A digital network related to dance and performing arts practices

The ‘Digital Artistic Communities’ project developed from the experiences gained within the performing arts network activated by the Opera Estate Festival (OEF), identifying as recipients some of the realities that have marked innovation in the field of the performing arts in the Veneto in recent decades. These are dance and theatre companies and professionals united by the spirit of innovation but in search of a constant balance between experimentation (including technological experimentation) and the rootedness of artistic work in local communities.

This is the need that was sought to be met with the project, supporting the community dimension of artistic work and exploring the role that digital technologies can play in amplifying the possibilities of connection and participation of various sections of the citizenry in the making of artistic production. On the other hand, this is a direction that the partner organisations have already independently undertaken in the lockdown months and which they have found, thanks to the ‘Laboratorio veneto’ call for proposals, an opportunity to pursue the development of new forms of production and to realise them also through the purchase of new equipment.

The CAD project thus supported the work of a cohesive network of realities of the new performing arts scene in Veneto, united by the decision to involve local groups and communities as participants in the development of a theatrical production. The intention was thus to generate community relations in which the participants could investigate and question ideas, possibilities or experiences also with the integration of digital technologies. This integration was diversified, involving the use of different types of digital devices and applications that enable forms of multimedia engagement, connectivity, augmented and virtual reality.

In the project development, attention was drawn to the interconnections between the material and the social, showing how both work on each other in complex ways. This relational ontology also introduced a particular view of digital technologies as a means of amplifying the effects of community work.

The project generated international digital artistic communities, initiating new processes of choreographic research, new forms of dialogue and exchange of experiences, original systems of co-creation and active participation in performance. CAD has artistically and socially connected choreographers, dancers and communities of experts at a time when national and international mobility was impossible or limited, and has made it possible to investigate new ways of connecting local and transnational ecosystems, laying the foundations for initiating new systems of cooperation and public involvement.