 Welcome, welcome, dear friends, artists, producers, presenters, policymakers, performing arts lovers, and all in between. Um, first one housekeeping notes, please do not click on any links, not from perform Europe to avoid spam sites. Very important. Once again, welcome, my name is tuned to hear a dramaturg assayist and lecturer. During my time as a city dramaturg in Brussels, one of my focus was on trying to help ensure pieces by that PCs by artists that I work with were able to tour. But how does one ensure that when in fact some of the artists of work with where theater makers of color with my current backgrounds that reflects, of course, constantly changing Europe. While at the same time, those who are programming are often white middle class and male. A conundrum. Welcome to perform in Europe's opening events, our chance to understand a four mentioned issues, as well as better understand perform Europe in general. How can we contribute and be part of the change we want to push to reality. I propose attendees to write questions in the queue and a not in the chat, because those won't be seen. If they're not answered during the event, we will answer them later by email. However, the chat is open. If you want to chat with each other. The webinar is also live stream and recorded. The recording will be made available at the perform Europe platform. Well, now that we've kind of gotten the introduction out of the way, let's have a quick look at what you're at what perform Europe is. Welcome to perform Europe. Perform Europe is a creative Europe project. It is for performing arts professionals, producers of work and presenters of work alike in all the creative Europe countries. Perform Europe is a project that will give us the performing arts sector an opportunity to reimagine and eventually change the way we do international touring. The way we show work, the way we travel, the way we exchange, the way we reach audiences. Through perform Europe, we will hit the road and on an 18 month journey, test new touring and digital distribution models. And propose a new European support scheme for the performing arts. We, the perform Europe partners, ITM, EFA, ITN, Circus Trata and IT consult are thrilled to take this journey together with you. We thank the European Commission and the creative Europe program for the mandate to lead perform Europe. We're glad to have you all here to the opening events of the perform Europe. So the day is actually split up into two parts, the informative and inspirational part. And this last till 3pm. This will set the stage for informing us about the project, followed by a more interactive hands on part with a smaller group of individuals. And this group will collect ideas from the sector and policymakers for me, formulating the sort of wish list scheme for what sustainable and inclusive distribution could be both parts of the events can be followed on our live stream. Okay, let's move on perform Europe is embedded in the European context and invitation and invades station to us by the European Commission to rethink touring. Perform Europe is a service. We together deliver to the European Commission. After 18 months, we aim to advise the commission on why it makes absolute sense to have a new EU scheme for the performing arts distribution and circulation. And the scheme we believe a scheme we all can believe in relating to values and visions. So, in order to give us more insights into that I'm glad to welcome Barbara Gessler, Barbara Gessler sorry, who is with us, head of unit and with her team falling closely our work in perform Europe. Barbara, please tell us more about the expectations you have for this process. Thank you very much for your kind introduction, I hope you can hear me. Perfect. Always this is always tricky the tricky part so dear attendance of this launch conference of perform Europe and, frankly, excited and happy about the journey that we are about to embark on together today. Today's event is the first culmination point of what has been in the air for some years now, a wish and a need expressed by you the performing arts sector, and in particular, it's representative networks to support the sector in its efforts to circulate across borders. As you all know, the Commission first listened to the culture and creative sectors concerns to enable individuals, artists and professionals to work in a transnational manner, allowing them to be mobile outside their countries of residence to work on the project in another country. With opportunities, we set up a scheme that caters for this mobility in a targeted and what figures show very successful way. In parallel, the need to accompany this individual mobility by creating targeted possibilities for the works of these artists to be shown outside their countries of origin in a festival maybe or in any relevant forum of exchange was always present. So, the creative Europe programs main culture action the cooperation projects but also the platforms cater for these possibilities in a structured and partnership oriented way. That's why we are happy that the new creative Europe program that starts this year, not only has a considerably increased budget with almost more than 80% more than the current program to continue these actions and reinforce them. And the performing arts, the sector you represent here today has by large been and will certainly continue being the sector most benefiting of the culture strand of the cult of the creative Europe program. The deeper evaluation into the needs of the sector has shown that further action was needed to raise the level of European collaboration, starting with the knowledge about what is currently being produced, and an opportunity for a European audience to actually and witness it live for preference, but in these times, also in a digital environment, and the times are difficult. The latest study presented by Ernst and young and which confirms the figures forward forwarded by many of you over the past months, unfortunately flags the worst in 2020, the cultural and creative economy lost approximately 31% of its revenues. They are more affected than the tourism and automotive industries, and the most impacted cultural and creative industries are the