In two consecutive days at the end of October, the team of Derida Dance Center discussed the topics on New management plan and promotion and audience development based on the CLASH! Professional Empowerment Strategy.
On the first day Atanas Maev – CEO of Derida Dance Center and Project manager of DDC, led a seminar on the topic of management and promotion. During the seminar, the team of Derida Dance Center discussed the communication channels that can be used to promote contemporary dance in Sofia and to create a better and more active environment in the upcoming year that shall contribute to the CLASH! Project.
There have been established two channels that the team will develop. The first approach will focus more on cultural diplomacy. The activities shall integrate the society of representatives of different governmental facilities and embassies who have an impact on the current art projects in Bulgaria. They should be more informed about the current needs of the independent and contemporary stage as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
The partnership between DDC and those representatives will be established in formal and informal meetings and inclusion of the representatives in AD activities throughout the year.
The promotion will be searched through the expansion of the social media channels. After research on the current situation, the team decided to work more about providing up-to-date information to its audience and more strong visual content. At the moment DDC is collaborating with an NGO – Photo-corpus who are working in the field of promotion of dance mainly through photographing different events and not only providing the content complimentary to organizations as Derida but also through promotion on their network as well. The DDC team also focused on the research of possible online media that is targeting an audience between 20 to 45 years old.
On the second day, Atanas Maev led a second seminar dedicated on audience development. During the event, there have been established two channels that the DDC team will develop – the opportunities to reach new audiences through involvement of new social groups such as foreigners on one side and to reinvent the ways to communicate with the dance and art communities of Derida on the other side.
The team researched the different interdisciplinary activities. The activities that will be included will be in the two directions. First new approach to reintegrate the audience that has already been part of DDC performances and projects will be discussions and presentations of people working in the various fields and connected to art in professional and non-professional ways. Those will engage the audience with a new approach and to help them to rediscover the community and its activities. The different experts will also include various new participants that might not clearly discover the contemporary art in Sofia and the opportunities to engage with contemporary art – dance, multidisciplinary projects, photography and etc at Derida Stage.  The second approach for new AD activities will be a collaboration with NGOs that are working in the field of cultural and historic tours. Their cultural tour that monthly is visited by more than 500 people will make a stop in Derida Stage (the newest stage for contemporary art by Derida Dance Center) where the participants will have the opportunity to learn more about the Bulgarian dance and learn few steps s as well as about the activities on the Stage The tour is held regularly – about 4 times per week. The DDC team will continue in the implementation of PES strategy by developing more layers during the discussions and presentations and adding a movement partly to the event. In the spring of 2020, DDC will implement a more detailed questionnaire about the satisfaction of the two groups.