IETM - International network for contemporary performing arts is one of the oldest and largest cultural networks, representing the voice of 500+ performing arts organisations and individual members working in the contemporary performing arts worldwide. 👥 WHO WE ARE
IETM - International network for contemporary performing arts is one of the oldest and largest cultural networks, representing the voice of 500+ performing arts organisations and individual members working in the contemporary performing arts worldwide. You can learn more about our network on: www.ietm.org/about
🗣️ MISSION
We advocate the value of the arts and culture and empower performing arts professionals through access to international connections, knowledge and a dynamic forum for exchange. We work to stimulate the quality, development and context of the contemporary performing arts, in all their diversity.
🤝 WHAT WE DO
We create opportunities for our members and the international performing arts community at large by organising networking activities, peer-to-peer learning, exchanges and dialogues via various events. We also commission publications and research, facilitate communication and distribution of information about the performing arts and advocate for the position of performing arts professionals, worldwide.
🗺️ OUR MEMBERS
Our members are organisations and freelancers working worldwide in the contemporary performing arts. Our members represent all performing arts disciplines: theatre, dance, circus, street arts, mime, music theatre, new media, performance art, interdisciplinary live art forms, puppetry and object theatre, site-specific work, participatory performance, and more. Our members include artistic companies, collectives, organisations, festivals, venues, residencies, producers and independent artists, theatres and dance houses, cultural/research/resource centres, fellow artistic and cultural networks, universities and institutional bodies. They work in all aspects of international cooperation: education, creation, production, presentation, curation, promotion, support, research.
👐 OUR VISION FOR EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
We aim to create a more inclusive contemporary arts field by helping our members to diversify their organisations and work, and stimulating underrepresented performing arts professionals to join our activities and the network, regardless of their background, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities, social conditions, working and employment status, age, career path and geographical location.
✅ FUNDERS
Our members guarantee the operation of our network through their annual membership fee. We are grateful to our members and our structural funders, the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and the Flemish Government.
🕰️ HISTORY
IETM was created in 1981 at an informal gathering of performing arts professionals at the Polverigi Festival in Italy. As the first European cultural network, it was founded by professionals and for professionals in order to create a space of exchange to reinforce and strengthen international collaboration in the thriving independent performing arts sector in Europe. IETM developed, organising ‘meetings’ twice a year with debates and performance programmes, but without a formal association, structure or status. In 1989 it became a not-for-profit international organisation under Belgian law with a Secretariat and membership fees. From 1989, IETM (a predominantly EU-based membership) was active in including colleagues from Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and from 1994, those from the countries around the Mediterranean. From 2003, IETM also became active as a bridge between its professional members in Europe and those in Asia (including Central Asia), Africa and the Americas, although its main membership still comes from Europe. With the number of members growing consistently each year, and representing an increasingly diverse range of interdisciplinary contemporary performing arts, in 2005 IETM dropped its original title Informal European Theatre Meeting to become simply ‘IETM’ with the strapline ‘International network for contemporary performing arts”.
