A word from the artistic co-directors

The NEU/NOW website, developed in collaboration with jotta, is intended to provide an accessible means by which the most excellent and/or innovative artistic talent now entering the professional arts arena in Europe can showcase their work to both a wider public audience and to the international community of producers, curators, programmers and other cultural operators in their respective fields.

This first iteration of the NEU/NOW Festival includes 145 selected projects arranged across five broad arts discipline categories. The categories are:

• Design
• Film
• Music
• Theatre and Dance
• Visual Arts

Each of the emerging artists work that is included in the online festival was selected by an international jury of experts in each of the discipline fields. Each jury was working to the same overarching criteria, which, in summary, asked them to select work that:

• represented a bold contribution to leading edge practice in the discipline;
• demonstrated its potential to achieve a good professional standard of presentation;
• was likely to stimulate the interest of an international audience, including those with a professional interest in the discipline;
• contributed to a diverse range of work represented within the category.

In making their selections, the judging panels were asked to ensure that the overall profile of work selected was broadly representative of the diversity of entries submitted and that the final selection should include the widest possible representation of European regions. The fact that the members of the jury panels represented 12 different countries between them and that they were choosing from submissions drawn from 28 countries, selecting work from 26 of them tells its own story!

Each judging panel was asked to select projects in their own arts discipline category for inclusion in the NEU/NOW online festival according to a given set of criteria (see summary above). These projects, 145 of them in all, form the content of the Festival in its ‘virtual’ manifestation. Further to this, each judging panel was then asked to choose six projects from among the selected submissions in their category, this (including at least one project from the host country of the ‘Live’ Festival - Lithuania) for ‘live’ presentation in the NEU/NOW Live Festival, Vilnius 2009 between the 19th and the 22nd November. The NEU/NOW Live Festival forms part of the programme for Vilnius – European Capital of Culture 2009 celebrations.

ELIA-European League of Institutes of the Arts
Beulingstraat 8
1017 BA Amsterdam
The Netherlands

http://www.elia-artschools.org

Ute Kohlmann
Project Manager

ute.kohlmann@elia-artschools.org

• ELIA. European League of Institutes of the Arts
• Vilnius European Capital of Culture
• Jotta
• European Commission