Response to Dancing to Connect from Essen

The dancing project is for (our students) a great experience which gives them energy and helps developing their self-esteem. The close, family-like bonds in the dance group during the training, the ability to express their experiences, their personal strength, wishes, hopes, moments of their personal history through the dancing, the efforts and strain because of the dancing, the encouragement through the coach, the work for a common joint performance, are not limited to this one project: This period of time and these experiences together with the performance in front of parents, teachers, brothers and sisters, friends and foreign people will be encouragement for their further development, they will give motivation and stimulation like a “lighthouse” does, to find their own way with more strength and self-esteem.

With greetings from everybody from “Stoppenberg” and again many thanks for this great project

I remain yours sincerely,

Reiner Düchting (Headmaster, Hauptschule am Stoppenberg, Essen, Germany)

Dancing to Connect Phase III

Apologies to all you BDC blog-followers. The rigors of the past week left no time for posting. So here's a quick review: 20 students from the Ernst-Reuter-Oberschule in Berlin arrived on October 21st and met up with their host families from Millennium High School. They fanned out across the Boroughs, but luckily, no one got lost and everyone showed up bright and early the next morning to meet Carmen for a tour around the Financial District and a round-trip on the Staten Island Ferry (the weather cooperated -- it was a gorgeous day!) In the afternoon, all 60 students involved with the program, Germans and Americans, were invited to the German Consulate to view a documentary on the Berlin Wall and to have lunch in the 13th floor dining room over-looking the U.N. and East River. On Friday, they began the sequence of 6-hour workshops over five days (yep, both weekend days were included!) in three teams of mixed German and American students. The photos give you a taste of the results: Smashing! The Winter Garden was nearly full to bursting for the 1 pm matinee show. The evening show was also well attended, with audience boosted by invited guests who joined German Consul General Horst Freitag in a lovely pre-theater reception at The Grill Room. Thursday was a day of hugs and tears as the Berlin group departed New York. Next dance steps for them will be a performance for Ambassador Murphy and a group of German Alumni from various State Department-sponsored exchange programs on November 16 at the US Embassy in Berlin! The dance goes on.... and on .... and on!
And now we'd like to call attention to the long list of partners and friends who made this possible! Huge thanks to The German Consulate in New York, Consul General Horst Freitag, Cultural Attache Thietmar Bachmann, Nina Midori Krull, Werner-Ciprian Fugel & Elke Huber; Rob Fenstermacher, Roxana Pleacoff, Anika Rigole & CDS International; Christian Haenel, Anne-Kathrin Fix & Robert Bosch Stiftung; Ricarda Lindner, Tim Rosenkranz & German National Tourist Board; Debra Simon, Karen Kitchen, Elysa Marden & Brookfield Properties' Arts>World Financial Center. An especially huge thanks to the incredibly hard-working Colin McEvoy of Millennium High School supported throughout by Principal Rob Rhodes, Jenny Krumpus, Alison Angrisani and the many students and families that danced, hosted and welcomed their counterparts from Berlin. We acknowledge the leadership and support of Barbara Tennstedt who organized the Berlin aspect of the project and Sigrid Nawroth and Jutta Laube, the teachers who chaperoned the students from the Ernst-Reuter-Oberschule, all of whom deserved to be named but space doesn't allow it. Behind the scenes and supporting us throughout were Steve Sokol of the American Council on Germany and Hans-Jakob Wilhelm, a member of Battery Dance Company's Ambassadors, as well as fellow Ambassadors Erik Patton and Allison Strouse and Chair Emeritus Zachary Snow. Mike Riggs did a yeoman's job of technical direction and lighting for the performances at the Winter Garden, and Allen, Tim and the other members of the tech crew also deserve our thanks.

First Day in Swaziland

20 young people turned up to work with Bafana and Sean over an intensive program that will culminate in a performance on Tuesday evening. From Bafana's report, it seems as if the group is friendly, willing and ready to explore new things. Interesting: the group is primarily male, one of the first times that we've had this mix.

Heading Home

It's over...! With a sigh both of relief and sentimentality. The performance this evening at Fontane-Haus in Berlin was over the top. The students pulled out all the stops with that special energy that comes from knowing that this is the end of a chapter. However, the book is yet to be written! Dancing to Connect will resonate in who knows how many ways?

Last Chance! See the Grand Finale of Dancing to Connect Germany 2009

Tonight's the night: 7 pm at Fontane-Haus in Reinickendorf, Berlin. Tickets are available at the box office. Come be inspired by the dancers from 5 Berlin and Brandenburg schools, as well as their mentors from Battery Dance Company and Drastic Action.

Good news: the Secretary of the State of Brandenburg announced from the stage in Potsdam that DTC would be funded in 2010. And the long and excellent feature on German television's popular Nachtmagazine show on Tuesday night guarantees that Dancing to Connect is known throughout the country!

Potsdam: they did it!

Tuesday evening's performance provided an insight into what young people can achieve when they are motivated and inspired. Each and every dancer on stage at the Nikolaisaal transcended his or her personal best, and together, the results were overwhelming!
See for yourself tonight at the Fontane-Haus in Berlin!

Tomorrow at 7 pm -- Curtain Time in Potsdam

Visit photographer Christian Jungeblodt's blog -- www.jungeblodt.com/dancing -- in order to see images from workshops of the past 5 days in Eberswalde, Wilhelmshorst and Wedding (Berlin)