The regional Nomad Dance Academy network was established in 2005 in Belgrade as a response to the needs of a younger generation of dance artists and producers for connection, greater visibility, and more fluid collaboration. Our intentions were first recognized and supported by Nevenka Koprivšek, who accompanied us in our initial steps. The founders of the network came from Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Slovenia, and Serbia. A strong impulse for regional cooperation stemmed from our need – after the wars and the politically turbulent period of the 1990s – to find a shared cultural and political denominator and create our own framework for implementing programs. For this reason, solidarity-based, emancipatory, and anti-colonial pedagogical and artistic practices are inscribed in our foundations.

Between 2008 and 2010, we carried out three editions of the intensive mobile dance program NDA Educational Program, intended for Balkan and international students. During the same period, we founded and supported six contemporary dance festivals: Kondenz in Belgrade, Antistatic in Sofia, Locomotion in Skopje, Zvrk in Sarajevo, Platforma in Zagreb, and Cofestival in Ljubljana, three of which remain active today with local curatorial and production autonomy.

We initiated processes of self-education and knowledge production, advocacy efforts, and publishing in the field of contemporary dance. In 2012, we began the process of archiving and historicizing dance in our region and have since become one of the leading organizations in this area. Up until 2025, not a single public institution dedicated to contemporary dance has been established in the entire region; therefore, we decided to strengthen our own competencies and take on the public role of the institutions that did not exist. Thus, over the span of twenty years, the NDA network functioned as a dispersed, polycentric regional center for contemporary dance.

We initiated countless programs and projects of various scales and purposes, some of which are still active today: CoTeaching, the regional residency network NORSE, dance archiving and historicizing, Nomad Summer, advocacy conferences and consultations, Critical Practice MADE IN YU, Imaginary School, theory and publishing, and others.

Our methods of organizing, financing, and decision-making were always horizontal, inclusive, and development-oriented. The network was founded by people, and its members were individuals; administrative, financial, and organizational instruments were always treated as means rather than ends. We were organized into several bodies, such as the Decision Making Body, Coordination Board, Artistic Body, various working groups, and local bodies. We dedicated much attention to maintaining balance between local and regional needs, between artistic content and production capacities, and between centralized coordination and local sovereignty.

Drawing on our experience in network management, and in response to the need for additional funding and visibility, we established four local organizations under the name Nomad Dance Academy – in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Slovenia, and Croatia.

Throughout its twenty-year existence, the network has been funded by and has taken part in partnerships such as Jardin d’Europe, Dance On Pass On Dream On, (Non)Aligned Movements, Life Long Burning, DanceMap, Imaginary School, among others.