Bottom-up cultural diplomacy in the Greek periphery: The city of Chania and Dance Days Chania festival

Abstract

This paper uses the case of Dance Days Chania, a contemporary dance festival in Chania, the second biggest city of the island of Crete, Greece to discuss a bottom-up example of cultural diplomacy in an urban framework. It discusses how a small-scale international festival acts as a cultural diplomacy actor for its hosting city, attributing an international flair to the periphery and adding to the long-established association of the country with cultural heritage, that of contemporary culture. The topography of the city and the festival, creative expression, interaction of and engagement with the people as well as the art genre itself, work as enablers of cultural diplomacy which is exercised here by means of an inclusive cultural experience rather than a simple projection of national cultural representations, with citizens actively participating and contributing throughout the process. The paper argues that cultural diplomacy can also take place outside of national political agendas and be rooted at citizen's initiatives and collective action.