Dance in rural regions

Around 90% of Germany’s surface composes of rural regions which are inhabited by 47 million people. Rural regions are impacted by the most diverse processes of change. Topics relevant for society like climate change, globalization, digitalization, sustainability, decline in the birth rate, immigration and emigration as well as the demographic development change the social life and the economic conditions of rural regions.

Some regions experience a strong appreciation, others seem to lose in importance. In general this seems to be dependent on the quality of the existing infrastructure, which includes the possibility to participate in digitalization. Many inhabitants from rural regions with poor in infrastructure experience a feeling of being “left behind“, they are missing working and development perspectives and suffer from the fact that, among other things, many young people (have to) leave the region for their education, studies or work. The government attempts to encounter this reality by taking on the mission to develop rural regions in order to establish equal chances.

As we realized recently within our national funding project ChanceTanz, it is difficult for people living in rural areas to take part in artistic projects for dance. Cultural institutions are lacking appropriately educated dance artists, companies, stages and opportunities to see, experience and learn contemporary dance.

What is necessary to improve this situation? Which structures are needed? Which project formats make sense within the given conditions? What are the characteristics that have to be taken in consideration for financing and funding? What is the importance of cooperation and exchange formats? And in which ways can you raise interest for contemporary dance and reinforce developments on site, without implementing dance as “UFO“?

In our current network project tanz weit draußen, we are working with alliance partners from 5 federal states on this important topic for and from the perspective of contemporary dance. The aim is to expand, strengthen and professionalise the respective regional dance scenes and make them more visible. In addition, experiences are to be exchanged, expertise is to be pooled and made accessible and work is to be done on the further expansion of a nationwide network. Among other things, the project has already developed a nationwide interactive mapping (currently only available in German) focussing on dance in rural regions. It provides dance professionals and multipliers as well as politics and administration with an overview and networking opportunities. At the same time, it provides insights into the specific activities, projects and locations of individual players.

Prior to the current network project, Aktion Tanz had already realised a first project on dance in rural regions together with TanzSzene Baden-Württemberg, Fachstelle Tanz Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Tanzregion Vorpommern e. V.. It consisted of the hybrid symposium “Es braucht ein ganzes Dorf … Tanz in ländlichen Räumen” (“It takes a whole village … dance in rural areas”), which took place in May 2021 and was attended by a total of 120 interested people, as well as of a subsequent mentoring programme.