About us

We are the only institution in the Czech Republic to actively support professionals in the field of dance, movement theatre and circus before and within the process of career transition. We are building up a system that will ensure appropriate conditions for career change.

The Dance Career Endowment Fund was founded by Vize tance and Taneční sdružení, two professional associations that aim at improving work conditions and professional prospects of performing artists in the field of dance, movement theatre and circus.

As defined by its statutes, the Fund’s activities focus on providing information and mediating services that facilitate career change and career development. The second major field of the Fund’s activity is to promote the establishment of a saving product designed for dancers and professionals working in associated fields.

About the Fund

Where you can find us

The Fund’s office is at the Arts and Theatre Institute.

Celetná 17, 110 00 Prague 1

Dance Career Endowment Fund

T +420 721 600 691
E info@tanecnikariera.cz
A Celetná 17, 110 00, Prague 1

The Patron

Prof. Dadja Altenburg-Kohl is a prominent philanthropist, arts collector, curator and arts benefactor, entrepreneur and doctor. She is a founder of the Montanelli Museum of Contemporary Arts, the DrAk Foundation focused on culture and health prevention and The National Theatre Benefactor’s Club.

In 2015, she was awarded the national title Patron of the Czech Culture.

“I’m concerned with material and moral gifts alike – with how we can communicate them, exchange them and thus contribute to public benefit. Philanthropy is dogma-free, it is a matter of charity and respect for the others and values that are stable and constant.”

“It is an honour for me to become a patron of those who devote their lives to dance. As a form of art, it has always played a major part in my life and I admire everyone who has decided to follow a professional career path in the field. I am fully aware of the frailness of their inner world and how much it matters that they are in good health. Dancers need charmed and faithful spectators but they also need adequate remunerations for the extremely hard work they perform, all the more as their careers are, by nature, limited in time. Once they quit, our support in career change is necessary. It is out of respect for the profession that I am extremely joyful to be the patron.”

The Fund’s Team

Jana Návratová

Jana has been active in the field of dance for many years, her engagement assuming multifarious forms. Since 2015, she has been the chairwoman of the board of the Dance Career Endowment Fund. A graduate of theatre and film science at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, she has been working at the Theatre Institute since 1989, where in 2006 she founded a dance section and has been focusing on the field of dance in general, second career and the artist status. She also coordinates research and leads the edition of the Czech Dance in Data studies in collaboration with Roman Vašek. From 1993 to 2005, she was teaching the history of dance at the Duncan Centre Conservatory. She is a co-founder and artistic director of the Dance Film Festival Prague. From 2005 to 2013 she was editor-in-chief of Dance Zone, a magazine devoted to dance critique. Her work is regularly published in Czech media, she authored several studies that were published abroad (such as European Dance since 1989 – Communitas and the Others, Routledge 2014). She is one of the authors and an editor of a monograph Dance in the Czech Republic (2010) and an co-author of The Future of Professions, a study with which she contributed to the project Thematic Network for the Applicability of Performing Artists.

Zdeněk Prokeš

A graduate of the dance department at the Conservatory of Prague, he was a dancer at the Musical Theatre in Karlín (1971-79). He further studied choreography at the Music Academy of Arts in Prague under the tuition of Jiří Němeček (1975-79) to later become choreographer at the National Theatre in Ostrava (1979-83). He undertook a number of apprenticeship programs, for example in Poland, Belgium and France. He was choreographer and artistic director of the ballet at Karlín Musical Theatre (1983-90) and the National Theatre in Brno (1991-2004), assuming the function of director at the latter institution from 2003 to 2007. As of November 2007, he was advisor of the director of the National Theatre in Prague and, following the return of Laterna Magika under the management of the National Theatre, he was appointed its artistic director (till 2017). He was a teacher of choreography and ballet dramaturgy at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno (1994-2011) and the Music Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (1995-2006).
He authored around 150 choreographies for ballet, opera, operetta, musical and drama productions in the Czech Republic and abroad. He regularly sits on juries, administrative boards, collegiums and commissions, such as the Thálie Award, the Guarantee board of the National Theatre, the Artistic board of the DJKT in Pilsen and so on. He founded and for many years presided the Dance Association of the Czech Republic (renamed to Association of dance artists of the Czech republic in 2019), for many years he organized dance festivals around the country. Among his long term professional interests are copyright protection and second career of performing artists.

Jana Bohutínská

Since her university studies, she has been working as a journalist writing on art, culture, business and personality development, she devoted many years to theater and dance critic and opinion journalism. She has led critical writing courses and coaching seminars and teaches at the Department of Theory and Criticism at the Theatre faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She is a member of expert commissions in the field of performing arts and participates in international projects. She is also continously working on research in the field of performing arts and is the author or co-author of professional publications.

