The tenth edition of the “Jornadas sobre la Inclusión Social y la Educación en las Artes Escénicas” (Social Inclusion in the Performing Arts Conference) will be held from 9 to 11 May 2018 in Madrid at the Teatro Valle Inclán del Centro Dramático Nacional, among other venues.
The title of this year’s conference is "CHALLENGES, the creation of a more egalitarian society through the arts". Over two and a half days more than 300 professionals from all over Spain will have the opportunity to attend a wide variety of activities related to the performing arts, including lectures, practical and theoretical workshops, panel discussions as well as two performances. During this edition the organizers will examine the new challenges to be addressed in the field of performing arts and music which will be the subject of future editions.
Thanks to the support of the British Council Jenny Sealey, artistic director of the British theatre company Graeae, will participate in the conference with a talk on the challenges of leadership from the perspective of difference. The prestigious British academic François Matarasso will take part in a debate with Eugene van Erven (Netherlands) on the challenges facing Europe in the field of community performing arts.
This conference was created ten years ago by the British Council, the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Madrid Contemporary Theatre Festival. Its initial aim was to give artistic and institutional visibility to a number of dramatic and musical integrated projects that were then being carried out in Spain, as well as providing a platform in this country to showcase projects being developed in Great Britain. Since then each new edition has presented a wide variety of national and international projects, making it over the years into a benchmark in the field of arts and disability in Spain.
Over the past few years the British Council has facilitated the participation of several British artists and experts in this event. In 2017 Claire Teasdale, executive producer, and Jamie Beddard, actor, from the inclusive circus company Extraordinary Bodies; the academic François Matarasso in 2014; Jo Verrent, artist, writer, manager and activist and academics Dr Selena Busby and Liselle Terret in 2013; or the actress, dancer and choreographer Nadia Adame and the co-founder and artistic director of CandoCo Dance Company Adam Benjamin in 2012.