Balkan Express participated, together with Relais Culture Europe, le Festival d’Avignon and the European Cultural Foundation, in the organisation of the seminar which took place during the 2006 edition of the Avignon festival.

The event was addressed to artists and cultural operators from the Balkans and the EU, with the aim of promoting the idea of networking between operators, allowing the development of partnership projects as well as initiating cooperation between participants. The few days allowed us to tackle various artistic and political issues in regard to the specificities of the Balkan countries and their relations with the countries of the European Union.

The seminar took place from July 9 – 13, and was organised into morning sessions and afternoon artistic encounters:
10 – 13 h: working groups around a variety of topics: artistic (conditions of production, creative process) or political (cultural cooperation in the Balkans, EU accession, etc).
15 – 16 h: a series of encounters with artists present at the festival (Stefan Kaegi, Jan Lauwers, Marcial Di Fonzo Bo, Vincent Baudriller).

The gathered 45 performing arts professionals from the Balkans and the EU, identified on the basis of their professional and personal experience. The seminar was open and free of charge for all the performing arts professionals interested in the cooperation between the Balkans and the EU.

Image in banner: © Henri Sivonen