Funding for ‘Shared Leadership in Dance’
PRESS RELEASE
Hamburg, March 6, 2025
A first continuation of Tanzpakt funding at state level: Hamburg approves ‘Shared Leadership in Dance’ – a collaborative model in contemporary dance based on resource sharing by Jenny Beyer, Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft and Ursina Tossi
The established Hamburg choreographers Jenny Beyer, Antje Pfundtner and Ursina Tossi are breaking new ground in artistic collaboration: their concept ‘Shared Leadership in Dance’ has been approved by the Ministry of Culture and Media. This creates an innovative model for the structural and financial sharing of funding and resources in Hamburg’s independent dance scene.
From summer 2025, the three choreographers, who mainly produce at Kampnagel and were funded by TANZPAKT, will launch this long-term project. The aim is to establish sustainable structures for artistic creation, create synergies and yet preserve individual signatures. The model responds to the post-pandemic reorganisation of funding policy in the performing arts and focuses on a structure and ethic of sharing.
Partners in Crime: A strong network to interlink and strengthen working structures
The three artists and teams contribute their many years of artistic and cultural-political expertise and experience as well as their international networks. Jenny Beyer with the ‘OFFENE STUDIOS’, Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft with her ‘TISCHGESELLSCHAFTEN’, URSina Tossi with ‘AESTHETICS OF EXCESS & ACCESS’. They are in close dialogue with each other and with institutions and artist collectives as well as regional and national partners. These partners reinforce the Hamburg model and take it into other artistic contexts.
Common goals: Sharing resources / consolidating structures / setting new artistic impulses in contemporary dance
- At the centre of ‘Shared Leadership in Dance’ is the idea of shared responsibility and joint creation as the basis for artistic creation in contemporary dance.
- They bundle networks, production structures and mediation practices. They share knowledge, working spaces and responsibility with the aim of sustainable artistic production.
- They develop joint formats for artistic research, distribution and press and public relations work.
On 11 July 2025, the ‘Shared Leadership in Dance’ team invites colleagues and people interested in dance to a joint discursive and participatory event at Studio Alte Post. The aim is to discuss questions of sharing and the possibilities of solidary interdependencies and connections in contemporary dance.
In November 2025, FÜHLER (AT) will celebrate its premiere – the first joint stage production of ‘Shared Leadership in Dance’ in cooperation with the Junges Schauspielhaus. Three pieces on the subject of touch will be interwoven into a joint evening and open up new perspectives on closeness, distance and connection through dance.
Funded by the Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Behörde für Kultur und Medien.
Photo: Jubal Battisti
From left to right: Johannes Miethke, Irene Pätzug, Pamela Goroncy, Antje Pfundtner, Anne Kersting, Jetzmann, Jenny Beyer, Anngret Schultze, Ursina Tossi, Hark Empen, Hannah Melder