Closing the Gap roundtable two: Cologne

Musicians, dancers and theatre workers often work in fields demanding constant peak performance, many times under precarious conditions. The pandemic created and exposed fault lines, with many artists still navigating its impacts and suffering from increased anxiety and lack of confidence in a professionally stable future. Additionally, compounding geopolitical events are increasing artist displacement, with many highly trained artists entering the European culture markets under conditions of severe precarity.

The second Closing the Gap round table, hosted by our member The Green Room, aimed to foster a dialogue between practitioners – artists, cultural operators, and medical/therapeutic experts specialised in working with stage artists – and policy makers and implementors – local and regional politicians, workers in local and regional cultural granting institutions, and representatives from healthcare and cultural trade organisations. 

These diverse parties that influence the everyday working conditions and future prospects of stage artists came together to discuss short- and long-term issues, with the aim of creating recommendations for artists’ health advocacy and paving the way towards the implementation of wider and deeper forms of support for stage artists.

Browse pictures from the event here