[Youth & Festival’s Stories] Festival MILANoLTRE

1986 > 2024 Back to the Future is a project made by Festival MILANoLTRE created to encourage generational change through specific actions on governance, creative & training processes and audience development. The current socio-economic situation has made issues such as youth unemployment and the risk of social exclusion even more urgent. The course proposes transversal actions aimed at the development of professional skills and career orientation. Young artists are called upon to create a new artistic product inserted in the official schedule of the festival, created and designed by managerial and artistic figures under 35. The intrinsic public value of culture drives us not only to commit ourselves to fostering employment but also to promoting active citizenship. Dance performances along with participatory conferences offered at a symbolic price aimed at alleviating their economic condition will be an integral part of the offer created for and with young people.

The goals we intend to achieve:

• Promote the generational change over 36 years of activity, through renewal actions that, as a new-born social enterprise, allow for more fluid achievement of the objectives related to human capital, internal governance and cultural innovation that characterise them; investing in the under 35 generation, offering them new professional opportunities.
• Renew the cultural offer in ways that allow shared planning with younger audiences.
• Facilitate knowledge and understanding of the languages that characterise contemporary dance by encouraging the new spectator to build a personal and informed point of view.
• Construct and renew proximity relationships with associations and training organisations in the region.
• Promote social cohesion with intra-generational activities to address and combat social, economic, cultural and ethnic disparities by stimulating the sense of belonging to the community.

Governance and artistic direction

Consolidation of professional figures under 35 (administrative management, artistic direction and organisation) by implementing company dynamics through a system of handing over and promotions from job shadowing.

Creativity and training

Creative-training processes: Young people in the last year at the training centres are the protagonists, called to create an artistic product to be included in the festival programme.
Masterclass: An integrated curricular plan resulting from direct co-operation with local schools.
Dance conferences: Theoretical and participatory meetings conducted by university teachers.

Audience development
In a reformed context in terms of use and involvement, we support the formation and diversification of the public with a guide to the vision: intra-generational activities designed to remove inequalities linked to social, economic, cultural, ethnic situations, and to promote the spread of the culture of dance.

More info: www.milanoltre.org

(General Editor: Simon Mundy)