performing arts sector with minus 90% and music with minus 76%. Even before the crisis, the Commission was aware about the relevance of cross border distribution of performing arts works for the performing arts economy, and it's vital role for the sector's professional growth and artistic development and it was aware that the sector was challenged by a changing context as well requiring new answers to help combat climate change increase its sustainability and inclusiveness in order to remain the source of innovation and thinking outside the box that it stands for bringing critical thinking to the audience that needs to be broader and less concentrated in urban areas. It's not the least these reflections and concerns that will make this tool that will be presented to you today and on which we spent the not so small amount of 2.5 million euros, so relevant for the European Commission, and I believe for our citizens in our society. It will embody the pure notion of what we like to call in our jargon, the European added value par excellence, not only by supporting and circulation, and by supporting circulation and audience development for the sake of it. But because these questions you are facing are also the political priorities for this commission. I'm convinced that the European added value of this new tool will also notably spring from the fact that it will be developed and tested by a professionals from your sector for your sector. With the consortium that will start this endeavor, IETM, the European Festivals Association, the European Dance House Networks, Chirkostrada Art Sénal, the European Network for Circus and Street Arts, and Edea Consult as well as a savvy technical subcontractor ACA IT solutions. I'm certain that they are the partners with the multidisciplinary nature and the complementary set of skills, connections, expertise, and experiences to make this a meaningful instrument. The new distribution tool will take the reality test, the consortium will look into existing support schemes and make a mapping in an effort to learn from the best and hopefully avoid repeating mistakes. Needless to say at the end of this journey, there will be lessons learned and knowing the people involved. I am certain they will not be shy to communicate them to us. With this commission, we are asking for concrete recommendations that will help us developing our efforts further and eventually how and if this specific experience can become part and parcel of the creative Euro program in the future and also how our transparency, that our funding is intended to support, can continue contributing to a more sustainable environment for the artists and the sector, accompanying thereby all ongoing actions of coordination with member states and with the EU. Thank you to my team and notably it be car who has been key in the setting up of this cooperation, we wish you a very fruitful and successful afternoon, and we're looking honestly forward to hearing thoughts and debates. Thank you. Thank you Barbara for those insightful and sobering words, especially the numbers, but also motivated, not only by the picture of James Baldwin behind you but just also motivated by the fact that you all are kind of taken on this very important and pressing challenge. Europe exists for a reason to serve artists to present their work internationally and to allow European citizens to access it, working the most inclusive, balanced and sustainable way possible. As Barbara has already alluded to, it also exists to take the time to think together about new ways of touring about values and principles the sector and the world. It's looking at sustainability once again balance and inclusivity are key words and concepts that perform and reflect on to really think about what do these words mean and how do we incorporate it into the pressing situation that we are we currently find ourselves. With that note, I'm glad to have Eleanor Bauer with us. The dancer and choreographer in order to borrow explores the use of a holistic approach for cross-border nations and translations between aesthetic social and informational values and processes. She's creating producing touring extensively and reflects a lot about how her practices rises from and to a certain degree mirrors societal challenges. Eleanor. Thank you. I'm very humbled and honored to address all of you in this really ambitious and urgent project of really evaluating and reconsidering what's possible within a sort of matrix of what I see as even contradictions. So I'm going to talk a little bit about, I mean, yeah, I'm invited as an artist here I cannot represent the whole field by any stretch of the imagination but I'm also thinking that in this moment. I also want to thank all of you for taking the responsibility to consider these really important and large questions and just remind us that everyone is creative in the capacity to imagine solutions to problem solve to respond to each other and to collaborate in old and new ways so we don't need to just ask the artists to create the solutions or to inspire meaningful processes and debates but all of us here by in our own gathering and in our own skins and experiences embody all sorts of values and questions and solutions so just on the contradictions I want to, I'm just thinking about the contradiction between the value of mobility and the value of sustainability, or the contradiction between the idea of Europe and the ambition of inclusion. I mean there's so many, or yeah also balance and scale, what's a scalable practice is something I'm going to be talking a bit about. So, wow, there's just so much to talk about I'm just going to kind of I'm going to go through these notes they're going to be a little bit nonlinear I hope to inspire some reflection but most of all I just want to encourage a lot of humility. A lot of humility because I think these large questions will not and do not have quick answers like there is a there's a way in which a body like perform Europe is a little bit the way that arts also get positioned as like the advertising agency of political bodies you know it's on us to sort of create the the identities to produce the identities to perform the effects to create experiences that affirm the