Easy language

Welcome to the website of Offensive Dance.
We are an association of 4 Berlin groups
from the field of »Dance and Theatre for Children and Young People«:

• PURPLE Dance Festival

• Young dance house Berlin

• Theater Strahl

• Theater o.N.

Content overview:

About Offensive Dance

Our projects

The 4 partners at Offensive Tanz

Support for Offensive Dance

About Offensive Dance

We at Offensive Tanz would like to inspire children and young people
for dance and theatre.
That's why we do dance pieces and offer dance workshops.

We find from Offensive Dance:
Dance and theatre should be there for all children and young people.
Everyone should have equal opportunities if
they want to get to know culture and theatre.
This equity of opportunity is very important for our work.
But many children and young people do not know theater.
Or maybe they don't get along with the dance pieces that are shown
there.
That is why we also do many projects outside,
for example the project »RAUSGEHEN« in public places.
Or we pick up the children and young people
in their part of the city in the »Kulturbus« project and go to the theatre together.

Our projects

productions

Offensive dance has been around since 2020.
Since then, 10 new dance productions have been created.
2 of these productions have won well-known awards:

• the dance piece »Harvest«,
  the title is English and means »harvest«

• the dance piece »A Human Race«,
  the title is English and means »One Humanity«

In addition, these pieces were created during the Offensive Tanz:

• »Can touch this« by the Performing Group at Theater Strahl,
  the title is English and means »Can you touch«

• »Strange Garden« by Colette Sadler from the PURPLE Dance Festival,
  the title is English and means »Comical Garden«

• »Small big jumps« by Jasmin Ihrac at the TANZKOMPLIZEN

• "fragile", i.e. "fragile", by Clebio Oliveira at the Theater o.N.

In addition, there are some shorter dance pieces
from our project »RAUSGEHEN«.

RAUSGEHEN

The RAUSGEHEN project was created during the corona pandemic
during the period of contact restrictions.
Today RAUSGEHEN is a very important project of offensive dance.
In this project we develop dance pieces for children and young people
in public places in certain parts of Berlin.
For example, at the Apfelsinenplatz in the Gropiusstadt in Neukölln.
We are working with Berlin Mondiale.
This is a network of artists and cultural organisers who organise
events throughout Berlin.

In the summer there was the dance production »SUPER WE, SUPER ME«
by Tasha Hess-Neustadt and Eevi Kinnunen.
The title is English and means "Super we, super me".
In 2023, there will be 3 more dance productions with dancers
and choreographers from different dance styles.
Choreographers invent movements for a dance piece
and determine the order of these movements.
Choreographers have a similar task in dance pieces
to composers in music pieces.

Dance Ambassadors

Dance ambassadors are young people who are enthusiastic about
dance and tell other people about it.
At Offensive Tanz, we make sure
that these young people come into contact with dance professionals.
The dance ambassadors then do interviews with the dance professionals
and attend dance performances.
Afterwards, the dance ambassadors report about it,
for example in posts on the social media channels of the OfTa
or our Internet site.

The dance ambassadors also make dance videos
and dance projects with other young people.
There are currently 7 dance ambassadors on Offensive.

Workshops and specialist days

In addition to our dance productions, we at Offensive Tanz offer
various workshops and events
where people can exchange ideas about dance.
These include, for example:

Dance workshops for young people

Audience workshops
in which spectators of dance pieces of
the 4 partners can talk about these pieces

Events for dance professionals on different topics,
such as "dance and racism" or "dance for all ages"

In addition, the Offensive Tanz has the Research Lab "Young Blood", i.e.
a research laboratory for dance.
There, young people can try out ideas for dance styles and dance pieces, talk
about them and learn from each other.

Culture bus

With our work, we want
children and young people to get to know culture and theatre.
For this, there is the project Offensive Kultur-Bus.
With the Kultur-Bus children and young people come free
of charge and safely from their daycare or school to the theater and back.
This is especially important for Berlin day care centers and schools,
which are far away from cultural places.

On the Kultur-Bus, we work together with more than 90 Berlin cultural venues that offer
a cultural programme for children and young people.
The project started in autumn 2021.
Since then, more than 85,000 children and young people have been able to use the Culture Bus.
The money for the project comes from the Berlin Senate Administration
for Culture and Social Cohesion.

Young dance house Berlin

The Junge Tanzhaus Berlin regularly makes its own dance productions
for children and young people.
You often work with choreographers from other countries.
There are also
workshop offers and other events for the dance productions of the Junges Tanzhaus Berlin.

Sometimes the Junge Tanzhaus Berlin organizes exciting performances
with international dance and theatre groups.

Theater Strahl

The Theater Strahl develops dance pieces and other offers
for young people from 12 years.
The young people are actively involved in the development of the pieces:
They select themes and can help shape the sequence of the pieces.
This creates very different dance and theatre pieces
in which the experiences of the young people occur.
Therefore, the pieces are often particularly interesting for young people.

Theater o.N.

The theatre o.N. makes theatre and dance productions
for children and adults.
It has become
increasingly well-known in Berlin and throughout Germany over the last 10 years.
The Theater o.N. wants to make cultural offers for all people:
No matter where these people grew up
or if they come from families with a lot or little money.

Every two years, the theatre o.N. organises the theatre festival
‘FRATZ International’.
This is about theatrical plays for children from 2 years.
This ‘theatre from the beginning’ is highly regarded in Germany
and in countries around the world.

PURPLE - International Dance Festival for Young Audiences

PURPLE, English for ‘purple’, is the only dance festival for young audiences in Berlin and has been held annually since 2017.
The festival is usually attended by school classes during the week and by families on weekends.
For ten years PURPLE has been an important meeting place for international dance professionals in the field of dance for young audiences.

Support for Offensive Dance

These positions are supported by the work of Offensive Tanz:

• the TANZPAKT Stadt-Bund-Land with money
  from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

• the State of Berlin with money from the Senate Administration
  for Culture and Social Cohesion

TANZPAKT Stadt-Bund-Land is an action to promote
outstanding dance productions.

These partners work together at TANZPAKT:

• Cities and Municipalities in Germany

• the Federal States

• the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

In 2019, 27 projects from 10 federal states applied
for funding from TANZPAKT Stadt-Bund-Land.
The project Offensive Tanz and 6 other projects were selected at that time.
Thus, the offensive dance for children and adolescents could start in 2020.