Cassero LGBTI Center Tales: trusting relationships
It was a great joy to be able to meet the PG-DIYS partners again in person on 14 and 15 September 2021 in Bologna.
Meeting colleagues from other organizations was a relief from a human point of view (we were all fine), while from a professional point of view we all felt a great need to take stock of how the project was progressing in our respective countries, in terms of economic sustainability, thinking about the staff and analyzing the situation from an artistic and operational point of view.
During the lockdown months, we spent a lot of time on Zoom planning future activities, which was extremely fruitful in terms of keeping the relationship between the partners alive. However, the time we spent together in Bologna made us regain enthusiasm, which is the primary condition to work with motivation on a project that is otherwise full of real difficulties.
The good relationship of trust built in previous years between some of the partners was fundamental.
Moreover, this relationship was reinforced during the lockdown months by sharing the problems faced by each one of the organizations and by continuously trying to find creative solutions.
The feeling that things were finally starting up again - despite the difficulties - gave strength to the possibility of experimenting and applying what we had imagined during the long preceding months.
This was also possible thanks to the live activities that took place together with the Italian dancemakers Daniele Ninarello and Simona Bertozzi; activities that aimed at sharing dance with a community made up of artists, operators and the audience. Finally, the possibility of communicating between us in person very much improved the work.
Two meetings, two live workshops, one public presentation
By mutual agreement, the two days were organized to optimize the presence of our partners in Bologna, on the occasion of the 19th edition of the Gender Bender Festival.This included two meetings between partners, two live workshops with Daniele Ninarello and Simona Bertozzi, and a public presentation of the project at Palazzo D'Accursio, seat of the Municipality of Bologna, which is open to the citizens, to possible stakeholders and other interested organizations.
Who are the dancemakers? how were they chosen? How were local communities involved and on which activities?
The meetings gave us the possibility to talk about the impact of the pandemic on our organization and on the strategies used in each country to start dance-related activities, involving dancemakers and local communities. Furthermore, we scheduled the activities that were planned for the medium and long term, taking into account the constraints given by the Covid19 containment regulations in each country.
The two workshop sessions leaded by Daniele Ninarello and Simona Bertozzi
Attended by all the partners who were in Bologna, workshops were great opportunities to strengthen the acquaintance and build a more intimate and trusting relationship between the participants. In addition to this, they were an important opportunity for the partners to physically experience the poetics and choreographic languages of Daniele and Simona, which gave them the possibility to see how they will work with the communities of Bologna.
In this way, many of the problems and doubts, that emerged during the co-design process conducted by the partners during the lockdown months, could finally find possible constructive answers and were solved when these strategies were physically applied.
Finally, the public presentation!
A precious moment in which PG-DIYS was presented to about 80 guests including artists, operators of other national organizations, activists and social workers, associations, representatives of municipal and regional institutions, as well as representatives of some European embassies.
The presentation took place in Italian and English, with consecutive interpretation between the two languages, in order to make it as accessible as possible.
First of all, an introduction on what PG-DIYS is (objectives, partners, activities, etc.), which was followed by an explanation, given by the University of Bologna, on the social impact of the arts and on the scientific method used for the assessment of the impact that we foresee for the project, thanks to the activities related to dance, that were experimented with the communities.
The British Council then explored the methods that will be implemented in the future in order to involve decision-makers and talked about the dissemination of the results of the project at an international level. Finally, three of our partner specifically focused on how the dance-related activities with the local communities started: Paso a 2 / Certamen coreografico de Madrid from Spain, Norrlandsoperan House from Sweden, and Yorkshire Dance from the United Kingdom.
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