values, the political values and I think it's a good moment in this sort of global wintering in this huge pause that has radically interrupted the momentum of business as usual. To also affirm the counter force that's possible from the cultural sector in questioning the very historical and material values that have brought us here so. I mean Europe as a promise of unity or unification is also built on a history of exclusion. So there's a there's a very like multi for multiple historical complexity that has like amalgamated into this moment, where I'm actually honestly as painful as it's been, I'm grateful for what this global pandemic has done, even though we've lost a lot of money and we're all in crisis there's a lot of people without work. It's forcing us to consider our roles and our values. Our responsibilities towards each other, and how we can get back to work differently and the longer the thing persists the more impossible as we yearn to meet again we yearn to go to the theater again we yearn for that social vibe and contact. It's it's continued absence is also an opportunity and I just want to encourage also on the one hand the humility. It's really difficult and it is difficult and that there is no quick fix. This is an opportunity to really do things differently like we, we won't be getting back to anything we knew before, anytime soon. We need to invite the real changes and in who we listen to who, how we think and how we feel what are our aesthetic agencies to take this time also to study. So especially with questions of inclusion, along the entire intersectional axes of class race gender ability, ethnicity, etc. And for everybody who has been and isn't a position of safety in a position of power has been given the, the gatekeeping roles has been has a job right now to take this time to educate ourselves about what we've been missing so to look at the historical assumptions that have constructed Euro centrism as a as a kind of whiteness as a kind of bourgeoisie or like what's what are all the sort of economic, the, the, the, whether it's the male gaze or a certain gendered or an ableism like what are these what are the performances we've been seeing constructed by. So before we can even approach inclusion we have to start to name what is already present. Why aren't the, when you say, well we we we need broader audiences we need more diverse representation on the stages. You can't just import these things if the soil is not set so using this metaphor of soil right now like the soil is at rest. This is a wonderful opportunity to figure out what kind of nutrients to use the metaphor like agricultural metaphor. What does this soil need in this composting moment to be able to receive new kinds of seeds, and this is like really practical So a naming what is present. In order to figure out how how this space is constructing the absence and continuing to affirm the absence of what it what is not present. Yet, there's a wonderful book I would encourage everyone to read it's really simple it's really a workbook it's really easy. It's called ideas arrangements effects by the design school for social justice. And I think they have it there's a digital copy you can see for free on issue but they also have an extended talk on their own website the design school for social justice. Basically, they do a really great job of breaking down how ideas like the big isms racism, classism environmentalism, little ism like isms can be huge and overwhelming sometimes in their influence. They are that's what they are their their ideas their ideas they influence how we behave how we act how we move through the world how we construct our spaces. And they also insight very large reactions they produce effects like they create strong emotions. And so in the triangulation of ideas arrangements and effects the design school for social justice really shows how they're how these three things can influence each other with more equanimity. So what are the arrangements refers to the how the rooms are actually arranged like our chairs in a circle are they all facing one front can who has the keys. Is it arranged by silence or participation how loud is it how like what are the colors of the walls like arrangements like everything from the architecture to the behaviors. There's spoken and unspoken, spoken codes of conduct, all these things that constitute how we gather the sort of choreography is if you will, of the spaces we share the rooms we come together in. And then effects are just the felt senses and each of us like how does it feel, I feel nervous, I feel invited, I feel alienated, I feel uninspired, I feel excited, I feel curious, you know, like all the feelings that can be produced from an arrangement, all the feelings that can be produced from an idea, and how by sort of studying the effects in order to come up with different arrangements can also push back on the ideas and shift the horizons. So as we are in like a multi tiered conundrum, we really have to look from all these different angles. So that's one thing that I feel this book helps a little bit break down is the different scales of approach to something. I have to move a little bit quicker. So, um, there's something I've been thinking a lot about which is, instead of coming back to this idea of sort of how to, how does culture not get stuck in being a kind of in this promotional lens, this promotional and very like marketing style, commercial logic of exchange of our effects of our skills of our potentials. I think there's a necessary shift away from saleable and provable concepts towards scalable and durable practices. So this I'm thinking, especially now in the values of sustainability, inclusion and balance, I think it points towards the practices we've, how we've dealt with time and space in terms of scale previously is very wrote, you know, there's a lot of assumptions that creation takes six weeks cost this much money. The stage is this large you should fit everything in this box and then it goes in a van this size and then like the ideas of what is a saleable and provable concept keeps sort of reiterate there's a very very reiterative habitual set of norms that have evolved over time. And they're not, they're not sustainable. So