E-MOTIONAL Bodies & Cities is a two-year mobility and artistic exchange dance programme gathering artists and managers from six European countries – Romania, Cyprus, Ireland, Latvia, United Kingdom, and Turkey. The programme plans to identify, nurture, attract and sustain talent and creativity at the European level, by connecting artists and dance managers from countries participating in the project through mobility grants, residencies, fellowships, artistic research and performance co-production and exchange.

We believe it is equally important to address both the professional development and the experimental feature of contemporary dance. That is why learning and networking experiences, artistic research and performance exchanges are intertwined in the fabric of E-MOTIONAL. Furthermore, the project is open to all interested professionals from contemporary dance: choreographers, dancers, managers, dance critics, as well as to artists from associated fields (visual arts, new media, music) through a variety of activities.

We support the development of contemporary dance scenes by addressing mostly communities out of the mainstream cultural scene, offering direct support to small but highly creative cultural players and aiming to expand their cross-border activity in a more effervescent and challenging European context.

E-MOTIONAL, the concept
What could be emotional within motion and movement and in relation with different cities and contexts (cultural, personal, virtual)? E-Motional refers firstly to a movement that comes out from something, that brings out something, and further plays with the idea of movement in its interior and exterior states. We also refer to Europe in movement (E-Motion), which we understand as an interior continent, with its personal histories and sceneries, forming an emotional map. We move in space, a concrete space where people’s encounters lead to new approaches of artistic development, a learning opportunity to all those involved.

What is mobility to us?
On a very basic level, the project intends to move people’s bodies and emotions into new cultural landscapes and contexts. E-MOTIONAL is a complex metaphor of the contemporary body and its changing psychological state, subject and object of communication, space for connectivity, hub for new ideas and concepts as well as vehicle for cultural development of our cities.

Coordinator:
Gabriela Tudor Foundation (Romania)

Co-organisers:
Dublin Dance Festival (Ireland)
Dance Ireland
The Association of the Professional Dance Choreographers of Latvia (Latvia)
Dance House Lemesos (Cyprus)
body > data > space (United Kingdom)

Associated partners:
ArtistNe(s)t Network of Artists-in-Residence Centres / “George Apostu” Cultural Centre in Bacau, and the National Dance Centre in Bucharest (Romania), The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, and the University of Limerick (Ireland), Rialto Theatre, Limassol (Cyprus), and CATI Dans – Contemporary Dance Artists Association, Istanbul (Turkey).

Funders
The project is developed with support from the Culture 2007-2013 Programme of the European Union, Strand 1.2.1: Cooperation Projects. Co-funding of the coordinator is secured through grants from the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam, the Romanian Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the National Dance Centre in Bucharest.

Special thanks to visual artist Matei Branea for the project visuals and logos.