Call to Action: new phase in Dutch dance 2025-2028
8 Februari 2023
On behalf of the dance sector and its partners, the Nederlandse Dansdagen presents the joint Call to Action: new phase in Dutch dance 2025-2028. The document will also be handed over to the Secretary of State for Culture and Media, Gunay Uslu.
Together with the sector, Nederlandse Dansdagen (ND) is structurally committed to jointly formulating policy principles and organizing meetings for knowledge sharing. Over the past year and a half, ND has been working on this Call to Action with a large delegation from the dance sector, united in seven so-called subsectors. The subsectors are education and participation, youth dance companies, professional dance education, independent makers, urban/hip-hop, structurally subsidized dance companies, and talent development.
Ronald Wintjens, director of the Nederlandse Dansdagen: 'Our ambition is to usher in a new phase in Dutch dance together with you and other authorities. A phase in which as many Dutch people as possible experience the connecting, inspiring power of dance, in a form that suits their needs and possibilities. Young and old, rich and poor, everyone benefits from dance as a means of expression and reflection, whether you actively dance yourself or enjoy it passively. Dance is of value everywhere: at school, in the theatre, in the dance studio, on the street, in the nightlife and certainly also at home.'
In 2018, ND made an appeal on behalf of the chain for the first time to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) and to important stakeholders in the dance world. This has led to some positive results, such as the focus on quality in the Basic Infrastructure (BIS), the promotion of young makers and the recovery of the position of production houses. Nevertheless, the sector still sees numerous unresolved bottlenecks for which there is insufficient political attention either in policy or in practice. In addition, new bottlenecks and urgent challenges have emerged in recent years, first as a result of the corona pandemic and, since early 2022, due to the war in Ukraine. All this has led to the fact that it is now time to usher in a new phase for Dutch dance in which we come up with sustainable solutions for the bottlenecks.
This Call to Action is the starting signal for this new phase, with which governments and partners are presented with solutions and with which feasible perspectives are outlined for all subsectors in the run-up to the policy period 2025-2028. By committing to the action points, we can not only preserve Dutch dance in all its diversity and value, but increase its impact on the lives of all Dutch people, from young to old, from enthusiast to professional, from spectator to participant.