this is a great opportunity to look at what is possible here and now what we can do exactly here and now within the limitations of the present condition, and how that can start to shift towards scalable and durable practices. So instead of, you know, coming up with a project idea and pitching it three years into the future and convincing everybody it's a great idea and then chasing after the promises you've made and then hoping to have a good tour. Like there's all these ways that we deal with. And then it's provability is like, well, will you be able to make the thing you promise will you be able to tour the square that way. And there's a lot of like selling promises and speculations that kind of send us in a constant future. We're propelling ourselves towards this future with this momentum, and missing, maybe the, the practice and a here and here is actually the seed for change. I know this is very abstract, but I think also there's something about like in performance and dance especially there's a curiosity that's like to do to find out. So if it's possible now do it, and then check out what are the effects. Is this is this working now today are we are we excited to come to work today are we serving. How can we serve the communities we want to serve right now today. And that could be as much as like looking at your overhead, like what is your is all your budget going towards administrators and waiting for the touring to be possible again to throw some money at some investors, or how could we employ artists right now in this lockdown to do things like workshops or to totally to just be able to be to feel purposeful to feel engaged to feel present in the field. And waiting for things to get back to normal and I don't have the solutions I think leadership is really a lot about listening this is about thinking globally acting locally checking out who who is around you in your immediate community right now. That's suffering I mean the word curation, the root of the word curation is care. So, who can we help and I think there's, I'm sorry to get a little bit swirly around this but compassion. Is like so key right now in the ability to see new solutions with clarity with patients and to move towards sustainable inclusive balanced arrangements. We have to call upon our emotional intelligence more and more to feel the vulnerability of the critique of what has been habitual and how that has to change have to listen in to the field and the people that are calling for different types of attention. So, yeah, if it's meaningful now, it will create new possibilities later it will be meaningful later so that's a little bit what I mean, and then it can, if it's possible now it will be scalable up like if a few people can get together and do a workshop. They then more can do it later. So, I like the small small thinking about smaller gatherings and the importance of those kind of smaller gatherings and, and, and, and yeah, the local, in fact. Yeah, and what how am I on time probably way over already. You're like three minutes over. Oh goodness. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know if you want to say like a few last things, because I mean you know like it's I can listen to you for like a while, like, you know, but I don't know. It's so hard there's so much. It's okay. I think I mostly said things I just want to scan through my notes really quickly to make sure that I haven't missed something. Oh, just in terms of balance because I think well, well sustainability and inclusion can feel more concrete to us as like ecological and social problems that we can get down to the nitty gritty and look at like, who's here who's in charge who's curating who's employed who's on what kinds of salaries like there's a more material realness to both of those things. Also sustainability like okay get rid of the plastic water bottles, set up local touring so that things stay on the road use trains instead of place like there's a thousand checklists we can brainstorm I feel like balances maybe a little more abstract. And I think that's because balance is at its heart and nature culture problems. So I'm thinking about how sustainability, inclusion and balance are a little bit like tending cultivation and weeding. So we are in the sort of Anthropocene right there is no nature as such there's no culture as such, but I have to quote Anna grip she's a dancer who was the head of the dance department at doc, the BA for a while here in Stockholm, and she would always say when you're just about adding stuff to the program like inclusion is like, we want to bring in more people but you if the budget, especially with less and less now or I mean you have it that's great to hear that's a great budget for this project but I mean, we're we're facing economic crisis we're facing diminishing resources we have to be clever and it's scarce. The question is also what has to go. So we can't just include without also excluding. I think there's a very cult there's a lot of it's going to be difficult, because it's like the question of weeding like what are you going to take out the we the weed is a great metaphor because what makes something a weed is its aesthetics but it's also its relationship to the other other species that are present like it's invasive or overgrowth. So there's a lot of that it's a lot of cultural values in terms of like beauty also in terms of balance, so I would just say like with the balance chapter in looking for the sort of balance of values to edge away from the idea of balance as a static point of compromise that it will always be dynamic. It'll always have to be renegotiated balancing as an act of like embracing the conflict the agonism the contradictions and the just again that humility is going to constantly have to change. It's something that is in flux actually balances something that is in flux and it's something that it's not something that is not how we perceive it often. I hope this wasn't too abstract and preach. No, I mean, I don't know for everybody else but I'm like, Oh, give me more but unfortunately we don't have that much time. I'm really thought for provoking when you talk about seed and soil, you know I keep on thinking about Octavia Butler and earth seed and you talk about spacing so I'm thinking about Audrey Lord and how she thinks we she talks about how we need to find time to fill out the spaces that we want to create into the future. Anyway, thank you so much Eleanor, please, you know, just stay with us and be safe and keep on doing the wonderful work and most importantly wonderful thinking you're doing in terms of, you know, setting us here and thinking us through to the future. Thank you. Just one last thing sorry on inclusion. I was just remembering there's very important stuff about just the to be aware of the cosmologies have constructed the things that are present and how a totally different set of values is necessary to invite different aesthetics in the room. So, just in so far as like if time space and energy are the modernist values, or like proscenium front and like display of virtuosity have been the values that have constructed how stage works have been seen so far. You can't just stick, you know, an aphrological show on this in that space and expected to work you know if something is based on community joy and rhythm, or dancing on floors that aren't made of wood or Marley like there's everything from the materials of the room the to the, the very values of gathering and how and why people gather, or what are the historical inheritances of each of these works will demand that we actually treat this. The spaces we have differently. It could be part of redesign projects in this moment. So blah blah blah goodbye thank you. Thanks again, Eleanor. Moving from that kind of, you know, returning, you know, from the space back to the ground I would now like to give the floor actually to the perform Europe team to introduce the project in detail. Like all projects this one is embedded in a set of tools working strands and opportunities for the sector for us to use and work with keeping Eleanor's words in mind of course. It's high time to understand better how the challenges we are facing today and the visions we are embracing for international touring in the future translates in perform Europe. What is this consortium inviting the sector for what are we talking about in the next 18 months. Who has a seat at the proverbial table. What ground are we on right, who has. How is 2020, whether the pandemic or the black lives matter uprising shaped us as individuals as communities with that with all that in mind I give the floor to the speakers of perform Europe. First to also records doctor, Secretary General from ITM. Thank you very much to them. And thank you Barbara and thank you Eleanor. I'm going to dive right into it because we are indeed pressed for time. This is really the first of the perform Europe partners to welcome you here. It's great to see so many we have hundreds of people in the zoom room and following the live stream for us. This is a moment of celebration. Celebration of a very intense period of application writing last summer, and two months of preparation now. But this is also a humble moment, a humble moment because we feel a huge responsibility on our shoulders to do well to do justice and to listen. We are very grateful to the European Commission and the creative Europe program for trusting us with this project. We see perform Europe as a much awaited anticipated project, which comes for a sector that has for the last part of a whole year been shut down, not being able to do what it does best to bring to its audiences joy, happiness, magic house realities, everything that it does live on the stage in the moment. What it can have a significant impact on how we are going to collaborate across the creative Europe countries, how we show work, and also how we create an act as a sector. We get to do things differently now via perform Europe. We get a chance to test innovative ideas and solutions. We get a chance to show in practice what we have been preaching. That is, to put environmental concerns at the center of our tours, to include all those that belong to our sector to embrace and put focus on the many beautiful regions of all the creative Europe countries. And this is important at the same time, seek and celebrate artistic excellence. This project does not come about in isolation and it will not be executed in isolation. The principles of inclusion, balance, diversity and green deal are those the European Commission itself has put in the forefront, and those performing Europe has put at the core of its mission. We are in no way immune, nor outside of today's divisions and polarizations. We are part of it. And what we do as an artistic community matters. Perform Europe gives us a chance to address inequalities and put sustainable practice at the heart of everything that we do, because we must find practices that are sustainable for a long period of time for the sake of our planet, but also for the health of our art sector. Last but not least, perform Europe will give us a chance to really dive into and explore further the digital practices and means of distributing our work. COVID has taught us to live, work and practice online and perform Europe will seek innovative artistic work which can thrive in the digital room, as well as life on states and throughout our regions. There are six from the project that will now one by one, tell you more about perform Europe so stay with us. And I'm going to give the word next to my colleague yours Janssen, that is going to tell you about perform yours very important first steps of research. Thank you. Hello everybody need our very briefly introduce you to the mapping research, which we will do together at the start of perform Europe and the aim of this mapping research in first stages of the project is to gather all the necessary information all that we need to know in order to design the support scheme that's going to contribute as possible way to more sustainable balanced and inclusive international touring whole region covered by creative Europe. At the moment the solid research, this exhaustive and expensive is missing so we are going to develop it. But how are we going to do so first, we will map the current state of affairs. We will look at trends in international touring practices, also way international touring is supported and also the way digital tools are used in the process of touring and supporting it. So I'm describing the current state of affairs, but it's also about evaluating it in terms of sustainability balance and inclusion, not only about mapping what's there. It's also about how we want the situation to be, and how we want to transform it's about your needs up close you encounter your wishes dreams and ambitions, certainly more sustainable touring. So that's what is there, and where we want to go will ultimately help us to design the scheme which will put in place later on. So how are we going to gather this information of course we will read all the material which is already there and also the books that Eleanor recommended, of course, we're putting together a network of country correspondence, our antennas in all the creative Europe regions to discuss about policy schemes that are out there digital tools about practices, but most importantly, you all can contribute your input is crucial. We will soon beginning of February on the eighth launch, a large survey for all forming artists companies presenters festivals in all creative Europe countries, in order to hear from you about your situations, your dreams, your ideas. Register on our website for social media read the newsletters. This way you can keep give your input but also you will be able to follow on the results because we imagine perform Europe to be one common space for learning developing development for understanding and mapping is only the first step of that and address will develop. That will be explained by my colleagues first by Catherine David secretary general of Eva, the European Festival Association, she will explain to you in more detail, but to perform Europe support scheme is going to look like how it will work, and also how you can engage in developing a survey your risk testing is good. This is what I would like to start with, and now we come to the core. We come to you artists presenters and producers. We heard from our our invitation to you is the following it's to test together a future scheme of a real pan European performing arts. And for us there are two coins two sides to the same coin in our invitation. There is a thinking side, and there is a doing side. Let's start with the maybe more difficult part for me it's the thinking side and perform Europe give will give us the opportunity to speak to think and to list our proposals our needs our ideas for a future European fund that supports the sector that gives an added value to you and to your practices. In addition to the existing schemes that happen already on the local and on the national level. How are we doing this, we are working at the moment in this joint exercise with two elements we work with the digital perform Europe platform that we are setting up at the moment and secondly we are going to have a series of zoom conferences and workshops. To start with the digital platform. We are setting this up for you a space, as yours was saying to get together to get in touch with each other is space for collective learning experimentation for receiving also your applications and for matchmaking. In other words, it is our networking tool. Our common place for collecting different profiles of you data and presenting also the archiving and archiving audio visual material of selected performances. We have the knowledge that we gain throughout the process our hotspot for communication as well. Secondly, we work on a series of online workshops, we will, in addition to this platform come together in two moments in the next month through conferences, the workshop in April, and during summertime to learn together how to make touring more sustainable and inclusive. And this leads us to the doing side. Some of you will prove the value of our aim fund, meaning that we will test some of the new touring practices with a number of touring projects. There will be some moments, a little bit more hints on this matching and touring ideas of projects that we are going to select. As always, of course in the selection processes, there will be an independent jury that we are going to put in place. We are going to launch the call for this jury and for jury members mid February. So from June onwards when the platform opens, nine jury members will develop apply and follow up the testing phase of our new sports team. And complex still I know perform Europe is not a fund yet, it's under full construction, but as Ilya no said it's an invitation for us an opportunity and even maybe a responsibility that we can collectively take to test and recommend possible criteria to the European Commission to Barbara and to her team that reflect the needs and necessities of the sector for such a fund. Ilya Krem, I hope you are with me in this space from the European Dancehouse Network, I'm giving the floor to you for more details on the fund and how the fund will work here. If you are with me, there you are. Thank you Catherine, and hello everybody. I have the pleasure to further explain shortly to key functions from perform Europe, which perform Europe is developing with the aim to stimulate, or let's say, like Eleanor just mentioned, fertilize the performing arts ecosystem and plant fresh seats for all. So these functions are designed to offer a wide range of matchmaking and networking possibilities between performing artists and companies and presenters from venues, festivals and other organizations. So how will it work. In the first step, the perform Europe jury will select performers and presenters who enter in a matchmaking process via the digital platform. The activities that Catherine just talked about before will be made a selection respecting the perform Europe values. Yes, once more sustainability, inclusivity and balance. The first steps is the start of possible touring partnerships, which in a second step can develop innovative international touring plans before submit to get into the second round of applications. The second selection is a selection of touring partnerships. Again, done by the same jury. So the now selected partnerships will be awarded a touring grant with the objective to test their proposed touring plan. The test can include real life touring, as well as virtual distribution