Author: Ingeborg Zackariassen.
Participating in the Beyond Front@ project during 2025 has been deeply valuable for my artistic and journalistic practice. The stipend allowed me to undertake three trips that would otherwise have been financially impossible: to Kraków for Four Seasons, to Zagreb for the Dance Week Festival, and to Budapest for Sissi Dance Week Festival. Each destination offered different artistic experiences, and together they formed a picture of how independent dance is moving, surviving, and innovating across Central and Eastern Europe right now.
Four Seasons – CEDT (chor. Maciej Kuźmiński) – Zagreb, Croatia – 15 May 2025. Photo by Sindri Uču
The stipend made these trips possible at exactly the right moment for me. It allowed me to build real connections, follow artistic processes, and collect insights that will carry forward into both my writing and my curatorial work in Scandinavia. The network dimension of Beyond Front@ was equally important – each city expanded my perspective in a different direction, and together they created a constellation that continues to influence how I think about independent dance today.
One point I would like to raise concerns the “young critics” description in the original programme text. As someone over 40, I naturally fall outside that category. At the same time, including more experienced voices is important for maintaining diversity of perspective, context, and depth of knowledge in transnational exchange. I am genuinely grateful to have been invited despite – or perhaps because of – my age and experience, and I would encourage updating the description so it reflects a broader and more inclusive understanding of who can contribute meaningfully as a critic.
Another area that deserves reconsideration is the funding level. The current stipend of 1,000 EUR per trip barely covers travel, accommodation, and per diem for festival visits. On top of that, the hours spent writing reports and the income lost from time away from other paid work are not compensated. To sustain a professional standard and to ensure that participation does not become personally costly, I strongly recommend increasing the stipend or introducing an additional honorarium that acknowledges both the labour involved and the economic conditions of independent cultural workers.
In terms of structural improvements, clearer information about each performance or festival well in advance of travel would greatly reduce stress for participants. Travel needs to be booked early to remain affordable, and having preliminary details sooner would make a significant difference.
Overall, Beyond Front@ has had a strongly positive impact on my work. It enabled meaningful mobility, supported artistic research, and connected me to communities that will continue to shape my practice in the coming years. I am grateful for the opportunity and hopeful that the programme will continue to grow – the need for initiatives like this is only increasing.
Ingeborg Zackariassen’s critical reviews created within the Beyond Front@: Bridging Periphery project:
