Europe Beyond Access
Europe Beyond Access is the biggest trans-national project in the world supporting disabled and Deaf artists to break the glass ceilings of contemporary dance and theatre. The project started in 2018, and in 2024 the second generation has been co-funded once again by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and will run for another 4 years, to 2027.
The new programme will:
- commission and present dozens of new dance and theatre works created by artists with disabilities. 3 major international co-productions will sit alongside 19 other new commissioned works, and 20 presentations of existing touring works – presented across 10 countries.
- support artists with disabilities to internationalise their innovative artistic practices, and reduce the geographic and artistic isolation uniquely experienced by artists with disabilities. Hundreds of artists from across Europe will participate in Residences, Workshops and multi-national Artistic Laboratories.
- develop tools and understanding in the wider performing arts market – sharing our belief that the European cultural sector must urgently reduce barriers experienced by artists with disabilities.
We have a lot to learn
We acknowledge that we are not specialist Arts & Disability organisations. We have a lot to learn if we are to become truly accessible cultural institutions. During the four years of EBA we will learn from experts and from each other – improving our own practices and sharing what we learn with the wider cultural sector. What we do know already is that artistically we are energised by the current generation of Deaf and disabled performing artists who are making innovative and excellent works. Through EBA we will support these artists, and bring their works to national and international prominence.
Ten cultural organisations collaborate
Europe Beyond Access is run by 10 high-profile European cultural organisations, which made up the EBA Consortium: Skånes Dansteater (Sweden), Holland Dance Festival (Netherlands), Onassis Stegi (Grece), Oriente Occidente (Italy), Kampnagel - Internationales Zentrum für schönere Künste (Germany), CODA Oslo International Dance Festival (Norway), Centrum Kultury ZAMEK (Poland), Project Arts Centre (Ireland), Mercat de les Flors (Spain), Culturgest - Fundação CGD (Portugal).
Europe Beyond Access is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. The project is joined by Associate Partner British Council (UK), who initiated and led the first Europe Beyond Access programme from 2018-2023. British Council now joins us to share news of the project across Europe and across the world. The British Council also supports the participation of UK artists within the EBA project.
The project is also joined by the consortium of Big Pulse Dance Alliance – a large group of contemporary dance festivals strengthening and expanding the reach of contemporary dance. Finally, the project is joined by seven key European cultural networks and institutions – all committed to extending access in the cultural sector for disabled artists and audiences: IETM - International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts; European Dance Development Network; European Festival Association; On the Move – the International Cultural Mobility network; ELIA - European Network of Higher Arts Education; Flanders Arts Institute / Kunstenpunt; and UnLabel Performing Arts Company and Policy Exchange specialist.
Artists
Dodzi Dougban
In the spring 2026, Dodzi Dougban have a two-week residency at Skånes Dansteater including a sharing. He is working on the project "Fatherhood" which aims to give a voice to deaf fathers who, after separation, often face systematic discrimination and loss of contact with their children. Dodzi also leads a workshop for the deaf.
Dodzi Dougban, born in 1979, is a Deaf dancer and performer who grew up in Recklinghausen, Germany. He is Deaf from birth. As a professional dancer, choreographer, model, and actor, he has performed in numerous stage productions and performance projects. Influenced by these experiences, he found his artistic focus in hip-hop dance, and became five-time German champion and three-time European champion together with hearing dance crews.
Dodzi’s work as a performer always bridges the Deaf and hearing worlds. As an artist, he poetically integrates elements of
sign language into dance, creating a unique physical language on stage.
His work as a dancer, choreographer, and actor has been featured in various video productions, television films, and dance theatre
pieces. Most recently, he appeared in Time to Shine (directed and choreographed by Takao Baba) at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus,
and in Hell and Swanfate (choreographed by Ursina Tossi), coproduced by Kampnagel Hamburg and TanzFaktur Cologne.
Since 2013, he has been closely collaborating with the EU project Un-Label, with which he most recently developed the production
Gravity. Dodzi Dougban lives in Recklinghausen, Germany.
Aristide Rontini
2025 and 2026 Aristide Rontini creates a new work for seven of Skånes Dansteater's dancers.
Aristide Rontini is an Italian dancer and choreographer supported by Europe Beyond Access. He is a founding member of the Italian disabled artists-activists group Al Di Qua who are leading the way in advocating for the autonomy and rights of disabled artists in Italy.
Rontini’s research questions the dimension of identity, the relationships between individuals and society and of nature and human beings.
He graduated as a dancer from Codarts Rotterdam in 2010 and has worked with Simona Bertozzi (IT), the Candoco Dance Company (UK), Alessandro Carboni (IT), Alessandro Schiattarella/BewegGrund (CH), Teatro Della Tosse (IT), Michela Lucenti/Balletto Civile (IT), Angelica Liddell (SP), Carl Olof Berg/Spinn (SV), Vahan Badalyan (Armenia) and Diego Tortelli/Aterballetto (IT).
In the past few years he has developed his own artistic projects, such as It moves me, Giovane Notturno, Talitha Kumi, Alexis and Alexis 2.0.
Local commisson, May Fall
The choreographer Aristide Rontini creates the new "May Fall" for 7 of Skåne Dance Theatre's dancers. The work explores relationships and identity thru flowing fabrics and hypnotic movements. Premiere on January 30, 2026.
"Aristide Rontini is an Italian choreographer who is currently making great strides in his career. He is a rising star in the European dance world," says Mira Helenius Martinsson, artistic director of Skånes Dansteater.
"Aristide has his own aesthetic. He works with the inner world of humans and creates works that provoke existential reflections. I look forward to presenting his artistry to the Skåne audience."
About May Fall
The scene flows with undulating fabrics and invites you into a world where objects and bodies appear and disappear. The dancers' collective and enigmatic presence is rooted in a mystical, floating atmosphere where different relationships and stories unfold simultaneously.
The flow of dance fragments evoked by the hypnotic movements of the fabrics gives you the opportunity to change perspective, taste, curiosity, and imagination.
Exact, gentle movements are woven together with the everyday to create a series of different conditions that evoke the human desire to live, to be loved back, and the friction that arises if we try to resist it. Why do we resist?
Selected projects for EBA co-productions
In spring 2024 Europe Beyond Access (EBA) launched an Open call for new artistic works based in dance practice, choreography or movement. Three projects were selected for co-production support. All projects are led by artists with disabilities, who get the opportunity to present their work at some of the EBA partners’ venues or festivals.
STARTING WITH THE LIMBS draws on the experiences of artists using prosthetics or mobility devices to create scenographic elements which blur body and landscape, generate & amplify movement possibilities. A new cross-disciplinary, international collaboration between choreographer Annie Hanauer and l'Autre Maison.
HORN FUCKERS, by Diana Niepce, thinks of the body as an extraordinary event. In a post-apocalyptic universe, the piece based on the chaos theory works on loneliness and exposes the body in a state of contemplation and defies the viewer to reconsider conventions and social norms.
LAYERS, by Katarzyna Żeglicka, is a project of radical imagination, hope, and utopian reality, rooted in anarchy understood as the building of community and love. It’s a story about emancipated women fighting against oppression; about dreams and visions of transforming the world, grounded in a feminist-queer genealogy.
More information
Fore more information about Europe Beyond Access, visit the dedicated project website: EuropeBeyondAccess.com
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** We use terms “artist with disability” and “disabled artists” interchangeably, with the awareness that different countries and languages use different terminology, and that people self-define as they prefer. Our approach is based on social model of disability, which recognises that people are disabled by attitudinal and environmental barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference.
