Activities

The activities included in the NIPA project are listed below. If you wish to stay informed about these activities, you can subscribe to our public newsletter (if you are a member, you are already subscribed to the members newsletter).

Events

• Three Plenary Meetings in Belgrade, Serbia (2022), Aarhus, Denmark (2023), and Sofia, Bulgaria (2024), bringing the performing arts sector together for a large event, once per year. A Mapping of the national performing arts scene and a meeting report will be produced for each of the Plenaries.

• Three IETM Focus Meetings in Brussels, Belgium (2022), a location to be confirmed for 2023, and Ljubljana, Slovenia (2024). Focus Meetings are a new IETM meeting format that will allow for a free-flowing yet dynamic and effective brainstorming session with members on one of the three NIPA themes. The main goals of a Focus meeting are to look into local realities and shaping strategies to make one’s professional context more fair, sustainable and inclusive.

Training

• Two editions of the Local Journeys for Change (LJC) programme on Inclusion & Fairness (2022) and Green Transition in the Performing Arts (2023) for a group of 25 members each. Our LJCs aim to support IETM members to realise a small-scale artistic project back home and empower them to bring positive change to their local professional context, communities or policy-making field through training, mentorship, peer-review exercise, and financial support. 

• Three editions of the IETM Campus in Berlin, Germany (2022) and a location to be confirmed for 2023 and 2024. IETM Campus is a 5-day summer school training for 25-30 young professionals to work across borders and learn about how to internationalise their practice through training with 4 experienced mentors. A report will be published upon the completion of each Campus. 

Membership programme

• Three editions of the IETM Global Connect Programme, in collaboration with and with the support of some of IETM’s Associate Members. IETM Global Connect provides opportunities and grants for up to 20 performing arts professionals from across the globe each year to enable them to become part of the network, share their own experience with its members and be inspired for the benefit of their local community. A report will be published upon the completion of each Global Connect programme.

Publications

• A three-Episode publication series on Inclusion & Fairness (2022), Environmental Sustainability (2023), and the New International (2024). The aims of the series are to identify the burning challenges in the sector, collect success stories and best practices, generate data, and inspire change in policy-making.  

• Three Mappings of the national performing arts scene in Serbia (2022), Denmark (2023) and Bulgaria (2024) commissioned in the framework of the NIPA Plenary Meetings, which will help participants to navigate through the multiplicity and diversity of the local performing arts reality.

Advocacy

We will continue following up the main policy developments at the international, EU and national levels, sending out arguments and viable policy messages in line with the values of our network. Beyond reacting to the political and policy discourse, we will strive to shape the political reality ourselves by fostering and shaping decision-making agendas and making sure the values of sustainability, fairness and inclusivity are central to them.

Among various advocacy tools, we will produce policy papers and organise Innovate Cultural Policy events for policy-makers, cultural institutes and art councils.

We will also consolidate the advocacy for the performing arts, getting ever closer with our peer networks in the sector - Circostrada, European Dancehouse Network, European Festivals Association, among others. We will maintain an informal policy platform with them to discuss transversal policy issues, exchanging and generating knowledge, and undertaking joint advocacy actions towards the European institutions and member states.