Call for Applications: Education Staff Member

About ISH

For 26 years, ISH Dance Collective has been bringing the street to the theater. Our performances center on hip-hop dance, often combined with urban sports but also with traditional art forms such as ballet, theater, and classical music. In 2025, founder and artistic director Marco Gerris received the prestigious Johannes Vermeer Prize for his groundbreaking work and his ability to reach a large and diverse audience of new generations of dance enthusiasts.

ISH is built on four pillars: ISH Dance, ISH Talent, ISH Community, and ISH Academy, which together ensure a vibrant program. Marco Gerris’s large-scale main-stage productions form the core of ISH, often realized in collaboration with partners such as the Dutch National Ballet, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Jakop Ahlbom Company, Meervaart, DeLaMar, and Carré.

In addition to the 75 to 100 performances per year presented by ISH Dance, we mentor about 10 emerging and mid-career artists annually through ISH Talent, organize about 10 community events through ISH Community, and, through the ISH Academy, offer more than 300 classes and workshops per year to children, youth, and adults. Together, this amounts to over 60,000 attendees at performances and nearly 10,000 participants in programs each year.

ISH receives multi-year funding through 2028 from the Performing Arts Fund, the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, the Cultural Participation Fund, and the ELJA Foundation. Our offices and studios are currently located temporarily at the Talentenhuis in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. In 2027, we will move back to the renovated Podium Lely and Broedplaats Lely venues, next to Lelylaan Station.

We are seeking an Education and Community Coordinator to oversee the day-to-day management of our education and community program.

What will you be doing?

As an Education and Community Coordinator, you’ll be primarily responsible for developing and implementing ISH’s educational activities, and you’ll also assist with community activities. The team consists of the Head of Education/Community/Talent, who sets the overall direction and develops partnerships within the district and the city; your fellow education staff member; our team of instructors; our marketing and production teams; and the office manager, who handles administrative matters.

Your role will initially focus on the ISH Academy: our after-school education program for children and youth. You’ll be the face and point of contact for participants, their parents, and external partners. You’ll coordinate and organize the activities, recruit and mentor the instructors, and oversee the activities and the facility. Thanks to you, instructors and the community will feel motivated and informed, and children and parents will feel seen and heard. In addition, you’ll help the team with community programs such as open classes, community evenings, and jam sessions.

The ISH Academy’s activities take place in Amsterdam, primarily in Nieuw-West. Classes and creative projects are currently held at the Talentenhuis, where the ISH office is located. Both the studio and the office will eventually return to our space at Podium Lely, within walking distance of Lelylaan Station. Working hours regularly fall outside standard office hours, depending on the schedule of the activity programs, and may include evenings and weekends.

What do you bring to the table?

• You have an affinity for the performing arts and a network within the hip-hop dance community
• You have experience developing teaching materials and programs;
• You have experience guiding creative projects with young people
• You have organizational and planning skills;
• You can work independently, are proactive, and think ahead;
• You have a flexible attitude and can handle stress well
• You are customer-oriented: you respond quickly and accurately to emails and questions, and are welcoming to everyone who stops by, whether they are parents, teachers, children, or other visitors;
• You have a good command of the Dutch language, both spoken and written;
• You have a flexible attitude toward work hours and location (including weekends and evenings) and enjoy attending performances, jams, open mic nights, and community nights;
• You enjoy switching between office work and being on the floor
• If you don’t meet all these criteria but would still like to work in this position at ISH, we invite you to let us know why you’re still the right candidate.

Preferred:

• Education or experience in the field of education or social work
• Residing in Amsterdam

At ISH, we consider diversity, inclusion, and equality to be core values—both on stage and in the office—and we proactively incorporate them into our HR policies and organizational culture.

What do we offer?

• A dynamic work environment that encourages initiative and responsibility.
• A close-knit team with an informal atmosphere and short lines of communication, as well as a broad, diverse community of creators and performers;
• A one-year contract with a salary based on Scale V of the Collective Bargaining Agreement for Theater and Dance, with the possibility of renewal
• A seat in the audience for ISH performances and all other programs in the areas of education, talent development, and community.

How to apply:

Send your cover letter and resume no later than Wednesday, October 10, to vacatures@ishdancecollective.com Interviews will take place between October 26 and November 3. The position is to begin as soon as possible.

If you have any questions regarding the information above, please contact: Nathalie Décory, Head of Education and Community nathalie@ishdancecollective.com / 020 - 46 85 422 or 06-53 78 05 55 (Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri)