Dance Information Norway

Dance Information Norway was the project coordinator of the Writing Movement activities 2012-2015. The foundation is the Norwegian information and competency centre for the art of dance and is located at Dansens Hus in Oslo. As one of the original partners from when the ke∂ja network was established, the organisation has considerable experience from collaborations between the Baltic and Nordic dance communities.

Co-ordinating Writing Movement meant that Dance Information Norway fundraised the total budget, and administered the network of eight local partners that met at regular intervals to share experiences and exchange ideas and competency. Other tasks were editing this website/project-blog, and administering the funding.

The Norwegian Writing Movement activities consisted of a series of seminars targeted towards journalists, critics and editors aiming to raise competency on contemporary dance, both the art form in itself, as well as give an overview of the dance field in general; artists, institutions and infrastructure. As the position of dance criticism is currently weakened and at the verge of eradication from the mainstream media the role of journalists and editors become all important as gate keepers to the public sphere. With knowledge comes interest and the project aimed to break a vicious circle where a booming dance scene is easy to ignore, because everyone else is ignoring it too.

The seminars took place and thus introduced the participants to four different performing arts institutions in Oslo, the spring of 2012, and was followed up by a seminar open to the public during CODA- Oslo International Dance festival 28.september 2012. The feedback from the 20 participants following the seminars series have been overwhelmingly positive, and may in the future hopefully be followed up by similar seminars around the country.