Creative Collaboration is a British Council regional project with the participation of artists, cultural leaders and creative entrepreneurs across South-East Europe and the UK. Creative Collaboration uses innovative approaches to networking in order to encourage arts and cultural leaders from different countries and different art forms to talk together, learn from each other and develop new partnerships for effective cross-border working. The project is bringing together leading arts professionals from the UK and across Europe to work on issues like public space, arts and professional development, social inclusion, cultural leadership and creative cities.

What have we done so far?

Through a series of Open Space events, delegates networked internationally in their professional area of interest. There were 5 events throughout the region, using the Open Space Technology where the invited participants from different countries defined the agenda and convened a session on the issue they felt is important.

What has happened so far in Bulgaria?

The Open Space activities in Varna were organised in partnership with the Varna Summer International Theatre Festival.  There were also other partners for the different events - the Cultural Contact Point of the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, the State Cultural Institute of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, organising the Information Session and also the Heteriopodi Dance Company organising the contemporary dance workshop and presenting the 36/more 4 less/ performance.

• 1 to 5 June – Contemporary Dance workshop led by Robert Tannion (UK) and Rossen Mihailov (Bulgaria)
  With the participation of young dancers and Bulgarian, Israeli and Macedonian students, studying in Bulgaria who prepared a 15 minutes creative piece, presented as part of the 36 less for more dance performance.
• 6 June – Creative Collaborations Information  Session - More than 80 people, among which the Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Culture, the  Director of the Bulgarian State Cultural Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Culture representatives, Cultural leaders from different countries attended the session. The participants had the opportunity to learn about BC Arts and Creative industries collaborative projects, the funding opportunities by the EU Community programmes and the Development Aid Programmes.
• 6 to 8 June – Open Space discussions – 50 participants from 16 countries worked together on: “Creative Cities….How can we develop our cities to be more creative and diverse? With the support from the UK’s theatre group Improbable the delegates convened sessions on issues they felt important and explored ideas for future collaborations. They also saw the shows from the exciting Varna Summer Theatre Festival programme.
• 6 June – 36 more 4 less  – More than 200 ( sitting and standing audience) enjoyed the Creative Collaboration in Action - a Heteropodi Dance Co performance with the participation of Robert Tannion (UK), Rossen Mihailov (BG), young dancers and participants from the Contemporary Dance workshop. 36 more 4 less , a piece which combines a live performance (dance), video and sound environment was presented in the artistic atmosphere of the Varna City Gallery space.

And what will happen next?

The Creative Collaboration regional art project is going into its next stage – the Collaborative Projects.