via the digital platform. So what do we mean when we speak about networking in this in this scenario. Well, beyond the perform Europe scheme, as it was just described before by my colleagues, the digital platform is designed to fulfill various needs to inform the performing art sector about each other in a more inclusive manner. And then provide support to develop new and meaningful partnerships, collaborations and the better access to networking and therefore enlarge a scope of touring possibilities in longer terms. I just said again, in the end, it's a huge collective effort of the performing arts fields to develop together and benefit from equal access, open and broaden already existing networks, partnerships and corporations and yes, taking special care towards target groups which often do not take any part in an in and benefit from cross border distribution. So for this to happen. We need your participation. Please join the movement. And I now I give the floor to my colleague Stefan coordinate or sequester other network, who will tell you how cross touring, cross border touring works and digital distribution partnership will. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And Bonjour, everyone. So picture it. It's the summer 2021. The presenters and the producers have been selected SPI just explained, and they're finally able to create what we call a distribution partnership. This will allow them in turn to apply for a grant, and the selection will be made by an independent jury, as mentioned earlier by Catherine. So why do distribution partnership. Well, of course, the artistic work should be the core element of the application, but you also need to have a very solid partnership with at least three partners in three different countries, among the creative Europe and your partnerships needs to scream sustainability in a holistic way through the prism of these five values, artistic, human, social, economic, and of course ecological values. You also need to be able to explain how inclusive and accessible your strategy is, both in terms of how you plan on reaching audiences, and how you work with arts professionals. It means that you need to have a clear audience engagement plan and show also that you have a digital strategy. And what happens if your application is successful. Well, first of all, you can celebrate the good news, but you can also receive a grant ranging from 10 to 20,000 euros for a distribution partnership, which you will be able to use to cover any budget line of the cost incurred in touring, where it is live touring or virtual distribution. You see, we are all very much aware that cultural and artistic mobility, as well as international touring have been put on hold for the past year. So we remain convinced that real life international touring is essential. And through perform Europe, we also want to explore digital opportunities. We can allow us to reach a wider spectrum of audiences and experiment with new aesthetics and artistic approaches. Thank you for listening. And let me give the mic to Elena Politseva, head of policy and research at it and she will tell us everything we need to know about the policy recommendation. Elena, the floor. Hello everyone. I will not tell you everything because I have to be brief now. So it was, as it was said today, continuous support for performing our circulation is absolutely vital, especially today amidst the crisis. I believe that the dedicated your action for performing our circulation would be an essential brick to be to build stronger and more easy for Europe. That's why perform Europe is there to pave the way for a structured and continuous support for performing our distribution and touring. The European Commission has given us a mandate to develop policy recommendations on how to create such a tool as part of creative Europe 2021-2027. Precisely in 17 months from now, we will be advising the European Commission, the Member States and the European Parliament, and how to better support inclusive and balanced and sustainable touring and distribution of the performing arts. We will also assess whether there is a need for specific actions targeting various disciplines of the performing arts circles theater dance street art performance. So how will it be happening and what resources will be using while drafting those recommendations. First of all, we will hear later today from some of you during the workshop. Secondly, we will embrace the outcomes of the research phase about which you are told you earlier. And then we will also analyze the outcomes of the performing from Europe touring actions, which are the main experimentations of this project. And last but not least, of course, we will need the input of the sector itself, basically, of you. There will be a few consultation moments to which we hope to hear about your needs about your insights about your expectations and aspirations, and please stay tuned for those consultation moments. We are very excited and happy to take this challenge and difficult, huge task, and we do hope for you to be with us in this way. And now I'm glad to give the floor back to IDM Secretary General Ausa to tell you about the immediate next steps of perform Europe. Thank you, Anna, and thank you, colleagues. I hope all of you listening and watching feel you know a little bit more about perform Europe when when you enter this yet another zoom room. We really had hope to meet you live in present but so we there's going to be plenty more opportunities to know more and most importantly to take part. And first of all, put in your calendars now 8th of February survey coming from perform Europe. It is going to be a hugely important tool for us to get to know your needs and desires that you're so eloquently described earlier. Please take part. Please also and ask all your friends to follow our channels. We are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and link it in. And most importantly, if you haven't done it yet, subscribe to our newsletter on www.performEurope.eu. And right now we just put a whole lot of new information there. Lots of new info that is there now. Please check it out and stay tuned to the finished platform coming up and being released in June. I want to