Roots & Routes
ROOTS & ROUTES scouts, inspires and coaches young talented musicians, dancers and media makers with diverse cultural roots and offers these urban talents talents new routes to realize their professional career. ROOTS & ROUTES supports art schools and other educational institutes in diversifying their curriculum.
ROOTS & ROUTES operates in an international network of partners from cultural, educational, welfare and youth organisations. The project R&R INTERNATIONAL takes place in Hungary, Spain, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Portugal, Italy and France. In the project R&R LEONARDO, five countries are participating: Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands and The United Kingdom.
Europe is becoming more and more culturally diverse, at a continental level resulting from the expansion of the European Union and at a local level resulting from the migration brought about by the global mobility of workers, migrants and asylum seekers. Nonetheless, this cultural diversity remains invisible to the established creative industry. ABi in Partnership with Mira Media from the Netherlands and partners from three other European countries have come together to run a series of summer courses to promote the cultural, education and commercial opportunites in this sectors.
Luckily, numerous urban young people are not discouraged by this lack of recognition. They learn their skills on the street and in small community centres where they perform, practice and compete with one another, often using new technology to produce what is termed ‘urban art’. In the process they generate a huge quantity of positive energy and boost their hopes for future opportunities. Unfortunately, most of them never make it on to the mainstream performance circuit and remain unknown to the rest of the population.
