My name is Dora Juhasz, I'm the General Manager of the contemporary dance company called Compagnie Pal Frenak. It's a French Hungarian dance company based in Budapest, working with international dancers. And we are one of the most famous contemporary independent dance company in Hungary. It means that we don't have a venue of our own. It means that we are renting rehearsal spaces. We are working in strong collaboration with different kind of Hungarian institutions. And we are performing everywhere in the world, mostly in Europe but sometimes overseas. The company itself is quite cutting edge, exciting. We are doing amazing important dance pieces based on classical ballet techniques, but also very organic, very special methodology based on the invention of Pal Frenak, who is the founder and choreographer of the company. We are doing a lot of education programs, as well, with youngsters, with people with hearing disabilities, with special groups of people, and professionals, as well. That's what is in our mission, and we found very important to be the ambassadors of the cutting edge, thought-provoking, contemporary dance, not just in Hungary, but also Europe wide. The Institute somehow changed the whole methodology, how we work back in Hungary, in my organization. And as we are one of the leading dance companies and leading independent dance companies in Hungary, I found really important to be the ambassadors for the Cycle as well, and make my artists and the other colleagues understand how we should plan and focus. And change the perception of artistic and general management as well. And I think it's crucial in my region to figure out how to create a long term strategy. How to make different kinds of projects happen, even if you think that it's not possible. So what the Cycle gave to me, it was more like an approach, a way of thinking, a mindset that we have to create a different kind of special and unique ways of funding and creating big A level projects. In our case A level doesn't mean that we can plan far in advance. For instance, our Cuban project which I would like to share, with you is more about like a sea type popping up, but amazing exciting project. The company was invited to Cuba to perform at the Dance Festival at Santa Clara and Havana as well, at the end of 2013. It was in December, but the invitation arrived during the summer, so it meant that we had a very short time to prepare the whole thing. So we decided to, based on what I learned here and what I brought home, we decided to create a whole campaign and strategy how to make that happen. It was based on the Cycle, we were thinking about how to market this opportunity. How to create a very strong and personal message based on our Cuban dancers. For him, it was the first time to return to his family. They left Cuba, he left Cuba for a long time ago. And it was an important opportunity to dance in front of his family and his beloved ones with the Pal Frenak piece, which he means and which he feel that is the most important artistic project he has ever done. So it was a very nice personal story and motivation in that, and also a very important cultural motivation to go there and present the Hungarian contemporary dance in a special surrounding in Cuba. So, what we did, we figured out who could be our family around this project. We figured out how to reach and approach the people in the cultural ministry, in the government to support this project. But we relied on also audience. We have never done a crown funding campaign before, but we decided to do one in collaboration with the film company who did that amazing documentary about the process. So we did a very successful campaign, the crown funding campaign, where we reached our audience and convinced them how important is that to bring this piece of art to Cuba. And we found amazing individual donors through technique of story telling. And we let them know how important is that for the company and what that could mean for the Hungarian and French art scene. So finally we had a very successful tour, that very moving experience for the whole company. And I think it was the good example that a strategical thinking and opening up and pushing our boundaries in the management field as well, it can lead us something amazing, something truly great and that we are going to be able to share our amazing piece of art with the audience. The other thing I found really important is the concept of family. I mean, we treated our fantastic audience quite well in a way that we wanted to present great art for them. But the connection that we rely on our audience and think about them as a community who can take part and participate in our artistic process. With their opinion, with their knowledge and their financial support as well, or any kind of support they would love to give is a completely new concept in my region and in my country. Especially in the contemporary dance scene. We created our first membership program. We never done anything like that before and in the contemporary dance scene is the first kind of membership program we launched. We have three different levels of joining, but the most important thing is that is not the number of people who are doing that. That we to received amazing letters from abroad like how amazingly wonderful that we have this project. They would love to contribute, they want to support us a lot. Even if they are not staying in Hungary so they don't really have a chance, for instance, to see us performing in Europe because they are staying outside. But they really want to contribute and pay a certain amount of money to support and maintain our work. It was fabulous to read these kind of words. But on the other hand, I found important that we have to educate our own audience. We have to make them understand that they can take part. They can be with us. They can share the excitement of creating something. They can come to the rehearsal and see us working and they can get closer. And the product at the end is something that we create together. And that's what we call family, and that's my membership program in all kind of levels, even the smallest amount of money they joined. It's really important, because it just changes the way we think about working for art and enjoying art. That's why I found it really important, and it was a great success even if we are in the very beginning of the process.