thank all the staff and teams of all the partners of perform Europe. You know who you are for the immense good hard work in the last weeks in preparing this event, and also the start of this project. As I said, we are celebrating, but we are excited, as well as humble regarding this responsibility and we count on you to help us. Thank you so much for being here over to you today. Yeah, and there have been some questions, some wonderful questions actually, they've been posed already. What I'm going to do is I'm going to kind of ask them or presented to the panelists, including Eleanor and Barbara. And you all can, you know, once I asked all of the questions you all can take it as a bunch. Is that clear. So, here's the first question from Cheryl Martin. Hey Cheryl. It sounds like perform Europe is for EU artists companies and citizens. Does the UK have any role here. That's the first question. Second question is, how do Europeans, how do European institutions become more inclusive within their administration, as well as they're in their decision processes of who gets support and funding. This is from Leonard Cruz. And then the next question from people Bailey. There's a big question. It's a big question, whether people who have been leading and managing broken systems are the right people to lead change. And then the last question in this bunch from Mimi Waschke is, what is the more inclusive working manner that is being mentioned many times in this conference. So who wants to start. I'll start by saying that it's not just European Union creative Europe is actually a much larger region. And I'll let Barbara explain that further and also take the question regarding UK, what we can tell you that we are going to include the UK in our research part. Yes, thank you. I saw those questions and I thought that they were probably aiming at me so at the moment it looks like as as the UK was part of creative Europe when we launched the whole the whole program. The UK artists should normally be able to participate and indeed creative Europe is larger than just EU 27. But I would like you to really check out the details once they once they come nearer the time. Yeah, but that is also obviously part of inclusiveness, even though we may be as you well know and you have witnessed over the past days, part of part of some kind of relationship issues between between the UK and the EU at the moment that I hope for the sake of our sector to put it like that for for culture in general and for diversity that we will be able to overcome in a very constructive way. I saw the questions about the languages. And of course, I'm not totally sure I fully grasped it. Of course, if you if you are engaging, we believe in an international project you should be able to to communicate in a common language so I don't know if your if your question was rather more towards minority languages or languages not being the formal language of a country that you live in so I'm afraid I can't really, I can't really answer that that question. Maybe someone else saw the question and has a better understanding of how we can, we can answer it concretely. I understood the question as relative to those seeking jobs. Having to deal with the linguistic hegemony of the places they're applying to which, which keeps the faces of those institutions sort of looking the same by nationality or ethnicity that language is a barrier. Maybe one one practical solution could be that some funds are considered for translation or, you know, like that. Yeah, just thinking about in when you get to the practical brainstorming tool part like how is language barrier part of the problem. Yes, indeed that's a very good. I think it's a good way of thinking about this question Eleanor I mean we in Europe we already have a very broad diversity of languages. So we know what we're talking about if we talk about linguistic challenges but of course that does not include languages from countries where where people may live in a country but coming from somewhere else where these languages are not spoken so we probably think of that but nonetheless in the in the perspective of of an international and cross border cooperation we have to we have to bear in mind that it needs to be somehow also just very practical also in a way but yeah that's it's a good suggestion and we'll certainly think about it or the consortium will certainly think about it I'm sure. Yes, and we will take all questions that haven't been answered and find the way of processing them and answering because we have unfortunately gone over the time allocated to there I'm going to give the word back to you. Yeah, yeah definitely um yeah and also kind of thinking about you know the power the power that language holds. Anyways, so where will we be in the 18 months of this trajectory. I'm curious to see what comes out of the setting how things are potentially shaken up. The work starts here in today. So we need to make sure we use the lessons of last year. Once again, to create the portal that the writer, I read that to Roy encouraged earlier of we need to tear down and eradicate old systems that have not served us, while we create spaces that would hold and reflect more of the individuals in our society, who often exist at margins. And then our work center them in sustainable ways, following this launch moment, we can continue with some talks on how to imagine future touring in a way that is representing more of the individuals that we often leave out. Anyways, in 15 minutes, I invite everyone back to the live stream at 315 less than 15 minutes actually with a series of talks so 12 minutes that will help us better understand some factors of future touring and our work in perform Europe. The link will be displayed on the final webinar. Sorry, the final slide of the webinar so look out for the link and a smaller group of people will then be part of a series of breakout groups for those who could not get a place in these groups. Don't worry. We got snacks for you to. They will be repeated in three weeks time on Thursday the 18th of February. So put that in your calendar. The work here is done. I hope you all have a beautiful day wherever you are in Europe. Goodbye, and good luck, and please do better.