The Network

The network R.O.M - Residencies On the Move brings together creation and dissemination spaces working in collaboration to build a network of residencies and dissemination. It was created in 2019 by La Balsamine (Brussels, Belgium), Le joli collectif - Théâtre Aire Libre (St-Jacques de la Lande, France) and the Grütli (Geneva, Switzerland). In 2023, they are joined by the Santarcangelo Festival (Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy), Théâtre Périscope (Québec, Canada), Théâtre Prospero (Montréal, Canada) and in 2025 by the Reykjavik Dance Festival (Reykjavik, Iceland).

This network is based first of all on the sharing of our respective experiences and on our will to confront ourselves with other expertise in the accompaniment of artists, other ways of functioning, but also to mutualize our means. As "friend theaters", we invite artists to live and work in our structures each season. These are privileged moments of encounters that create links between artists and institutions, opportunities for future collaborations directly linked to the creative process.

The R.O.M. innovates by the way of thinking its activities:

Residencies

Its main ambition is to support artists from the network's member countries, often emerging artists with singular artistic styles, by offering them the possibility to do research residencies with no specific end in view, and to be payed for it. It supports them at the step before finding the idea of a new creation, and this gives them the freedom to try and reduces the pressure to fail. The artists hosted by the R.O.M benefit from a support that goes beyond the framework of a classic co-production. The R.O.M carries out an audit of their research needs with the artists and makes available the complementary resources of these 6 international venues to build the residency they really need and to make sure the venue that will host the project will nourish it. The residencies take account of the work and the main fields of action of the artists as well as the specificities of each place (geographical context, spaces made available, network of local partners, subjects of predilections and know-how of each venue) and of each public which can be concerned by the subjects developed in the research of the artists.

Dissemination

The network also enhances their visibility by providing them with opportunities to present their work abroad, where it is rare for emerging artists to do so. Each venue presents 1 show from a R.O.M’s artist each year in addition to the public presentation that can also be organized at the end of the residencies. Each venue has one or several festivals or key moments during the season in which the visibility is higher and that can open the door to other opportunities of dissemination or coproduction.

Mentoring

The network also aims to fill the need for artists to meet and exchange ideas, by setting up a mentoring system between artists hosted in residency and a local artist that would come for a few days as an outside eye on the project. In this way, the network is committed to support the local economy and local artists by hiring them for this mission. These encounters can also lead to future international collaborations.

Networking

The R.O.M. network, which already has several years' experience behind it, would like to expand its scale of action. If welcoming new partners is a beautiful possibility for the future (while not exceeding a certain scale that would weigh down the management and activities of the network), we would also like to grow by giving the opportunity to spread a simple, effective model of cooperation. We have the desire to share our experience with other structures, so that they can realize the strength of such an exchange, and perhaps have the will to create other cooperative networks around them.

As well as being a real opportunity for artists to benefit from support and encounters in a system where competition is fierce and resources are scarce, this network is also highly enriching for the partners. Working together to support artists enables them to become more aware of each other's realities, to open their imaginations to other ways of operating, to take better care of projects and teams, and to pool their efforts to see a real impact on a larger scale.