How can we rethink international collaboration in contemporary dance? This online panel explores production frameworks, power structures, and collaborative models between the Global North and Global South.

Artists working internationally navigate tensions between touring and long-term local anchoring, facing precarity, visa and contract regulations, social security challenges, and growing ecological responsibilities. How can we tackle these issues together? With synergies, solidarity networks, and financially well-equipped collaborations.The panel combines different perspectives on how can we work together. What conditions, agreement are necessary to collaborate as equal partners.

Our guests are Quito Tembe, curator and festival director of KINANI in Maputo, Mozambique, Laurynas Žakevičius, artistic director Low Air Vilnius City Dance Theatre and partner of the artist-led network studiotrade, and Cora Hegewald, programme coordinator of the funding programme WAYS of Federal Cultural Foundation in Germany.

With our moderator Prasanna Oommen, they will look at what “working together” means in practice: differing hierarchies, work cultures and concepts of time, digital and hybrid collaboration, and finding unexpected, new relations and collaboration. The aim is to imagine fairer, more inclusive and sustainable international partnerships.

Cora Hegewald

Cora Hegewald has a background in literary studies, art history, and economics. She currently co-leads the “WAYS-Towards Fair and Sustainable International Partnerships” programme at the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Previously, she worked with several cultural institutions, including Stiftung Humboldt Forum, the Goethe-Institut, the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, and numerous theatres. Alongside these roles, she has worked internationally as a freelance curator, advisor, editor, and author. Her curatorial and advisory practice focuses on collaborative, process-oriented, and site-responsive artistic practices, often situated at the intersection of visual art, architecture, and performance.

About the funding programme WAYS
The German Federal Cultural Foundation promotes contemporary art and culture in Germany and in an international context. It supports cultural institutions that experiment thematically and aesthetically, explore innovative working methods and engage with new audience groups. With its programme ‘WAYS – Towards Fair and Sustainable International Partnerships’, the German Federal Cultural Foundation is funding long-term cultural partnerships worldwide until 2031. The programme aims to support German cultural organisations in establishing new partnerships outside Europe and implementing joint artistic projects. The partners develop and test new models of fair and sustainable international cooperation.

Quito Tembe

Quito Abrão Tembe is a curator, artistic director and cultural producer from Maputo with an internationally recognised career in the performing arts. He leads the KINANI International Platform for Contemporary Dance and serves as curator of the MITsp Biennial and associate curator of the Wiener Festwochen. He has collaborated with internationale tanzmesse nrw, the Lyon Dance Biennale and major international programmes, and was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. Throughout his career, Tembe has played a decisive role in the internationalisation of African artists and in strengthening cultural cooperation networks between the Global South and Africa Europe.

Laurynas Žakevičius

Laurynas Žakevičius is executive director, producer, choreographer and performer at Low Air Vilnius City Dance Theatre. Since 2012, he has led the company, shaping it into one of Lithuania’s leading contemporary dance institutions. With over 15 years of experience, he combines artistic vision and strategic management, producing international projects and tours. Active in European networks such as Studiotrade, he strengthens global partnerships and Lithuanian dance policy.

Prasanna Oommen

Prasanna has been working for over 20 years as a bilingual moderator (German/English), public relations specialist, and author in the fields of culture, education, society, development cooperation and media.

Her work focuses on transformation in the cultural, educational and media sectors, particularly in the areas of cultural education, diversity, equity and inclusion, digitization, AI and sustainability.

After finishing her university degree in political science, English and German literature, she has served as a press spokesperson for TV as well as various organizations. She is an active member, mentor, and former board member of the Neue Deutsche Medienmacher:innen.
From 2023 to 2025, she has been Chairwoman of the Board at EIT Culture & Creativity e.V., an initiative of the European Institute of Technology and Innovation.
In addition to facilitating professional events and panel discussions, she advises institutions, municipalities, and ministries on change processes and provide training in political as well as internal and external communication.