Tanzfabrik
Berlin
Factory
Factory

Profile

Mission statement


With this Mission Statement, we at Tanzfabrik Berlin would like to affirm our shared vision and the compass that guides our work.  
Tanzfabrik Berlin School & Stage Teams & Tanzfabrik e.V. 
November 2023

Tanzfabrik Berlin is a place for dance art, choreography, and performance. We provide a wide and multifaceted range of services and opportunities for anyone influenced by, interested in, or specializing in dance. We open access – on a practical, sensuous, and conceptual level – to an international audience and the city to dance art, choreography and performance. In this way, we make it possible to participate in social change through dance.

Tanzfabrik Berlin brings people together. We are a place for anyone inspired by the utopian, sensual, and critical potential of dance and performance. We support the many different forms that this practice and artform takes: research, presentation, education work, and communication.

Tanzfabrik Berlin creates spaces of opportunity.We offer dancemakers, tutors and students, choreographers, dramaturges, and researchers an institutional and conceptual arena for their work. We support this work and its open-ended nature, regarding it as a crucial contribution to social diversity.

Tanzfabrik Berlin development.We provide a framework for dance and performance to develop further. We aim to relate forms of physical, artistic, and pedagogic knowledge to the fundamental processes shaping society today and so provide impetus for socio-political change.

Tanzfabrik Berlin challenges existing systems. We see ourselves as a learning organization. To achieve our goals, we follow a feminist practice in our work – questioning power structures and striving for a transformative justice to include the breadth of society in all its heterogeneity.

Tanzfabrik Berlin opens doors.We cultivate an open and self-critical attitude. We aim to provide a working environment that is free of ableism, antisemitism, anti-Muslim racism, homohostility, racism, sexism, trans hostility and all other forms of discrimination and power abuse. We are committed to breaking down visible and invisible barriers. 

PROFILE


At Tanzfabrik Berlin, dance professionals, choreographers, teachers and students, dramaturges and researchers work on dance topics and issues. Tanzfabrik Berlin enjoys national and international recognition as a production and performance venue as well as a centre for dance education.
 
The central concern of Tanzfabrik Berlin is the promotion, presentation and mediation of dance with its many facets and thus the productive and creative examination of the human body and its role in our pluralistic society. Diverse choreographic, performative, dance pedagogical and discursive approaches are practised in exchange and dialogue with and at Tanzfabrik Berlin.
 
In its studios in Kreuzberg, Tanzfabrik Berlin SCHULE offers space for classes and intensive workshops aimed at amateurs and professional dancers; performance projects that provide insights into the artistic work of the teachers and choreographers, as well as the nine-month further education programme ‘Dance Intensive’.
 
At the Tanzfabrik Berlin BÜHNE in the Uferstudios in Wedding there is space for rehearsals and the presentation of artistic works, residencies, artistic research, discourse and communication to the public.  These diverse activities are condensed into curated programme series. In addition, Tanzfabrik Berlin has been organising the Biennale Tanznacht Berlin since 2000 as an important showcase for the Berlin dance scene in collaboration with changing curators.

STRUCTURE


The non-profit association Tanzfabrik Berlin e.V. emerged from a collective of artists in what was then West Berlin in the 1970s (see also under: History). Tanzfabrik Berlin initially comprised a dance company with its own productions, guest performances and a course and training programme, until the company disbanded and the focus shifted to education and production at the end of the 1990s.
 
In 2019, education and production were separated into SCHULE and BÜHNE for structural funding reasons. SCHULE was transformed into a subsidiary of the association as Tanzfabrik Kreuzberg gUG. Since 2008, another subsidiary of Tanzfabrik Berlin e.V. has been Uferstudios GmbH with its studios in Wedding.
 
In a lengthy transformation process in recent years, work has been carried out on the organisational structures of the association and the gUG and, as a result, the personal union of board activities, artistic direction and management has been abolished.
 
In both the association and the gUG, co-directions were appointed for the positions of Artistic Director and Managing Director in 2024. For the SCHOOL these are Gisela Müller and Yannis Karalis, for the STAGE Jacopo Lanteri and Barbara Greiner. In the same year, Eva-Maria Hoerster (Project Coordinator, Inter-University Centre for Dance, Berlin), Elisabeth Leopold (Dramaturge, Theater St.Gallen) and Inge Zysk (Freelance Cultural Manager) were elected as the new board members of Tanzfabrik Berlin e.V.. The association currently consists of 25 members, made up of former and current Tanzfabrik employees as well as Berlin dance professionals.

PARTNERSHIPS & NETWORKS


Tanzfabrik Berlin co-operates with numerous actors on a Berlin and international level. It is a partner in the following networks and platforms: TanzRaumBerlin, Konzeptgeförderte Spiel- und Produktionsorte Berlin, MAD- Making a Difference, Zeitgenössischer Tanz Berlin e.V., Dachverband Tanz Deutschland e.V., Tanzcard and Berlin Bühnen. She  acted as an initiator and concept developer for the BA programme ‘Dance, Context, Choreography’ at the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin as part of Tanzplan Deutschland, an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. 
 
Since 2019, there has also been an ongoing cooperation within the stage programme with the Radialsystem to improve the working and presentation conditions of dance professionals in Berlin beyond the boundaries of their own institutions. Under the title ‘:LOVE:’, artists are presented to a broad audience on the stages of the Radialsystem. The school regularly cooperates with Tanz im August and the Berliner Festspiele as part of its workshop programmes.
 
On an international level, Tanzfabrik Berlin has been a partner in the European network apap - advancing performing arts projects since 2005, which it also coordinated as lead partner between 2020 and 2024. From 2021 - 2024, gUG was a partner in the NAM /Non Alignment Movement EU project.