DANCE COMPLIANCES and Offensive Dance
The Other Body - Steps of Change
Dance and Racism Day
“In everyday life, like in theatre and performance spaces, there is a dramaturgy of power and privilege, which is also a dramaturgy of hierarchy, separation, rupture and elimination. Racism is embedded in all those domaines, racism is an intersectional sphere in itself, a vast area of transcultural intersectionality.” Nora Amin
At the start of the offensive dance for young audiences, the team of TANZKOMPLIZEN conducted numerous interviews with artists and institutions in order to define fields of action for the overall project of the offensive. This highlighted the need to address structural racism in dance and to work towards greater diversity or ‘equality’ in education and production.
The first event of the ‘Dance and Racism’ offensive took place in September 2020 in the Schillertheater workshop and as a live stream on Youtube, initiated and organised by TANZKOMPLIZEN. The other body symposium brought together dance professionals, dance experts inside, dance educators inside and interested audiences to analyse racist strategies in dance pedagogy and in the aesthetic traditions of choreographed dance.
The conference was conceived and curated by Egyptian dancer, choreographer and writer Nora Amin, who spoke in her opening speech about mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in dance, about hierarchy and ownership, and about her very personal commitment to changing current structures:
The symposium was divided into three thematic blocks. In a first session entitled ‘Critical initiatives by emerging artists’, dance mediator Amelie Mallmann spoke to the two artists Zwoisy Mears-Clarke and Tümay Kılınçel about their work. What experiences do they have as dancers with racism and how do they process it in their art?
The second session “Dance pedagogy from a socio-political perspective” focused on training structures. Nora Amin spoke with the dance scientist Nina Hänel and the artistic director of TanzZeit, Livia Patrizi, about the contents and methods of mediation and barriers to access on the way to becoming a professional dancer:
In the third session ‘The performative political body of today’, Michael Freundt, Chairman of the Dance Association, discussed with the artists Hannah Ma and Mey Seifan. Among other things, it was about the question of how the support landscape in dance must be set up in order to take into account diversity-promoting structures.
After each of the three thematic blocks, the audience was invited to discuss the open questions in small groups. The end of the day was a performative session with 10-minute contributions by the dancers Raphael Hillebrand, Mohammed Diban, Pasquale Rotter, Josep Garcia Caballero and Raha Nejad.
With this conference, Offensive Tanz has embarked on a path that will lead to further events and an in-depth professional exchange. The issues discussed will first be discussed at the symposium "race – class – gender: Intersectional Perspectives in Dance and Theatre for the Youngest", which the theatre o.N. will organise as part of the FRATZ International Festival in October/November 2020.
In January 2021, the theme will then be transferred to a stage dance production: As part of the offensive, A Human Race is a piece by French KRUMP dancer and choreographer Grichka Caruge on the power of dance in rebelling against injustice and racism.
We're on our way. And take steps of change.
“To develop dance for youth and dance in education is to work towards the future situation of the dance field in general, and to empower an equal and participatory domaine where dance creation can expand and meet the new horizon of a growing society.” Nora Amin
