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Aart Janszen Fund
The Aart Janszen Fund is a support scheme for dance makers, part of the ATD fund. The Aart Janszen Fund wants to facilitate young dancers and choreographers in the process of creating new work with financial contributions.
In the years 2003-2013, Stichting Beheer PapaverStudios existed as a home for young dancers and choreographers. In 2020, the board decided to no longer focus on establishing its own dance studios, but on supporting young dance, mime and choreography students in creating their graduation work.
New and innovative work
The Aart Janszen Fund, named after the driving force behind PapaverStudios, is committed to stimulating the development of new and innovative work in which the possibilities of interdisciplinarity, crossovers and new technologies are explored and enrich the creative process. To this end, the Fund provides contributions to graduating students of the Academy of Theater and Dance (Masters and Bachelors) for creating and performing a choreography or mimography, that would require means that would be difficult or impossible to realize without support from the Aart Janszen Fund.
Awards
In the past academic year (2024-2025), the AJ Fund was able to support seven students:
- Estebanito Alejandro, Pheno sur PNL (BA ECD)
- Helene Ridderberg, Hidden in Plain Sight (BA SNDO)
- Jana Jacuka, HA! (DAS Theatre)
- Sancha Meca Castro, The Ruin is a Tail (BA SNDO)
- Soraya Lutango, One of 1 across 1 another (BA SNDO)
- Veronika Visocka, The Adventures of Dora, Wolfie and the Invisible Gun (DAS Theatre)
- Zahra Mohseni, The Excluded Middle (DAS Theatre)
Applications
If you think you are eligible for support from the Aart Janszen Fund, please register by December 1st for a pitch and meeting with the committee, consisting of alumni and colleagues from the field, on Saturday, January 24, 2026. You are free to choose a presentation format to show the committee why your graduation project deserves financial support.
Please note! There is a maximum of 14 pitches. Applications will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis.
Registration is only possible via the online registration form. The form is available online from November 1st to December 1st, or until the maximum number of registrations is reached.
Committee members Aart Janszen Fund
Hidde Aans-Verkade
Moos van den Broek
Zoë Greten
Saman Mahdavi
Lucie Huiskens (onafhankelijk voorzitter zonder stem)
About Aart Janszen
photo: Jeroen de Beer
The Aart Janszen Fund derives its name from Aart Janszen who worked at the Theatre School, the forerunner of the Academy of Theatre and Dance, from 1986 onwards. He supervised the fusion of a number of independent dance academies to form a combined whole consisting of five dance study programmes. These included the brand new Jazz and Show Musical study programme, the Modern Theatre Dance study programme and the School for New Dance Development; study programmes that were unique within Dutch theatre education at the time. When Aart retired from the Academy in 2003, his devotion to the process of making dance prompted him to set up PapaverStudios located in large renovated garage on the Papaverweg in Amsterdam Noord as ‘a base for young dancers and choreographers’. The facility included three dance studios that offered dancers and choreographers the opportunity to create a dance work over the course of several weeks or hold rehearsals and try-outs.