20 Andanças — The Challenge In 2016 we continue celebrating 20 years of Andanças with the motto The Challenge. Over 20 editions, Andanças became an established dance and music festival in Portugal, where artists and audience actively interact. The festival is based on traditional practices. Participating artists reinterpret those and merge them to new and innovative artistic expressions. Considering the intense social, cultural and political transformations we are presently facing and seeing Andanças as a space for expression and experimentation, we challenge artists to submit their proposals for different program areas — music, dance, theatre, circus, visual arts, video-art, cinema, artistic installations, etc. — but also for activities for personal development, which integrate cooperation and sustainability and present innovative ways of expression.
We aim for a program for Andanças 2016 which provokes and surprises the participants, providing a creative approach to arts, tradition, identity, society and contemporaneity. A program which encourages facing the different, the other, the traditional and the new, and which enables the participation in a dialog for a mutual enrichment, and which creates a space of well-being. We want Andanças to be a place for challenge, questioning and reevaluation of its role in society, where the artistic program encourages participation, reflection and learning. We want Andanças to continue turning dreams into reality, offering space for new talents and well known artists alike. We want the creation of a sense of community by sharing and finding paths to the creation of a better world from new ideas.
We set the Challenge and the response exceeded our expectations. In preparation for another Andanças, and reinforcing the importance of its core values and global message, this year we received 585 proposals for the festival's artistic programme, that reached us from the snowy corners of Canada, through the warmth of the Americas, branching off to traditions of the old continent. Among the proposals received there are a broad mix of acrobatic workshops, yoga , biodanza , world dances, permaculture, theaters and sounds from all over the planet.
We now begin the difficult task of selecting the projects that will make up the 2016 Andanças programme. The results will be announced at the end of February , and all applicants will receive a response. We would like to take this opportunity to leave a heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone for believing in this project and for being an integral part of it. Without all of you Andanças would not be possible
