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Dance in Germany – Festivals, Exhibitions, Book Tips, Film Tips

Festivals

TRANSFABRIK; photo: Franz Anton Cramer

Perspectives on Dance: The Festival Transfabrik

The Transfabrik Festival, took stock of the contemporary state of the performing arts. It was part of the Franco-German Year.More ...
The logo of euro-scene Leipzig

Modern Theatre in Transformation – An International Snapshot of euro-scene Leipzig

The euro-scene Leipzig festival has taken place every November since 1990. One of its focal areas is on theatre from Eastern Europe.More ...
The logo of Tanzplattform 2012

Tanzplattform 2012 in Dresden: The Curtain Rises for a Colourful Cross-section of Styles and Formats

An interview with juror Kerstin Evert on the selection process and on her expectations of the German Dance Platform.More ...
The cover of the Intradance-Catalogue

A Festival of Co-operation: Intradance in Russia

The project Intradance was launched in spring 2009. Seven choreographers were invited to begin a working process with Russian companies. The results were presented in May 2010 in Moscow.More ...
Collettivo Cinetico; © Lukasz Kalebasiak

European Festival of Contemporary Dance: right at the cutting edge

If contemporary dance is to have a future, then the artists who are to create it need support. This is why the European Festival of Contemporary Dance was set up.More ...
Impression of the Dance Festival „Visa 2 Dance“ 2009; photo: Festival

“Don’t go half-way with anything!”– the Dance Festival „Visa 2 Dance“ in Dar es Salaam

At the festival from 4.-16. October 2010 young artists develop and discuss contemporary dance.More ...
Children holding up the festival flyer; photo: Christiane Kühl

On West Africa’s Reeperbahn – The Rue Princesse Festival in Abidjan

The festival on Côte d'Ivoire’s legendary pleasure mile in April 2010 brought together German and Ivorian artists for unconventional coproductions.More ...
The festival director André Lepecki; © The House of World Cultures, Jochen Wehrmann

The Age of the Contemporary: André Lepecki and the Berlin Festival In Transit

In Transit revolves around how performance develops, which forces play a role in this and how to talk about the particular in the global monotony.More ...
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Exhibitions

„Retrospective“ by Xavier Le Roy; © Xavier Le Roy, 2012 © Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona. photo: Albert Ibanyez, 2012. Available under a CC BY-NC-SA license

Dance Around the Transient Work: When Movement Enters Museums

Choreography started to make its way off the contemporary stage and to head for historical venues some time ago.More ...
Yvonne Rainer: „Trio A“, 1973, The Portland Center for Visual Arts, Fotograf unbekannt; © The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2006.M.24)

More Than Dance – The Exhibition “Yvonne Rainer. Space, Body, Language”

An extensive exhibition in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne presents the first European retrospective and retraces the complexity and diversity of Yvonne Rainer’s work.More ...
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner „Tänzerin mit gehobenem Rock“ 1909; Foto: Michael Herling/Aline Gwose

“Without Ecstasy No Dance”: Dance in Modern Art in the Sprengel Museum Hanover

From 2. February to 1. May 2011, the Sprengel Museum in Hanover hosted the exhibition “Ohne Ekstase kein Tanz” (Without Ecstasy No Dance), which showcased the presentation of dance in the visual arts in the late 19th and early 20th century.More ...
Franz West „Ion“ (2010); © Hugo Glendinning

When Art becomes a Playground: The Exhibition “Move”

Dance as a radical art form of post-war modernity has influenced the works of visual artists in many and diverse ways - or has itself put art into choreographic contexts.More ...
The Berlin dancer Valeska Gert (1892-1978); © Wolfgang Müller

The Radical Realist – An Exhibition Dedicated to the Dancer and Performer Valeska Gert

Valeska Gert was one of the most influential artists of modern times – and no-one knows it. This is what co-curator Wolfgang Müller claims.More ...
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (Installation view of RUSSIA!, 2005) Foto: David M. Heald / The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

The Traceless Art of Conversation – Tino Sehgal at the Guggenheim Museum

Never before has the Guggenheim Museum been so naked, and never before has it been so full of the babble of its visitors’ voices as in early 2010.More ...
Dancer of the Laban-School on the Monte Verita; Foto: Monacensia Literaturarchiv

Lifestyle Laboratories – Mary Wigman in Schwabing and at the Monte Verità

An exhibition in Munich explores the connection between Schwabing and Monte Verità, where the Teatro San Materno has reopened.More ...

