About OFEN

Gala Moody and Michael Carter co-founded OFEN Co-Arts in 2012 with the aim of integrating social values, collaboration, and performance research to their combined artistic work. For the first five years, the company made dance works that trialled ethical working conditions. The expertise developed during this time led the move to advocacy, consultancy and educational work.

At the core of the company’s practice is an analysis of the context surrounding dance, including working conditions and the influence of wider society on the arts.

OFEN’s goal is to help practitioners in dance work in safer ways, while contributing to a shift to ethical and sustainable working practices.

Co-Founders Gala Moody (right) and Michael Carter

Photo by Milan Nowoitnick Kampfer

Go to Gala and Michael’s bios

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The story of OFEN

2012

Founding

Through a creative residency at RITCS (Belgium), Gala Moody and Michael Carter create Cie.OFEN to research creative ideas and develop better ways of making art.

2014

Debut work

OFEN’s debut work One Final Evolutionary Note premieres at the the Aerowaves’ Spring Forward festival (Umeå, Sweden) and also saw OFEN selected by Aerowaves as a priority company in 2014.

2016

Diving into theatre

OFEN made a giant leap into what became The Vase. An evening length dance/theatre work about the destruction and power of love. The Vase pre-premiered in Wim Vandekeybus’ Ulti’mates Festival (Kortrijk, Belgium) and premiered at die bôrse Wuppertal in June 2017.

2019

Working with others

New People (2019), OFEN’s first group work, is co-produced by Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and OFEN. New People is a work that tackles the theme of choreography as social practice and was presented as a triptych; including a sculptural work (New People 1.0) and a performance work (New People 3.0) both presented at UNDERGROUND IV, a film work (New People 2.0) presented at Dance Screen 2019 + Tanzrauschen Festival.

2020

Youth and film

OFEN hosts a Youth Symposium as part of the Under Construction Festival Wuppertal. Working with the students from two local schools via the medium of text message, the students exchange video, voice and picture messages in conversation about their ideas for the future and their own personal utopias. The film Wupper-topia depicts the project and premieres in the live-stream festival broadcast.

2021

New adventures

Gala and Michael are shortlisted to be co-artistic directors of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.

OFEN changes its name, from Cie.OFEN to OFEN Co-Arts Platform, to better reflect it’s function.

Instagram account

OFEN offers a 10 week series of discussion groups online called “How Do You Respond?“.

2022

Expansion into new territory

Celebrating 10 years, OFEN focusses on activism in the arts creating resources, aligning with other EU based activism groups, and mentoring individuals and institutions through ethical practises and new ways of structuring dance work.

OFEN presents How Do You Respond? at the Tanzkongress in Mainz, Germany

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