Live DMA

Preambular

Live DMA is a Network of organisations and workers in the popular music sector throughout Europe, have been gathering during the last 4 years on the basis of common values and working fields.

The members of Live DMA network  are ACCES in Spain, Club Circuit and Club Plasma in Belgium, Dansk Live in Denmark, d’Orfeu in Portugal, La Fédurok in France, and VNPF Netherlands. Gradually, the professionals who run these networks get to know each other and are currently building a cooperative frame, open to new partners and individuals, based of an ethic charter and collective aims.

The topic of this charter is to found the cooperation process for these organisations, which share a common philosophy and agree to work together on common political, artistic and economical objectives. This cooperation process will now take place in the frame of the Live DMA network.

This text is a binding frame, allowing us to define a common identity for the creation of a future formal European network of popular and modern music organisations, and to direct our activities, amongst which the meeting of new partners, co-operators, and the integration of our projects in the European Commission’s programs. Thus, the signing organisations deliver their formal commitment to the philosophy, the goals and the work program the Live DMA network is willing to achieve.

English is the main language used for the texts, meetings and activities implemented by the Live DMA network.

 

Ethic charter / cooperation protocol

The networks identify on a common philosophy of action based on 3 main working themes:

a. On the artistic, cultural and social fields

The associated networks of Live DMA and their members sustain and participate actively in artistic discovery, emergence and innovation, thus playing a key role in facilitating the mobility of artists. They are major contributors to the dynamic of artistic renewal on local, regional, national or international scales.

They also base their activities on a global approach to artistic and cultural practices, both amateur and professional.

These practices are integrated in a social and cultural environment, they are meaningful and contribute to the identity of the individuals and groups who develop them. The Live DMA associated networks intend to support these artistic practices, which are still insufficiently considered by the academic or aesthetic guidelines allowing recognition by public institutions.

Projects and activities must support the diversity of artistic forms and cultural practices that exist today and will exist in the future. Indeed, they are part of cultural diversity. This is how our organisations relate to the spirit of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the Agenda 21 for Culture.

The associated Live DMA networks and their members are committed to have a discerning vision of the popular music sector’s different organisation schemes in each country, to identify the actors, particularly the venues and the artists they support, in  order to promote them, but also to allow better understanding. Therefore, the networks want to implement on the European scale the conditions for mobility of artistic productions, artists, the populations who support our projects, the professional staffs and the relevant polititical decision makers.

b. On the political field

They collectively subscribe for cultural development and general interest. They will together act to gain legitimacy on the European political level, so as to promote the voice of actors in the relevant decision making bodies dealing with legal matters concerning the popular music field in the European area.

The partner networks thoroughly express their will to enter a process of co-preparation of public policies with the representatives of the concerned countries. The common topic for each of our countries concerning modern and popular music is the gradual recognition of this sector by public policies, at very different levels. Nevertheless, this recognition leads to a new position of modern music on the regional and national territories. Many projects and initiatives, especially coming from concert venues and music centres, subscribe for general interest, as they participate in the promotion of cultural diversity in the different European countries, contribute to renew artistic creation and to the expression of identities.

c. On the economical field

They defend the diversity of initiatives and economical models. Their first goal is to realise an artistic and cultural project and not to maximise profit.

On a European scale, the consideration for modern music is fully integrated politically in a wider logic, as assessed by UNESCO’s Declaration on Cultural Diversity. This declaration also focuses on one of our common matters, i.e. the link between the public sector, the private sector and civil society, because « Market forces alone cannot guarantee the preservation and promotion of cultural diversity, which is the key to sustainable human development. From this perspective, the pre-eminence of public policy, in partnership with the private sector and civil society, must be reaffirmed ».

The actors represented by the organisations that are members of the Live DMA network believe in a plural economy and tend to subscribe thanks to their numerous and diverse missions to an intermediary economic scale, named « third sector » or social and solidary economy sector. However, these initiatives of general interest are endangered by vertical and horizontal concentration phenomenons. To fight against this, the Live DMA partners appeal once again to cooperation processes between the public sector, the private sector and civil society.

Ethic charter

Presentation of the network (Diaporama)