Transcultural Impulses

Application Deadline: April 23 2023

The NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e.V. (NRW State Office for the Independent Performing Arts). (LFDK) has decided to offer funding from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to promote projects critical of discrimination, racism and diversity-oriented projects in the professional performing arts in North Rhine-Westphalia.

We will be offering funding for all forms of theatre, dance and performance works produced by independent performing artists. This also includes formats and subject matter in urban dance and theatre art.

The Motives Behind our Funding Programme

Our aim is to increase the visibility of diverse lifestyles and artistic perspectives and, thereby, to minimise discrimination based on origin and cultural ascriptions. The long term aim of the funding programme is to promote the cultural diversity of the general population in the form of productions presented by the independent scene in NRW. The ultimate aim is to achieve equality of opportunity and participation.

The motivation behind the funding is therefore to achieve a culturally diverse independent dance and theatre landscape as a living sign of social justice.

The funding programme is a follow-up to the previous programme "Intercultural Impulses". With the term "transculture", the programme is expanding its goals to include themes and structures that promote diversity, in addition to projects critical of discrimination.

Prerequisites for funding:

Location: North Rhine-Westphalia

Applicants must have their place of business or residence and sphere of activity in North Rhine-Westphalia. The project must conclude with a public performance (premiere/show/presentation) in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Who is eligible for an application?

The programme is aimed at individuals, initiatives and associations working professionally in the arts.

Professional artists at the beginning of their career are also eligible to apply. In this case, we particularly recommend you to participate in the information events that complement the funding programme. We also recommend you to take advantage of our personal counselling in the context of this funding programme.

The "Transcultural Impulses" funding programme is primarily aimed at freelance artists and actors from the professional dance and theatre scene in NRW whose work is an expression of a contemporary culturally diverse society..

Funding Options:

With regard to revising your project

Funding will be given to projects that meet the following criteria:

• Projects and productions that strengthen and increase the visibility of marginalised artists
• Projects that strengthen the advancement of cultural diversity within artistic practices in North Rhine-Westphalia.
• Projects that provide essential impulses for opening up diversity in the participating venues and ensembles.
• Projects that show sustainability in their diversity orientation

A previous project can be resumed in order to advance it further in a diversity-oriented manner.

We shall basically be looking at the following points with regard to advancing diversity in earlier projects:

• Building new networks, cooperations, collaborations (New networks/collaborations/cooperations might be the following, for example: migrant (independent) organisations, refugee organisations, socio-cultural institutions/organisations, charitable institutions, educational organisations, counselling centres, neighbourhoods, cooperations between ensembles, individual artists, fringe theatre organisations, artists' associations, federations, ... )
• The new performances will implement measures to minimise discrimination, e.g. to tackle exclusion mechanisms and inequalities of opportunity, include multilingualism and/oror make structural changes.
• Projects that disseminate your own antidiscrimination and anti-racist attitudes more widely to reach new audiences.
• With regard to constructive, sustainable work, participants already working in networks can consolidate and advance these networks through further cooperation.
• Digital initiatives are also eligible for funding

There will be no funding for the following:

The following will not be eligible for funding: symposia, conferences, festivals, concerts, purely film projects, purely literary projects, purely mediation projects in cultural education, social and therapeutic work, supporting events or accompanying projects that lack an independent performance aspect.

The “Diversity Guide” as an Eligibility Criterion

The basic prerequisite for funding is that you work with a suitable expert as a Diversity Guide.

The guide must be someone who can provide a viewpoint critical of discrimination. The function of the guide during the entire project must be described in the application; this is an essential part of the overall assessment.

A guide can be deployed in both artistic and non-artistic activities.

The specific tasks of the Diversity Guide will focus on communicating views critical of discrimination, including language comprehension where appropriate. Other possible fields of activity are:

• Curation work
• Mediation
• Internal communication with the team
• External communication, for example with regard to networking activities
• Acquiring, for example, network partners, audiences, artistic participants.
• A guide can provide linguistic support and mediation for applicants and artists with insufficient knowledge of the German language.

The post can also be held by two persons. The division of tasks and the corresponding salaries do not have to be equal.

Applicants must initially provide a concrete detailed description of the content-related fields of activity of their guide. It is therefore imperative that the concrete contents and activities are jointly devised with the guide. This should occur no later than at the start of the project af

The Funding Criteria of the Jury with its Diverse Membership

The decisive factor for the jury's funding decisions is first and foremost artistic quality in combination with content - theme, cast, audience - that promotes anti-discrimination and cultural diversity. The jury will also take the following aspects into account when recommending funding:

• The visibility of the project through an adequate publicity campaign
• The geographical distribution of the beneficiaries
• Barriers and hurdles that may exist as a result of exclusion mechanisms (inequalities of opportunity) will have been taken into account.

There must be a clear and structure-changing approach to productions by participants who can be regarded as belonging to the majority society. It is not enough to fill individual positions with diversity on a one-off basis. One convincing approach, for example, might be a prolonged cooperation with under-represented professional artists and an even distribution of decision-making positions.

The jury is scheduled to meet at the beginning of June 2023.

Implementation Period / Project Duration

The project may be launched as soon as the application has been submitted. New regulation!*

The project must be completed and accounted for by 31.12.2023

Level of Funding

Projects can be funded to a maximum of 8,000 euros, of which at least 1,000 euros should be earmarked for the work done by the "guide". Project costs should include a personal share of 10% of the total eligible expenditure.**

Application Deadline

The application form, the “Expenditure and Financing Plan” form and possible attachments must be submitted in digital form by email: transkultur@nrw-lfdk.de and with original signature by post to the NRW Regional Office by Sunday 23 April 2023 (23:59):

NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e.V.
Transkulturelle Impulse 2023
Deutsche Straße 10
44339 Dortmund

For further information and advice please contact us: Phone: +49 231 47429209 Mail: transkultur@nrw-lfdk.de.

Advice is available - on request - in English, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, Ukrainian and French.

* Once the application has been submitted (date of receipt of the application by the LFDK), applicants are permitted to start their project in advance, provided that they expressly declare that they have not yet started before submitting the application, and agree to comply with the provisions of the General Auxiliary Provisions for Projects (Allgemeinen Nebenbestimmungen für Projekte (AnBest-P)) for the period between submitting the application and any subsequent approval of the project.

** Your own contribution can be made either in cash or through civic engagement (notional expenses for voluntary work of up to a maximum of 15 euros/hour). A combination of both is also possible. However, the total amount of voluntary commitment may not exceed 20 % of the total eligible expenditure (= your total income minus private third-party funds such as foundation grants, entrance tickets, etc.). Cooperation partners may also contribute their own share. Monetary contributions in kind (including donations in kind and sponsoring in kind) cannot be considered as your own contribution, but should nevertheless be declared outside the calculation. Earmarked cash donations and cash sponsoring must be included in the project calculation as contributions from private third parties, but not as your own funds.