After various training and peer coaching activities on a national scale, in the final part of the project Steps Ahead. Professionalisation of junior coaches in performing arts and media a selected number of young artists of all partner countries, active in the languages of the performing arts (dance, theatre, music) and the media (video, sound experimentation, web) and with a vocation to teaching through non-formal practices, come together in Florence, in the frame of the 21st edition of Fabbrica Europa Festival, for two days intensive Further Training at Il Vivaio del Malcantone.

The training will focus on the artist’s role in contemporary society, under the guidance of Pietro Gaglianò and Caterina Poggesi.

The first day will be dedicated to the relation between contemporary arts and public sphere, in an open debate about the following issues:
▪ What is the public sphere, and why is it important to be aware of its complexity
▪ What does it mean to develop artistic projects in the public sphere
▪ The artist’s role within community based projects and socially engaged artistic practices
▪ Strengths and weaknesses of formal outputs in participatory aesthetics.

Participants will be asked to explore with a critical gaze the public space, and to imagine and design tools and languages for an artistic dialogue with the social sphere. They will be guided towards an artistic restitution that will involve different languages and disciplines.

On the second day the experience will focus on the relationship between creative process and educational process, by investigating in parallel three dimensions of coaching that are constantly intertwined and integrated, as different aspects of the same approach:
▪ The work on oneself aimed at enhancing listening skills and psychophysical awareness, through body practices borrowed from theatre and contemporary dance
▪ The methodological reflection, highlighting the key elements suitable for constructing one’s own personal coaching style
▪ The concrete realisation of the intervention.

The entire programme is aimed at sharing the role of the coach as an educator/facilitator in terms of responsibility, professional ethics and method, and at the same time as an artist in terms of language, design and attitude; it is aimed at opening up mental windows, rather than at providing ready-made tools, with a view to the relationship between process and outcome, community and individual, art and learning, formats and contents.

Furthermore, in the evenings the participants will have the opportunity to attend performances of the 21st edition of Fabbrica Europa Festival.