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>>scholarship recipients 2009

SHORT REPORT

The danceWEB Scholarship Programme 2009 started with the preparation and selection
process of the next generation of Scholarship holders in January/February 2009 – more
than 1100 artists had applied. After a long and challenging selection procedure, the Artistic
Committee (in collaboration with the 2009 danceWEB mentors, Philipp Gehmacher/AT and
Christine De Smedt/BE) nominated 63 promising and talented dancers and
choreographers for the danceWEB Scholarship Programme 2009, that took place from
July 15 – August 19, 2009 within the frame of ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance
Festival.
Under the tutelage of Gehmacher & De Smedt, the “WEBbers” approached, discussed and
deepened into several different topics in the field of contemporary dance, whereby the crucial
issue remained the questions of requiring knowledge and different models of artistic
practise/curatorship.
Not only were these questions examined in the danceWEB Salons (full-day meetings with
the mentors exclusive to the WEBbers), but also the choice of this year’s guest of the public
danceWEB talk demonstrated the importance of this issue: Gehmacher & De Smedt invited
Xavier Le Roy to discuss the CCN Montpellier project “6M1L” (short for “6Month1Location”),
for which he invited 9 artists, involved in diverse research projects and performance
productions as well as in other types of events, to work together during 6 months in one
location (Mathilde Monnier’s choreographic centre in Montpellier, France.) The talk and the
discussion afterwards gained quality through the presence of other artists (teachers and
performers and students present at that time at the festival) at this talk, which took place at
the Arsenal (the workshop venue of ImPulsTanz).
To provide an additional, distinct perspective of artistic practise, the mentors invited 4
Austrian artists/curators in the course of another danceWEB Salon that took place in a space
/ a work place / a studio of the guests. Barbara Kraus (performer), Jack Hauser (writer,
performer, visual artist), Sandra Noeth (head dramaturge and curator of Tanzquartier Wien)
and Georg Schöllhammer (freelance curator, writer, editor) presented their field of work and
talked about practise, daily and general, sharing professional activity and expertise.
Besides this reflective approach, the performances and workshops offered by ImPulsTanz –
Vienna International Dance Festival present the two other pillars of the danceWEB
Scholarship Programme. The Scholarship recipients compiled their personal schedule for the
5 weeks from the wide range of 95 performances, 203 workshops & research projects
headed by more than 100 teachers.
The danceWEB Reception on July 24, 2009 represented the social highlight of
danceWEB09: a come-together of the 63 young artists plus mentors with their generous
financial supporters and representatives of embassies in Vienna, taking place in the
Novomatic Forum (the ImPulsTanz festival lounge 2009). All present representatives, from
business, from diplomacy and from the arts, could benefit from this interdisciplinary and
socialising exchange, which was crowned by the joint visit of Wim Vandekeybus & Ultima
Vez’s performance “nieuwZwart” at Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier/Halle E.
The programme's aim is the exchange of ideas and knowledge - unlimited by national
borders - as well as providing concentrated further training. The intention is to create
a multicultural atmosphere that is a fertile ground for future collaborations, a space for
exchange of experiences and finding new ideas and inspiration.

“It’s like to provide water for fish to swim in, and all this time I was strongly motivated to give
and take, discuss, share, learn, discover, reject, invent...because I found myself sharing
dance with people, who spoke the same language, even if we came from all over the planet.”
Kire Miladinoski (MK) / danceWEB 2009