FAQ

Our LUCKY curatorial team has the happy task of reviewing your work. The team is composed of dance lovers with widely varied backgrounds in thearts, dance, medicine, cultural production, and more. So… representative of our LUCKY fans and audiences! After each team member has independently viewed the videos and created a short list, the team gets together with a bottle of champagne and a whole lot of time to reassess the pieces and put together a dazzling production. This happens about one month after the call for entries has closed.

From 1 second to ten minutes!

Show us your solos, your duets, bring your whole dance crew. It’s up to you!

Only choreographers or owners of the rights to the piece may apply. Other than that, anything goes. You can be from Berlin, Frankfurt or Bali. You can be a newbie or a professional. You can be a first time LUCKY TRIMMER applicant or be applying for the hundredth time. Try your LUCK!

Click on the apply section of our website and fill out the application form (in English or German). We only consider complete applications submitted ON TIME. So don’t forget to submit the application form, a video of your piece, and the 20€ application fee. We understand that not everything is black and white. So please email us at mail@luckytrimmer.com if you are unable to fulfil any of these requirements and we’ll try to help you out.

Receipt of your application will be acknowledged by email. The email is generated automatically. So if you don’t receive an email upon completion of your submission (and payment of the application fee), please contact us at mail@luckytrimmer.com. Please note that your application cannot be considered until the 20€ LUCKY application fee has successfully been transferred to LUCKY TRIMMER’s account.

You’ll get an email from us notifying you of the jury’s final decision. Don’t call us, we’ll call you!

You can expect to hear from us about 1 month after the application deadline. If you have not heard from us by then, do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Things get lost in the mail! You can also keep up to date with our latest news by subscribing to our newsletter or following us on Facebook and Instagram.

The applicant will receive a production cost subsidy (usually 500 €/piece for the entire edition of 3 performances). Accommodation (shared double occupancy) as well as a small financial contribution towards travel expenses might be provided depending on the available budget. Catering is provided in the dressing room as well as after the premiere. LUCKY TRIMMER also works with its network of co-production partners and collaborators to provide featured artists with additional performance opportunities. We can also provide you with an official letter of invitation so you can apply for additional outside funding (travel grants, etc) in your respective countries or at relevant embassies. There is no per diem for additional expenses. Other conditions might apply for special events. Detailed arrangements will be confirmed by email if you have been selected.

The LUCKY curatorial team doesn’t follow any fixed criteria in its selection process. Provoke us, delight us, make us think. It doesn’t get any more concrete than that. Nevertheless here are some things we have considered over the years:

• the concept is unique and original
• there is a clear choreographic development or strong, coherent, and defined structure
• there is a tinge of childlike inventiveness sprinkled with the wisdom of experience (think Mary Poppins!)
• there is a high level of technical excellence
• it can be performed with limited tech support
• it deserves greater exposure
• it offers the audience insight into a novel performance experience

Although we’d love to give everyone feedback and guidance, we hope you can understand that the enormous number of applications makes it impossible to provide detailed assessments. But please know that our decision not to include your piece is not necessarily based on its quality. In many cases, we choose one piece over another because it fits better with the feeling we’re trying to create in a specific LUCKY TRIMMER edition. It’s all about chemistry!

Let us know what’s important to you and what our audience should know. And write it down exactly as you want it to appear in the program. And please don’t send us your whole CV! Just a synopsis of your bio. Most importantly, keep it short and sweet!

Don’t give us a play-by-play breakdown of your piece. We’ve got the video! Just give us some background info (inspiration, theme, context, etc.). Keep it simple!

The video should be a recording of your piece from start to finish. We prefer performance videos but if you’ve only got rehearsal shots, we’ll take them! Outdoor performances videos are also eligible. We DO NOT want promotional videos, trailers, or videos of a piece you don’t intend to perform.Please DO NOT submit videos longer than 10 minutes or a heavily edited rough-cut of your piece. We haven’t got time to watch them and they won’t be considered!

We mean videos that have been edited with too many effects. Don’t get us wrong. We LOVE flashy! But wow us with your moves and your mojo not excessive slo-mos, fade ins and outs, cross-dissolves. And keep in mind that we are reviewing applications with a simple stage setup in mind. We try to make everything happen when it comes to our artists stage design dreams. However, we are working with a limited amount of time and technical options. So show us you, not your editing skills!

No. We are looking for original short-length pieces. We believe this format challenges our artists to develop their concepts in a thoughtful way, while focusing on the quality and not the quantity of what they are presenting.

You’d really make things easier for everyone if you could upload your video to Vimeo or another online video sharing service. Due to copyright regulations, videos uploaded to YouTube are often not viewable in Germany. We do not accept videos from Dropbox or WeTransfer.

Just change your privacy settings! But remember to send us the correct password and a valid link. Otherwise our jury won’t be able to watch it either.

We urge you to upload videos online because it’s easy, cheap, and environmentally friendly.

Maybe you’re performing (and recording) your piece after our application deadline. In that case, you can apply by the deadline and submit the video afterwards. However, please get in touch with us at romain@luckytrimmer.com to find out if you qualify for late video submission. If you cannot provide a video of your work at all, be sure to communicate this before you turn in your application.

There is a 20 Euro non-refundable application fee for each piece. LUCKY TRIMMER is a non-profit organization and a non-funded cultural event in Berlin, and only partially funded in Frankfurt. So, savvy little whizzes that we are, LUCKY TRIMMER came up with its own self-financing plan. We rely on the dance and performing arts community to help us continue offering artists an opportunity to present their work at LUCKY TRIMMER.

Your application fee is a significant contribution towards the LUCKY TRIMMER format. It ensures that we remain an influential platform for the international dance and performance scene. Your application fee is exclusively used to put on our LUCKY TRIMMER shows. Our volunteers are not lining their pockets with your fees. Trust us! Since LUCKY TRIMMER does receive a limited public funding it is our volunteers, private sponsors, and people like you who keep the dream alive!

Once you fill out the application form, you can use a bank transfer. Please find the details below:

Account Holder: Associazione Culturale Supernova
Bank: Banca di Asti
IBAN: IT11U0608530410000000024263
SWIFT/BIC: CASRIT22XXX

Please include APPLICATION LT29 + YOUR NAME in the reference section.