The Cultural Brand

Migros Culture Percentage has been organizing the Steps dance festival for 26 years. As a biennial event, this massive festival tours Switzerland every two years. In this edition, performances will take place on 45 stages in 33 cities. The 95 performances are hosted and organized on-site by local theaters. Unlike other cultural initiatives, Steps is not sponsored by Migros but is organized and artistically directed entirely by the theaters themselves from start to finish. The 2012 dance festival, directed by Isabella Spirig, is dedicated to the theme «Femininity in Choreography.» Accordingly, the 14 participating companies will feature female dancers and internationally successful female choreographers.

A Unified Brand for the First Time

Another first is Steps« new brand identity. A pitch for the project was announced this spring, and Sennhauser Creative Consulting in Zurich won the contract. At the request of the Migros Culture Percentage, Steps is now officially called the »Migros Culture Percentage Dance Festival Steps.« The hallmark of the new identity is the typography. For Christian Zwinggi, Head of Communications at Steps, these white letters set against a black background offer endless possibilities for communication, even across a wide variety of theaters. In the past, there was a problem where many event organizers, as program presenters, wanted to incorporate their own logos. With this typographic design, all venues from Geneva to Schaffhausen can now present a unified image. The »Migros Culture Percentage« block placed before each event title is also intended to »make Migros clearer as the sponsor,” explains Barbara Salm, Head of Communications in the Department of Culture and Social Affairs. Likewise, the text blocks allow the various dance troupes to be presented with a consistent visual design on posters and in the program booklet. The look also features on Migros shopping bags, which promote the festival in select stores.

As with the last festival, this widely publicized campaign once again features photos of the participating dancers. For Steps 2012, an on-site photo shoot was organized last fall with two companies. However, the soloists from Cie Helene Waldmann in Berlin and the dancers from the Ballet National de Marseille were not photographed on stage; instead, they were filmed dancing in their everyday urban environments. Video footage was also captured during these sessions. This footage can be found on the Steps.ch website and has been edited into short clips for cinema screenings. The visual material was produced by Rene Sennhauser and Stefan Jermann. In addition to a workshop for 5,000 children, this year’s Steps dance festival will also feature performances in retirement homes for the first time. There will also be a series of dance films shown in theaters.

Andreas Panzeri