Internationale Tanzmesse NRW – Global Networking of Contemporary Dance in North Rhine-Westphalia

Seven festival directors, programme directors, curators and freelance dance professionals from Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom were in North Rhine-Westphalia from 29 August to 3 September to visit the international tanzmesse nrw 2022 in Düsseldorf and get to know key players and institutions in the dance state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The "TALK & CONNECT: (Un)expected Relations" event and AGORA at the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf offered dance fair participants the opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas with dance professionals from NRW and around the world. The visitor programme opened up opportunities for exchange with the artistic directors of tanzmesse 2022, Isa Köhler and Katharina Kucher, as well as with Heike Lehmke, Managing Director of nrw landesbüro tanz.

In addition to attending selected performances at the tanzmesse in Düsseldorf and Krefeld, the group travelled to Essen for a meeting with Maja Zimmermann, Head of Programme and Project Development at PACT Zollverein, and took part in a guided tour of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Zeche Zollverein.

As part of the tanzmesse nrw, the visitors also took part in the Pre-Day NRW in cooperation with the International Visitors Programme in Wuppertal, where they visited the Pina Bausch Archive and had the opportunity to find out about the Pina Bausch Fellowship Scholarship Programme. The choreographers Thusnelda Mercy and Pascal Merighi gave insights into the TanzStation founded in 2020 at the Barmer Bahnhof in Wuppertal and Fabian Lasarzik (Pottporus e.V) and Eva Lenhardt (International Visitors Programme) presented the residency programme "CROWD - international dance exchange".