Tanzfabrik
Berlin
Stage
Stage
bodycartography

Criss-Crossing Encounters 2021

Since the last months, physical encounters in the analog space were determined by many uncertainties and regulations or were not even possible. This moved a lot, required adaptations of artistic practice and alternative ways of learning and exchange via digital platforms. The project proposal "Criss-Crossing Encounters" aims to explore this range of encounter possibilities as well as to share and expand the knowledge and experience of dancers through the creation of extraordinary digital/hybrid and analog spaces. The focus is on the act of 'stepping out' of one’s comfort zone and connecting with people in different places, with diverse backgrounds, contexts and life experiences.

The project is composed of three sub-formats that in different ways strengthen both intimacy and accessibility, as well as inclusion and opening of experience in digital/hybrid and live spaces. The project aims to enable coming together and create points of contact with and through dance to transform the particular circumstances of this time into enriching experiences of sharing.

A project of Tanzfabrik Kreuzberg gUG supported by the National Performance Network (NPN) - Stepping-Out, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Assistance Program for Dance.

↪ 1. project: Fluid Spaces Research

The first sub-project "Fluid Spaces Research" with Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad (BodyCartography Project) is an online workshop research that expands into a series of local / live feed / digital events to share it with an international community. Participation required an application until 08.01.2021.

07.05.2021  20:00  Fluid Spaces Research Sharing

↪ 2. Project: what next? 

The second sub-project is a non public online conversational-chain for dance artists, initiated and started by Jonathan Burrows together with Elisabeth Leopold (Tanzfabrik Berlin). It aims to give opportunity to inter-generational and -cultural encounters and conversations between people, who probably wouldn’t have met outside the arising online meeting world. Where each one is listening to the other and where there is given space for exchange about common, reoccurring and urgent questions: Where do we currently stand as dance artists? Where can we and want to go after this pandemic? How to not just get crushed by the cultural machines, and how to meet the fear that it will rush back to ‘normal’? How can we take something with us out of this exceptional time? A Research where the only ‘product’ is the fleeting traces of your conversation and the communally communicated list of people that have met.

With thanks to Darrell Jones, Kirstie Simson and Christa Flaig-Isaacs, for their generous help in thinking about this project and having the first conversations together.

↪ 3. Project: COUNTERING THE OBVIOUS

Black faces in “white” space_ as we continue to occupy the space and normalise the visibility + presence of Black people in Germany: is a photography intervention by Thabo Thindi which will be displayed in open public space in the streets of Berlin with a central point at Dekoloniale project space in Wilhelmstraße 92 (where the 1884 Berlin Congo Conference took place) honouring the black history month of February. This is in a joint venture between Jozi.tv, Mayibuye e.V,  ISD_Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland Bund e.V. and DEKOLONIALE_Erinnerungskultur in der Stadt. Thabo Thindi will further interrogate through his artistic expression the questions of discrimination especially racial oppression in the Ko Shebeen_ Countering the Obvious , the third sub-project organised by Tanzfabrik, a gathering of people derived from a South African concept where art, politics and societal dynamics meet and intertwine.