New Patrons: Citizen-Commissioned Dance and Performance

Experience shows that contemporary dance and performance are low-threshold art forms that promote intensive communal experiences, develop new perspectives on pressing issues facing society and encourage social cohesion within communities. Against this backdrop, the programme “New Patrons: Citizen-Commissioned Dance and Performance” aims to carry out around 15 performative art projects nationwide in places with little cultural infrastructure. They will be initiated by local residents who will commission internationally acclaimed artists to participate and develop them on site.

The New Patrons programme is based on a method tried and tested in Germany and abroad for years. Mediators with professional artistic and educational expertise accompany the citizen-initiated projects, engage in discussion on local issues and spearhead cooperation with interested artists. For their part, choreographers, dancers and performers can explore new possibilities for their own artistic practice and research which arise from these unconventional working conditions and performance venues. This was particularly evident in the project “In C - The Marl Score” by Sasha Waltz, developed by the dance company Sasha Waltz & Guests for the New Patrons pilot phase, which generated important impulses for the newly established programme. Around 100 citizens of Marl danced together with 16 internationally active dancers at architecturally significant venues in the city (photo).

Project selection usually begins with a funding query. Mediators reach out to local civic groups and invite them to initiate a commissioned project in accordance with the “New Patrons Protocol”. In the later stages of the process, the mediators accompany the projects and provide advice on implementing the citizen-initiated projects, especially with regard to selecting artists. The mediators also provide one another peer-to-peer support. To strengthen cultural participation on location, the dance and performance projects should be carried out by local organisations, such as associations, cultural centres, institutions and public entities.