A Note from Carolelinda Dickey and Andrea Snyder
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Dear Colleagues,
As the world enters its third year of what remains of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new normal is beginning to emerge. During theses unsettling times, American Dance Abroad has taken the opportunity to evaluate not only what we have done, but also how best to continue the work of building bridges and fostering relationships across borders. While obliterating all international gatherings, presentations, conferences and opportunities to be present, the pandemic has nevertheless provided the time to take stock of the last 11 years and to look forward to the future. Our conclusion is that American Dance Abroad is at a crossroads.
We can affirm that American Dance Abroad has achieved its goal to address the lack of international visibility and opportunities for U.S. dance artists and companies. At the time of ADA’s launch, no other U.S. organization had the singular purpose to focus exclusively on the export of American dance. To date, there is still no other organization than American Dance Abroad that still has that singular focus! Through an ever-expanding portfolio of programs – Rapid Response, Beyond Our Borders, Global Exposure, American Dance Recon, Pitchbook, Focus USA, the American Corner, and others – ADA increased knowledge about and visibility of American dance for international programmers from around the world, with dozens and dozens of artists and companies able to realize their international goals through ADA’s programs and introductions/guidance. With only our passion and commitment to the dance field, we are extraordinarily proud of what we accomplished.
The initial concept was that American Dance Abroad would be a five-year project fully supported by foundations and individuals, with an anticipated evolution to a more diverse income structure. Fortunately, we enjoyed 11 years of generous support from both the philanthropic community - for which we are tremendously grateful - and from a devoted group of individual donors. Nevertheless, building a diverse income base, both earned and contributed, could not be realized to the degree that ADA can continue to grow and develop to sufficiently to serve the American dance community.
American Dance Abroad could not have thrived without the ongoing support from our philanthropic partners, especially the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the Howard Gilman Foundation. Many have been clear that international cultural exchange and cultural diplomacy are not on their current agenda. We certainly understand their changing priorities and we vigorously support their goals to shore up America’s cultural institutions and support individual artists while simultaneously working to ensure cultural parity and justice for all. These are our priorities, too, together with the belief that creating understanding and exchange across borders must be part of the process.
Given all the changes of the last several years, American Dance Abroad has decided that as of June 30, 2022 it will sunset or put on hold several programs that have been heavily dependent on philanthropic support. Most regretfully, Rapid Response will be on an indefinite hold until which time sufficient resources are available to restart it. Pitchbook was paused when international travel shutdown, but ADA is exploring a revamped digital version. Both American Dance Recon (ADR) and the American Corner were always labor intensive and costly projects. ADR had eight editions and introduced or reintroduced 68 international programmers to more than 200 American artists. Many of those artists and programmers have stayed connected and continue to create international productions. The American Corner has been a means to organize American delegations at international gatherings. Artists, dance companies, artist representative, and U.S. programmers are carrying on this work as it suits their individual needs. American Dance Abroad will remain available to mentor and consult with those who wish to attend these events. Most immediately, American Dance Abroad will not host a delegation to the Internationale Tanzmesse NRW this summer, but we will organize a virtual orientation session for those who have decided to attend in person. We are confident that this work will continue without the formality of the American Corner and we will work with any other organization that might consider to take this program into their organization.
Carolelinda Dickey and Andrea Snyder, ADA’s founders and co-directors, together will continue to work directly with individual projects and organizations. Our most recent projects are good examples of this focus -- fostering a collaboration between ArtGarage in Pozzuoli, Italy and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and orchestrating a collaboration with the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Budapest International Dance Festival (Hungary) and Dance Fest Skopje (N. Macedonia), American Dance Abroad connected and created the new partnerships for these artists and supported the international programmers with whom we have worked throughout our history. We hope to continue to help the many organizations we have worked with in the past and to add new organizations and projects to our work.
