Dance Research NRW

The international scholarship programme offers dancers, performers and choreographers the opportunity to spend several weeks a year researching independently of a production. In 2023, the NRWKS will enable a total of four residencies of several weeks for thematic research. The focus will be on questions of productive framework conditions for collaboratively developed working principles and ethical foundations - with a stronger orientation away from individual practice towards community of practice.

In March and August, Greek choreographer Maria Koliopoulou explores the physical prerequisites for dance ability with Dance Research #46 in Cologne. The focus is as much on elementary skills as on the effects of certain physical limitations. With Dance Research  #47, the Amsterdam-based team of choreographer and dancer Wojciech Grudziński and composer Wojtek Blecharz will devote themselves to the diverse meanings of bowing - in the field of tension between dance-specific and social gesture - in Düsseldorf in August/September.

Two artists from NRW are going on a search for identitary traces abroad as Tanzrecherche scholarship holders. For Dance Research #48, the Cologne-based dancer and choreographer Khadidiatou Bangoura travels to Monrovia in Liberia in October/November to trace the origins of the West African dance "Fanga". And for Dance Research #49 in Riga, Latvia, the Dortmund artist Sara Koluchova initiated a movement dialogue between cultural heritage and identity from mid-April to early May, in search of the characteristics of dance expression as a unifying language of different cultures.

"Dance Research NRW" is explicitly not production-related. Since its introduction in 2009, the programme has focused on researching artistic themes and developing working methods. Grants of up to 6,000 euros are offered, depending on the type and scope of the research. The NRWKS arranges meetings and discussions with artists and cultural institutions from a wide range of disciplines and research institutions and supports the final public or digital presentations.

The collaboration with the festival tanz nrw is continued in the cooperation project " Sprungbrett <> Tanzrecherche NRW" (Springboard <> Dance Research NRW). Two teams of scholarship holders, iSaAc Espinoza Hidrobo, Roman Jungblut & Visiting Beings as well as Yasmin Fahbod, Mina Khani and Zahra Mousawy from the Hiraeth Kollektiv, will each receive a research and work residency independent of the production as part of the tanz nrw 2023 festival.