Roman Vašek

A graduate of Theatre Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, he took a retraining course in Library Studies and Information Sources. From 1998-1999 he was editor-in-chief of Dance Journals, since 2000 he has been working at the Arts and Theatre Institute. Over time, his dance critiques were published in diverse media, among them Taneční actuality, Dance Zone, Theatre Journal and the webzine Opera Plus. He has edited and co-written the work Different Shores, Choreographer Jiří Kylián between Haag and Prague (2011), he is also co-author of the work 100 Years of Rokoko Theatre (2015). His investigation into the social aspects of the Czech dance field starts with the projects Plan for more Effective Support of the Arts 2007-2013 and Human Sources and Employment 2007-2013. He further developed his analysis of the issue in a number of works, among them A Study of Further Employability of Artists (2012, co-authored by Václav Riedelbauch), The Analysis and Description of Good Practice in the Czech Republic (2014, co-authored by Jana Bohutínská) and The Transformations of the Job Market / Job Comparative Analysis / The Contributions and Dispositions of Artists for Work in Non-Artistic Fields (2015, co-authored by Jana Návratová).

Petra Knížková

Petra has been member of the Fund’s team since its formative phase, with expertise in the field of second career acquired with her involvement within a ESF-funded project Thematic Network for the Applicability of Performing Artists (2013-2015). She is a graduate of a Bachelor program Economics and International Commerce Management at the Technical University of Liberec and a Master program Theatre Production Management at the Theatre Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Since 2011, she was involved in the production management of a number of events, mostly festivals, among them the Prague Quadrennial 2011, Zlomvaz festival 2012, the International Dance Day 2011-2013, Colours of Ostrava 2018-2021 and the Dance Film Festival, in which she has been active since 2013. Between 2011-2019, she collaborated with the prominent Czech dance company 420PEOPLE as a production manager and fundraiser. She is currently also working as a production manager for CzechMobility.Info project.

Monika Havlová - PR

Monika has been cooperating with the Dance Career Foundation since 2022. As head of promotion and marketing, she first worked at the PKF-Prague Philharmonia, then at the Music Information Center and the Prague Philharmonic Choir. She is devoted to the field of dance for a short time, but her whole career is crossed by the cultural environment and all branches of art.

Contact:

T: +420 776 670 982

E: monika.havlova@tanecnikariera.cz

Founding organizations

Vize Tance (Dance vision)

Dance vision unites professionals who work in an independent way, whether they are individuals or organizations who work on the contemporary art scene in the field of dance and movement art throughout the Czech Republic.
Dance Vision prepares the conditions for the work needs of its members: innovation, mobility, networking, discovering new horizons and new ways of working. It helps to build infrastructure, creates a procedural framework, contributes to a meaningful and successful presentation of the work, helps to meet the audience and the whole society.
Dance Vision is an important partner for institutions in the field of solving professional issues, it works to increase awareness of the field among the general public or it is fundamentally involved in the formulation of the further direction of the field.

vizetance.org

Association of Dance Artists of the Czech Republic

Since 2019 the Association of Dance Artists of the Czech Republic (ATU) has been the successor of the Dance Association of the Czech Republic, which was established in 1990. ATU is a continuously operating professional organization, associating dance institutions and professionals and more. ATU covers many different activities in the field of advocacy and representation of dance artists in the Czech Republic.

To fulfill its mission, the ATU develops the following activities: aims to improve the economic and social conditions and social inclusion of workers in the field of dance (especially in regional theater ballets), including ensuring the security of artists, covering both employment law (salaries, jobs) and copyrights (eg fees, contracts, etc.) and protects the interests and supports the legitimate demands of its members, creates platforms for solving artistic and creative problems in the whole field of dance and participates in the creation and implementation of domestic and foreign events (eg shows, festivals, seminars, workshops, competitions, courses, etc.).

www.atucr.cz

History

Being a dancer is one of the most demanding and risk-involving professions. As a dancer, performer, acrobat or mime, one’s main working tool is the body and it is exposed to enormous stress as well as risk of injury. Professional dancers undertake highly demanding specialized education programs and are obliged to train hard during the whole of their career. The competition in the field is ever rising, while the average age of active dancers is decreasing.

The 1996 pension reform dismissed the preliminary pension for dancers. Consequently, they leave their dance careers with no support or services at hand. On top of that, an average salary in the field of performing arts is one of the lowest ranking incomes nationally, making it very hard to create financial reserves.

This situation made professional organizations address the issue of second career a few years ago. One of the stepping-stones of the initiative was a project called Thematic Network for the Employability of Performing Artists, supported from the European Social Fund and carried out in collaboration with the Centre for Development of the Union of Employers’ Association. The project covered a number of research initiatives and studies, international conferences and a pilot project of career counselling for performing artists. The situation in the field has been thoroughly analyzed, arguments have been gathered and first steps taken for practical solutions to be implemented.

Consult further studies and materials here.