Bridging local and global

Working internationally is vitally important for performing arts professionals. However, the need to rethink the modus operandi of international work and to reinstate its legitimacy has never been more acute than in face of climate change and other global challenges.

New International in the Performing Arts (NIPA): Bridging local and global is the fruit of IETM’s 2022-2024 Creative Europe Network project. The core aim of NIPA is to stimulate innovation of cross-border collaboration models in the performing arts. We envision a new state of play, where fair, inclusive and equal collaborations, based on environmentally sustainable practices, become mainstream, and where local realities deepened by global perspectives are at heart.

A translocal approach

For NIPA, a translocal approach in the performing arts means encouraging and enabling members and the sector at large to (re)connect with the localities they belong to - through learning, reflecting, undertaking concrete actions - and convey their local narratives to an international conversation. 

Practically, this means that there will be more opportunities and space for IETM members and professionals from the wider performing arts sector to learn about each others’ local challenges and approaches to global issues. It also means that performing art professionals from different parts of the world will be proactively encouraged to articulate and share their unique, local understanding of the main values NIPA conveys: inclusivity, fairness and environmental  sustainability.

Three years, three strands

The NIPA project will be structured around three strands, each getting a specific focus in one of the three years of the project: 

• Inclusivity, Equality & Fairness (2022);  

• Green Transition (2023); 

• The New International in the performing arts (2024). 

As two first themes are more specific and are closely interconnected, we will tackle them together in 2024 – under the umbrella of the New International theme, analysing the lessons learned in the two first years and furthering the design of a vision on how to achieve a better sustainability and inclusivity of the trans-border performing arts ecosystems. 

From reflection to action

The project will put in place various tools to empower members to acquire new skills and develop collective strategies of working internationally in a new way. As a network, we have an ambition to shift from reflection to action in these three years. This means using the knowledge we acquired through the previous and ongoing projects – Performing arts in (a world in) Transition, Perform Europe, Rewiring the Network, SHIFT – for creating collective strategies for members to bring change in their local realities. 

We will continue bringing new voices to the network, learning, inspiring each other and renewing our approaches to global challenges. We will critically look at our own practices, as a network and as a sector, and work on positive solutions. We will also inspire policy-makers and funders to modernise their policies and programmes to make our performing arts ecosystem more sustainable, inclusive and fair.

Informality, curiosity and meeting each other in real life will continue to be our guiding values.

You can find the complete overview of the activities planned as part of NIPA on this page.

NIPA is funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

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