What

is

BIDE?

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 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.

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.

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.