Dance

Once again, the Tanzplattform Deutschland (i.e. German Dance Platform), a biennial festival of contemporary dance, will take place in February 2008. The current version in Hannover will reveal the state of choreographical art in the homeland of Pina Bausch, Sasha Waltz and Christian Spuck.

Insights into current work forms, developments in style and aesthetic decisions from the traditional dance capitals of Berlin, Düsseldorf and Essen, and from Hamburg as well, will be presented. The guests, both German and foreign will probably then conclude that (modern) dance is doing well in the land of its forebears. Such wide-spread support for dance has not existed since the days of Mary Wigman and Rudolf von Laban, i.e. since the 1920’s. Through the support program, Tanzplan Deutschland (i.e. Dance Plan Germany) of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes), new modes of training and new communicatiuons and publicity platforms are emerging. Organized artists’ residencies and subsidies for publications are all available. Study groups on theory or on training institutes, and on dance as a school subject all exist.

A Lack of Curiosity

But things still do not look all that rosy. In spite of a high level of attention for the art of movement a lack of open-minded curiosity is still widespread. Very inflexible notions of what dance should be are still in currency. But at least Pina Bausch is no longer the subject of intense controversy. After her very difficult years between 1970 and 1980, her international successes have led to her attaining iconic status in Germany, as well.

But dance also still exists after Pina Bausch. There is a multitude of young choreographers who are asking entirely different questions and seeking different forms for their themes. They are asking a great many questions that were not yet of interest to Pina Bausch. In pursuit of their answers they abandon the stages, the domain of art as such, and sometimes even the body itself, preferring to have connections and relationality themselves dance.

Les and Less Room for Diversity

Isabell Schad works with lay people. Raimund Hoghe stage-sets the uniqueness of the individual as a musical ritual. Susanne Linke looks back on the history of her works. Dance as a living art form in a contemporary society lives from the diversity of its forms. This holds for existing dance theater groups just as it does for the free-lance scene. But there is less and less room for this diversity of forms. Funding for artistic work is scarce in view of the great number of applicants. Dance is where large theaters first start with cost-cutting. William Forsythe in Frankfurt am Main, Urs Dietrich in Bremen, Irina Pauls in Heidelberg have all been „phased out“ in the last two years.

Journalistic coverage is also lessening. Only “big names” such as William Forsythe, Martin Schläpfer or Constanza Macras count, little or no risks are taken for young artists. Their works are often presented only twice or three times and then disappear forever. And if works presented at the important festivals - such as Tanz in August (i.e Dance in August) in Berlin or Tanztheater International (i.e. Dance Theater International) in Hannover – are too distinctive, the critics whet their knives. In any event, the large ballet companies in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich seek their salvation in the solidity of safe, tasteful classicism.

When is Dance „Dance“?

It seems as though a great deal of distrust has arisen in dance, just as in theater. A year ago, a debate raged about the value –or lack of it – of “director’s theater.” What is being referred to here is a form of theater that refuses to regard texts and traditions as sacred cows, with the aim of creating an up-to-date, contemporary interpretation, often with drastic methods. And in dance, too, the question of what is contemporary is often thought, written and disputed about. What criteria must an artist fulfil to describe his work as “dance”? How much movement is necessary? How much music? How much youth?

In addition, dance is under increasing pressure to deliver „social relevance.“ Dance is to benefit society. Dance should repair damage to the structure of the community. Dance as a school subject is there to increase students’ ability to learn. Dance is to help strengthen troubled young people’s sense of ethics and morals. Dance must integrate, mollify and anaesthetize.

But if the first obligation of dance as an art form is to be art, and if – according to the criteria of modernity itself - this quality is above all demonstrated in and through individual freedom of expression and composition, does not such co-optation of dance directly contrapose its artistic essence? And is not the continuing development of forms in which dance manifests itself – often forms that are far distant from ballet, from Modern Dance, from recognizable figures of movement – an equally central endeavor? This endeavor is then just as much a challenge to the public; to recognize what is unchanging within the process of change, and to appreciate artistic distinctiveness in precisely those intervals between what is unchanging, and change itself.

And thus, in spite of all well-meant considerations, artistic freedom is once again „all“ that is left. It reveals itself in the individual’s act and in the individual work. In the end, art is and remains art – always. In dance, too. This is all too often forgotten in Germany at the moment, much as I’d like to say otherwise.