unknowns will unfold. 

Netherlands

Jasper van Luijk

In the first half of iCoDaCo, SHIFFT experienced the project mainly through the residency structure: planning, hosting or travelling, sharing outcomes, and then translating what happened into our daily practice at home. As a company and partner, we’ve enjoyed the contact within the partnership. Communication is generally smooth and it feels good to work with organisations that are committed and responsive. We’re also looking forward to stronger facilitation on how the partnership functions overall, practically and organisationally, so it becomes clearer how the different working methods, timelines, and responsibilities connect.

We’ve learned that building an artistic collective takes time, and we can feel that starting to pay off: collaboration between artists is getting easier, and the work is becoming more direct and constructive. We also see clear value locally. The exchange around the residencies doesn’t only feed the collective work, but also strengthens each choreographer’s individual practice, which then benefits SHIFFT’s broader artistic development.

At the same time, we still feel some distance toward the other collectives and partners. We don’t fully feel “bonded” yet, and in the Saturday Zooms we sometimes worry we’re not meeting the (often unspoken) expectations. Finally, while we contribute consistently, it isn’t always clear what is being done with our input, which makes us both curious and unsure about how all contributions will come together later in the project.

Portugal

Teresa Camarinha

Looking back at the first phase of iCoDaCo from the Portuguese context, we reflect on a process shaped by care, trust, and gradual collective building. After launching an open call, we selected artists whose practices and experiences we knew could meaningfully contribute to the project’s values, allowing a strong foundation of trust and shared responsibility from the outset. 

This first phase has been a time of learning—understanding different partner contexts, navigating administrative demands, and balancing structure with flexibility. Encounters with local communities and exchanges with international partners have reinforced iCoDaCo as a living, evolving process, where collaboration, dialogue, and solidarity continue to deepen across contexts.

Spain

Manon Siv Duquesnay

These first 2 years have been an exciting journey since the early meetings online, the first presential partners meeting in Porto, making it a statement that this is happening. It has been going from more administrative and preparation work towards creating the collectives and experiencing residencies and public events, showing the quality, depth and wide range of the project. With each residency and public event the project makes more sense, giving drive for all the administrative work behind. Learning from sharing with the other partners and learning from sharing with the encompassing collective and international collective of artists. Locally it has been enriching for each of the rural areas the project has been moving to through residencies and always met with a lot of curiosity, interest and gratitude.

Sweden

Nicole Arthur & Israel Aloni

As we pass the project’s halfway point, looking back reveals a clear transition from presentation to genuine co-creation. From the kick-off meeting at the start where all partners came together to think about how the project could look, and imagined how it would be realised, at this point in the project - through the partners, artist collectives, and the development of the iCoDaCo digital platform - has progressively evolved through practice towards a deeper inquiry into collective artistic processes, exposing tensions around authorship, hierarchy, integrity and power. These moments emerge as opportunities to venture deeper into the objectives of the project and they have become productive, forcing the project to question what “international”, “contemporary”, “dance”, and “collective” truly mean today, and find ways to work collectively, together, while separated. So far, the work done at both the local and international level shows how decentralised, simultaneous, and context-driven methodologies can be explored and brought forward to the public, evolving the process initially conceived in terms of theory, practice, and engagement. Rather than offering answers, iCoDaCo is at the point where it creates structures for shared thinking, embracing complexity, sustainability, and artistic plurality as its core strength.

Wales

Gwyn Emberton / Jones the Dance 

The first phase of iCoDaCo has been genuinely transformative. Getting to know new partners while reaffirming previous collaborations within this new constellation has been intense, challenging, and incredibly rewarding.

Building the project's foundations with partners who take dance and artist support as seriously as we do has meant that as we enter the second co-creation phase, our focus can be exactly where it should be: on practice, art-making, creation, and meeting audiences.

Bringing together artists from so many different countries, practices, and traditions has already pushed the boundaries of our own work as Welsh artists and as a company. Close collaboration across the partnership has introduced us to new approaches that we've been able to integrate into our operations, while our artists continue to inspire one another.