Uniting to defend dance on a European scale

Belinda Mathieu  

Creative Europe, the EU's flagship program for cross-border artistic collaborations across the continent, celebrates its 12th anniversary this year. Many important international networks and initiatives in the dance world have come to rely on its funding to boost connections, pool resources, and advocate for cultural policies that support the sector's specific needs. CN D Magazine probes the role of EU co-funded initiatives in the dance world in a time of declining national funding and political uncertainty. 

“Gatherings like this are rare,” says Laurent Meheust, Director of Le Gymnase – a National Center for Choreographic Development in the northern French city of Roubaix. He’s speaking about Advocating for Dance, a two-day program held in Lyon in November 2025 about “taking action to defend dance.” The city’s premier dance presenter Maison de la Dance de Lyon, as well as the Centre National de la Danse (CN D), which has a base there, joined forces with the European Dance Development Network (EDN) to gather around 50 French and European dance professionals to collectively voice their ideas, frustrations, and wishes for the sector during presentations, discussions, and workshops. “It’s so important to take the time to meet and reflect together,” continues Meheust, “in order to improve our ways of working and boost our field.”

Created in 2009, today EDN boasts 55 member organisations from 29 countries across Europe with the aim of creating a “sustainable, progressive, and equitable field of contemporary dance.” A significant portion of the network’s funding comes from Creative Europe, a program of the European Commission that provides four year grants for cooperative cultural projects that gather actors from multiple countries. “Contemporary dance needs to collaborate across borders” explains Eva Broberg, the Stockholm-based head of the EDN network, whose activities include gathering information on the sector’s needs to inform European-level cultural policy.

International touring and mobility “are not a bonus, they are inherent to this ecosystem,” explains Broberg. “It has always been obvious to me that work on a global scale was necessary,” continues Meheust, whose organisation is a member of EDN. “Dance is a pioneer in terms of international connections – it’s at the heart of its history. From an artistic point of view, it puts people and relationships at the center, and from an economic point of view, expanding your network allows artists to make a living by exporting their work.”

Understanding the nuances of different contexts is an important part of meeting the needs of the dance sector on an international scale. “Pieces by Greek choreographers are known to be expensive, but these artists have no other source of income than performances, unlike French artists who can benefit from subsidies, for example,” explains Meheust. “When it is difficult for an artist to work in their own country, it is often easier to leave and set up a company elsewhere.” This data is essential when it comes to demanding better pay for artists. EDN looks “for support in as many countries as possible,” says Meheust, “even beyond the goal of expanding the network.”

Other EU co-funded initiatives encourage these inter-territorial dynamics. Some are short-term collaborations that pool skills and resources on specific projects, such as Moving Borders, which showcases initiatives by artists from the Ukrainian diaspora, and Dancewell, designed for people with Parkinson’s disease or other movement disorders linked to neurodegenerative conditions – which both ran from 2023 to 2025. There are also networks and platforms with longer-term aims of connecting dance professionals and showcasing emerging artists such as Moving Balkans, FEDORA (which supports opera and ballet), and the Aerowaves hub for dance discovery in Europe.

Dutch choreographer Christian Yav, whose solo Movements of Soul was featured at the 2024 edition of Aerowaves’ annual Spring Forward Festival, says the exposure “has enabled my work to cross borders.” Because the festival attracts programmers from around the world, Yav says he “was able to perform in several European countries and in Canada, in venues where my unconventional work resonated with audiences.” However, the experience went beyond mere promotion of his work: “It was an opportunity to build connections. We live in a digital world that has some advantages, but I am convinced of the importance of seeing artists’ work and being able to meet and exchange ideas in person. It was a magical experience.” 

Networking, getting to know each other, and meeting face-to-face also fosters conditions for international solidarity when dance institutions experience significant budgets cut or are threatened by political change. Dance “is one of the first to go when funding sources are scarce,” says Broberg. “It is a very precarious field where the vast majority of professionals are self-employed and artists often work in untenable conditions. Being part of a network makes us feel less alone in the face of pressure and self-censorship by sharing our ideas to resist it.” In the face of such rising pressures, Broberg is especially concerned about making sure "that EDN is not perceived as a closed club," which she says involves opening their resources to professionals and organisations who are not formal members of the network, especially in regions where support for dance can be scarce. 

In 2028, the Creative Europe budget will be cut by 25 percent, from €2.4 billion to €1.8 billion, as part of its merger with the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values program to become AgoraEU. Given that, since 2024, only 6 of the 264 cultural projects funded by Creative Europe have been dedicated to dance, the future of international cooperation across the continent in the field seems imperilled, at a time when it is most needed. 

Belinda Mathieu is a journalist and dance critic working for several publications (Télérama, Trois Couleurs, Sceneweb). She holds degrees in French literature (Université Paris-Sorbonne), journalism (ISCPA), and an MA from the dance department of Université Paris VIII. She is the Editor-in-Chief of CN D Magazine.

aerowaves dance across europe
May 6 to 9 at the Spring Forward Festival 2026 at Centro Cultural Vila Flor
in Guimarães, Portugal

Residency program 2026
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EDN Workshop: Advocating for Dance
November, 2025
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