Movement Frozen in Time. An Exhibition of Dance Images

According to the grande dame of American modern dance, Martha Graham, dance can only be collected in other media. Alongside film and video, dance photography is the most important means of recording it. The Tanzarchiv Köln (German Dance Archive in Cologne) and the Goethe-Institut have devoted an exhibition to this topic that is to be seen all over the world.More ...
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Book Tips

Detail of the cover of Dorothea von Hantelmann’s „How to Do Things With Art. Zur Bedeutsamkeit der Performativität von Kunst“. Zürich: diaphanes 2007

“How to Do Things With Art”: In the Thick of the Action

Few other words coined in recent years have spread as far and as fast as “performativity”.More ...
„Radio ballet“ at Leipzig Main station; © Ligna

“To everyone!” - A Documentary on the Performance Group LIGNA

LIGNA is a group operating between radio art and performance art. They succeed in using radio as an instrument for politicising public space. A book now documents their interventions.More ...
The cover of „Wissenskultur Tanz“ (The Knowledge Culture of Dance), Sabine Huschka (editor)

The Knowledge Culture of Dance – Sabine Huschka’s Interdisciplinary Appeal

In the book “Wissenskultur Tanz” 16 experts from diverse disciplines endeavour to explain which figures of knowledge are concealed in the written mediation, in particular, of this artistic genre.More ...
„The Meeting“, Bremen 2006; photo: Volker Beinhorn

Dance For Your Life – Choreographer Royston Maldoom’s autobiography

You can change your life in a dance class. That is the credo of choreographer Royston Maldoom.More ...
Meg Stuart; photo: Tina Ruisinger

The Bodies’ Desire – A Manual about Meg Stuart

For more than twenty years now, it has been impossible to imagine the international dance scene without American dancer and choreographer Meg Stuart.More ...
André Lepecki; Photo: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Jochen Wehrmann

Lost Innocence: André Lepecki’s Study on Dance and the Politics of Movement

Dance is the performance of movement. We are watching people moving in a certain way. André Lepecki shattered this cosy certainty in his collection of essays “Exhausting Dance”.More ...
'Visitors Only', photo: Chris Van der Burght

Absence: Gerald Siegmund’s Study on the “Performative Aesthetics of Dance”

Dance cannot show everything. The real feelings are hidden behind the expressive movements of dancing bodies, and in displaying movement, one always also sees its disappearance. It is in the life of dance that its shortcoming lurks. Dance is about absence.More ...
'Balletttaenzer'; copyright: www.colourbox.com

“Eloquent Bodies – Moved Souls” – Christine Thurner Examines Texts from Periods of Transformation in Dance Aesthetics

Thurner’s study takes a look at the art of movement which is as original as it is enlightening, presenting it as the history of discussing dance rather than just as a chronology of its stage pieces. It is manifestly the case that the more distant the work of art from language, the more fervent the aesthetic discussion.More ...

“In aller Freiheit” – Franz Anton Cramer’s Study on Dance

'In aller Freiheit'; Copyright: Parodos Verlag 2008In aller Freiheit is an informative study by Franz Anton Cramer that traces reflections on dance in France between 1930 and 1950. In studies of the sources, commentaries, notes and previously unpublished lectures, he shows the conflict between "artistic breadth and conceptual narrowness" that influenced the discourse on dance at that time and which continues to do so today. He maintains a clear focus on the historical and social dimensions to carefully reveal the special quality of the French debate as an appeal for the multiplicity and liberty of dance.More ...

Cluster, A Lavish Volume of Photographs, Looks Back on 15 Years of Sasha Waltz & Guests

A Pictorial RetrospectiveMore ...

Following Steps - A Book about Dancer/Choreographer Susanne Linke

Susanne Linke is one of the most illustrious exponents of the German dance theatre scene since the 1970s. Her style is about precision: paring it down to the bare essentials. A new book rehearses her childhood, stage career and works.More ...
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Film Tips

The cover of the DVD „Die Klage der Kaiserin“ (The Plaint of the Empress). A film by Pina Bausch, L’Arche Edition in cooperation with the Pina Bausch Foundation, 2011

Dancing Belongs to People – The Film “Die Klage der Kaiserin”

Pina Bausch’s film Die Klage der Kaiserin (The Plaint of the Empress) was made in 1988 and is now out on DVD.More ...
„Pina“, Aleš Čuček © NEUE ROAD MOVIES GmbH, photo: Donata Wenders

In Memory of Pina Bausch – Wim Wenders’ 3-D Film Pina

Wim Wenders has made a film tribute to dance choreographer Pina Bausch and a homage to her city, Wuppertal. A success story.More ...
Copyright: Donata Wenders

An Interview with Wim Wenders: “Nothing has saved me as often as music”

(15 April 2011) He had to be dragged into his first piece by Pina Bausch. Now, Wim Wenders has memorialized the artist with his film Pina. On the Goethe-Institut’s invitation he is presenting the film to the Australian audience in Sydney. In the interview, the film director talks about 3D, dance and mourning.More ...
„Körper“ (2000); photo: Bernd Uhlig

Cautious Proximity – Dance Films by Choreographer Sasha Waltz

Sasha Waltz is one of Germany’s most successful female choreographers. The film portrait “Garten der Lüste” (Garden of Earthly Delights) provides a good survey of her work to date and some of her best pieces are also available on DVD.More ...
3rd prize 2008: Ravi Deepres and Wayne McGregor „Tremor“; photo: Ravi Deepres

A Sunday Afternoon in Thirty Seconds – Choreographic Captures

The short film competition Choreographic Captures will take place for the fourth time in 2011. There will be a public screening of the winners at international festivals and at many cinemas.More ...