Reflexions

As part of The OPEN, short for “open”, “participate”, “engage” and “negotiate”, or “a pre-festival of ideas” organised by the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), “Show Me The World Symposium: Curatorial Practice in the Performing Arts” was held from June 26 to 28 at the 72-13, SIFA’s hub, with support from the Goethe Institut.More ...

For the longest time, Victoria Chiu's choreographic piece Do You Speak Chinese? does not show us the performers' faces – except as inhuman, distorted masks.More ...

‘Tari’ is the Malay word for ‘dance’, and is also a dance festival presented by ASWARA, the National Arts, Heritage & Culture Academy of Malaysia.More ...

Dancer and choreographer Lucia Glass visited the South East Asian city-state of Singapore in December 2009 and January 2010 as part of a Goethe-Institut residency programme. Exploring a city where the arts are inseparably bound up with the prevailing social system.More ...

In October 2008, the Goethe-Institut invited choreographer Jochen Roller to teach a workshop at Lasalle College in Singapore. Afterwards, he travelled to several countries in the region on his own initiative and explored the local dance scene.More ...

In February 2010, Singapore-based writer and critic Tara Tan was invited by the Goethe-Institut to travel to the German "Dance Platform" event (Tanzplattform) in the city of Nuremberg. For tanzconnexions, she reflects on the performances she saw and on questions that were raised during these encounters as a 'cultural tourist'.More ...

Eko Supriyanto, from Indonesia, Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, from Cambodia, and Pichet Klunchun, from Thailand, came together for four days in December of 2010 to re-connect, and to learn from and about each other's approaches to creativity with the support of the Goethe Institute.More ...

In early 2009, the Goethe-Institut in Jakarta invited dancer and choreographer Thomas Lehmen (Berlin) to travel to Indonesia. He visited a number of Indonesian cities and spoke with dancers and choreographers there to gain an impression of the region’s dance scene. You can read more about his encounters at the tanzconnexions-blog.More ...

Few theories of the body have been formulated in Indonesia to date, and theoretical writings on the body are generally embedded within texts concerned with health, social, political, economic (industrial) and gender specific issues.More ...

The promotion of international exchange has long since become an integral part of the everyday experience of artists in the field of contemporary dance. But political agendas are proving to be a stumbling block for artistic projects with increasing frequency.More ...

Dance in Malaysia has a multitude of genres – each with its own history and evolution, existing in harmony and yet often also in ignorance of one another. Each strain of dance charts its own path and is dependent on its own particular patronage and support.More ...

City-based choreographer Donna Miranda reflects on the often problematic relationship between freedom and freelancing in contemporary dance and performance-making.More ...

In December 2011, the Goethe-Institut’s Asia-Pacific Office hosted the 2nd Choreographers Exchange in Phnom Penh together with the Khmer Arts Ensemble as part of the Tanzconnexions initiative.More ...

While speaking to French choreographer Xavier Le Roy in a Melbourne café last November, I was reminded of when I first watched one of his works more than ten years ago, in Berlin in 1999.More ...