What
is
BIDE?

BIDE

Barcelona International
Dance Exchange

BIDE - Barcelona International Dance Exchange is an organization based in Barcelona, that provides programs for creative exchange and networking between performing arts professionals worldwide, through a unique tool called B>Lab. 

In order to reach new networks and artists worldwide, we offer the following services and activities:

  • B>Meeting,
  • B>Satellite,
  • B>Landing,
  • B>Residency,
  • B>Talk and
  • B>Net.
A place to learn from each other.

Our mission

BIDE promotes constructive dialogue between different models, ideologies, and realities through horizontal dynamics of participation.

BIDE gives value to performing arts within the contemporary social context.

BIDE encourages inclusion, mobility and creative exchange between artists of different age, gender, culture and background.

BIDE embraces curiosity, personal and professional development and difference, as a place to learn from each other.

The chance for dance

Our goal

The aim of BIDE is to facilitate the chance for dance artists and cultural managers of different ages, cultural backgrounds, and experience to experiment, share ideas, create and collaborate in a non-hierarchical way.

BIDE aims to articulate a place in which interaction and collective creation are, at the same time, tools and goals.

BIDE allows space to underline the connection between artistic practice and political action in contemporary society.

The value and importance of dance

BIDE values

To create inspiring and fruitful exchange, we emphasize self-responsibility; above all, BIDE is set in action, defined and made meaningful by its participants.

To offer constructive feedback when discussing each other's pieces and methods of work.

To unite forces for strengthening the status of contemporary dance in our society. Together we can make work more visible and show the value and importance of dance in the times and cultures we are living in.

The original and central tool

What is B>Lab

B>Lab is the original and central tool used in the BIDE laboratories of movement.

The B>Lab’s goal is to let creative ideas sprout and circulate in a pool of diversity and inclusion, through a process of non hierarchical cross-exploration.

The B>Lab sessions trigger connections through which participants engage themselves in research and share their discoveries in order to feed the collective creation.

Each B>Lab has facilitators whose mission is to introduce the biannual theme, open questions and propose a dynamic structure for the working session; providing a fertile field for participants to decide how to proceed.

  • The B>Labs have a variable duration of between 3 and 6 hours.
  • They are divided into three parts: an introduction by the facilitators to the biannual theme, collective development and a closing.
  • The introduction. Every two years BIDE provides a transversal topic. The task of the facilitators is to propose an approach to it.
  • Development. It is the magical part of the process that, depending on the diversity of the participants and the dynamics between them, the creative sparks appear.
  • The closure. At the end of each session the participants present the conclusions of the collective work in the form of an open score, work in progress or oral, visual presentations, etc. of no more than 10 minutes. 

There are two types of B>Labs: Movement Labs and Thinking Labs. 

The Movement B>Labs are:

  • Introductory B>Lab 
  • Research B>Lab
  • Performance B>Lab 
  • Site-specific B>Lab

The Thinking B>Lab is:

  • Cultural Management B>Lab 

Depending on the type of BIDE event, between 3 and 6 B>Labs per day are realized.

learn and to share

Our Background

In the year 2007 Sebastián García Ferro realized the lack of a dance encounter in Spain that helped participants both to learn and to share their own knowledge

The first idea

Sebastián García Ferro, inspired by the experience of the ECITE (European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange) congress and the COLINA project (multidisciplinary artists meeting in Portugal) and with the collaboration of Ulla Mäkinen and Daniel Werner, decided to create the pioneer project BIDE - Barcelona International Dance Exchange. The aim was to connect dancers and choreographers from all over the world under the format of laboratories.

The premise was to combine a practical and theoretical framework in one event which is neither a workshop festival nor a congress.

Based in Barcelona since 2008, BIDE allows artists interested in creative exchange and experimentation in contemporary dance to meet in a main event in Barcelona, as well as in the additional international programs. 

Since the first BIDE event

Our History in numbers

Since the first BIDE event in 2009, these are some of our numbers:

Over 1200 dancers, choreographers and performers from 36 countries had attended our events.

More than 50 projects have emerged from BIDE exchange.

Barcelona B>Meeting celebrated its 14th edition in 2022.

BIDE has organized several B>Satellites, in New York 2017, Buenos Aires 2014, Salerno 2013, Outokumpu 2012, Sevilla 2012, Stolzenhagen 2011, Göttingen 2010.

BIDE had several B>Landings, in Forum Cultural de Guanajuato, Universidad de Guanajuato, Centro de las Artes de Salamanca, Centro de Producción Contemporánea - CEPRODAC, Festival Escénico Contemporáneo (México), University of Nicosia (Cyprus), Centro de Danza (Zaragoza) since 2016.

BIDE has organized more than 15 B>Residencies in Barcelona, Ibiza and Tuscany since 2010.

BIDE had facilitated different B>Talks about its way of working, in Danzad Danzad Malditos (pamplona, Spain), Festival Alternativo Artes Escénicas (Aguas Calientes, Mexico), Forum Cultural Guanajuato (León, Mexico), Festival Danseu (Les Piles, Spain), OpenFLR (Florence, Italy), Territorios del Arte (San Luis Potosí, Mexico), Universidad María de Avila (Madrid, Spain), and Camp In (San Luis Potosí, Mexico).

BIDE has facilitated several B>Nets in La Caldera/les Corts (Barcelona, Spain), University of Nicosia (Cyprus) and Centro Huarte (Pamplona, Spain).

B>Podcast - BIDE has published 41 Episodes since 2022

B>log - BIDE has published 8 blogs since 2020

OUR TEAM

Our Hard
Working Team

Ireri Mugica
Production and International Relations

Zoë Gadd
Artistic Collaborator

Eva Bosch
Communication

OUR PARTNERS

Would not be possible
without them

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