American Dance Abroad has always operated under the umbrella of Performing Arts Strategies, LLC. While PAS has been less obvious to the majority of those who know us, it has been the entity that has housed the many projects where we functioned more as managers and/or traditional consultants. These projects have included work with regional arts organizations, the U.S. State Department, individual dance companies, and national and international service organizations. We will continue to pursue projects that align with our accumulated experience, knowledge, and skills as we intend to remain available as consultants on a project basis, pending funding for such projects.
Lastly, American Dance Abroad has developed an unprecedented amount of information and knowledge about working abroad. We learned our craft from “giants.” Our mentors and early influencers include the founders of Technical Assistance Group (TAG), Bénédicte Pesle of Artservices in Paris, Val Bourne and Dance Umbrella in London, David White and the Suitcase Fund, Art Becovsky, the U.S. Information Agency, Alexander Sternfeld in Latin America, and Charlie Reinhart and the American Dance Festival International. They nurtured and taught us. We will now attempt to collect and document what we have learned in the last 20 years and preserve it in a manner that is available to current and future artists to access and use as it suits them. We are still working what the final vehicle will be, but we will keep you informed.
Moving forward, our website will remain up and active, our newsletters will go quarterly rather than monthly, and our availability will remain open and accessible to all.
Carolelinda Dickey and Andrea Snyder
Co-Directors and Co-Founders
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Partnership Between Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and ArtGarage
Emma Cianchi's ArtGarage; photos by Federica Capo
For the past year, American Dance Abroad has collaborated with Jacob’s Pillow and ArtGarge, a dance center in Pozzouli, Italy led by choreographer Emma Cianchi on WOMAN MADE, an initiative focused on international women choreographers and a winning project of Boarding Pass Plus ‘21/22 of the Italian Ministry of Culture. WOMAN MADE is intended to promote the courage of international female choreographic voices. Envisioned and organized by ArtGarage, the works created by choreographers from Vietnam, Mexico, the U.S., and Italy have at their core a view to sharing intentions and achieving common goals, including the positioning of women in powerful roles in dance through international cultural exchange. As a part of this exchange, acclaimed New York-based choreographer Kimberly Bartosik traveled to Italy in late January to create The Encounter: Italy in a residency with a group of Italian dancers; and in late April Cianchi developed a new work with Italian and U.S.-based dancers during a Pillow Lab residency.
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Martha Graham Dance Company Tours Abroad
Photo via Martha Graham Dance
The second project that American Dance Abroad brokered was a pandemic-variation of its program FOCUS: USA. Originally designed as a “mini-festival” of several American dance companies within an existing international festival (One Dance Week in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, April 2018; HIGH FEST International Performing Arts Festival in Yerevan, October 2019; and a hybrid Dance Fest Skopje in September 2020), we turned it around to account for COVID limitations. Instead of three companies engaged in one festival, ADA worked with the Martha Graham Dance Company to travel and perform in Budapest and Skopje. Instrumental to these engagements was the inclusion a classic Graham work – PANORAMA – set on local students in each city and performed on the stage as part of the Company’s program. The Graham company had never performed in Budapest or Skopje, so these performance held special meeting to everyone. Thanks to the passionate commitment and incredible teamwork by Risima Risimkin and Dance Fest Skopje staff, and from Péter Ertl and Zoltan Sandor and the Budapest Dance Festival team. These international colleagues worked tirelessly to overcome countless obstacles to ensure the company’s comfort and safe engagement. Audiences were “blown away.”
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Upcoming Events and Opportunities
Visit American Dance Abroad's Events & Opportunities page for all the latest deadlines. Contact communications@americandanceabroad.org to submit an opportunity for inclusion.
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Solo Contemporary Dance Festival
Open Call for Applications
Due: July 3, 2022
Learn more
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Foundation for Contemporary Arts
Open Call for Travel Funding
Due: Rolling Applications
Learn More
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International Solo Dance Contest
Open Call for Festival Applications
Due: June 30, 2022
Learn more
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National Dance Project
Open Call for Travel Funding
Due: Rolling Applications
Learn More
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Saison Foundation
Open Call for Artist in Residence
Due: June 30, 2022
Learn more
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Casa Na Ilha
Open Call for Residency Programs
Due: Rolling
Learn more
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