CEMPER is the national service heritage organisation for music and performing arts heritage for the Dutch speaking area of Belgium (Flanders and parts of Brussels). We are the point of contact for anyone who comes across or embodies both tangible and intangible heritage related to music and performing arts. Our objective are (1) to raise awareness about music and performing arts heritage, and (2) to strengthen and activate communities, organisations and individuals to take care of and safeguard their heritage.
Proactively, we advise and actively support them with the five functions from the Flemish heritage decree (recognise and collect; preserve and safeguard; research; present and making accessible; participation). Furthermore, we adopt a bottom-up approach, as we assist anyone with any question they might have about music and performing arts heritage.
For intangible cultural heritage (ICH) specifically, our objective is that music and performing arts practices are made visible and safeguarded insofar that this corresponds to the needs of communities, groups and individuals (CGIs) who practice this heritage. We help CGIs with policy instruments concerning ICH, including nominations for the Flemish Inventory for ICH and registering ICH on the Flemish platform www.immaterieelerfgoed.be. We also help CGIs to develop safeguarding plans and to carry out safeguarding actions. This includes, for examples, actions related to raising awareness, transmission, documenting, or archiving.
We initiate and participate in projects related to music and performing arts heritage.
Those projects include: 1) Focus Vakmanschap (Focus Craftsmanship), 2021-2023: a project to develop a methodology and toolbox to document, share, and activate ICH. The project included 10 cases, one of which was coordinated by CEMPER. We collaborated with a hurdy-gurdy maker to document his craft in start-to-finish instruction video’s on how to make a hurdy-gurdy. 2) The children’s song book ‘Schipper mag ik overvaren?’ (published November 2023) in collaboration with Publisher Lannoo, for which we collected 100 children’s songs in 33 languages, that are sung in Flanders today. Hereby documenting the ICH of the versatile population in Flanders. 3) The Creative Europe project Dance as ICH: New models of facilitating participatory dance events, in which we collaborate with partners across Europe to explore the facilitation of dance as ICH and the relationship between local dance heritage communities, museums, heritage institutions, and the public. 4) Transmission between cultures: a CEMPER project exploring how music and performing arts practices are transmitted, adapted and given new meanings when they move between cultural contexts. The project focuses on communities and practitioners in Flanders whose heritage practices have roots outside Belgium, and examines how knowledge, skills and traditions are shared across generations and cultural backgrounds. Through interviews, documentation, exchange and community-based activities, we explore how transmission can support the continuity and vitality of these practices while leaving room for transformation and new interpretations.
Year of accreditation: 2026
Main domain(s) of the ngo’s activities: Performing arts
Main safeguarding measures: a) identification, documentation, research (including inventory-making), b) preservation, protection, c) promotion, enhancement, d) transmission, (non-) formal education, e) revitalization
Main country where the NGO works: Flanders and Brussels
