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)

Upcoming Performances in Potsdam & Berlin

Mark your calendars for the final German performances of Dancing to Connect:
TUesday, October 13, 7 pm, Nikolaisaal, POTSDAM
http://www.nikolaisaal.de/nsp/0910/veranstaltungen/091013_dancingtoconnect.php?lang=DE
Thursday, October 15, 7 pm, Fontane-Haus, BERLIN
http://www.boell-brandenburg.de/web/10_323.htm
Check out some of Christian Jungeblodt's terrific rehearsal shots here:
http://www.jungeblodt.com/dancing

Traversing East & West

Workshops have been going on since Tuesday in Berlin and Brandenburg. Today I visited Heinz-Brandt Oberschule in the former East Berlin section of Wiessensee and Ernst-Reuter-Oberschule in Wedding. Tadej and Carmen were working with the younger group, 13 and 14 year olds, who were battling with their adolescent self-consciousness. The boys were easier going, ready to jump into the process whereas the girls were not. Let's check back in a few days and see how this situation progresses. At Ernst-Reuter, the older students were much farther along. Robin and Sean had managed to lead them into a variety of choreographic explorations, most striking of which was a sequence of group dances in which each had penetrated the essence of a color that they associated with Berlin. Photos will come later. The slide show on the right was taken by Christian Jongeblodt of the workshop in Eberswalde, a small town in Brandenburg that has been somewhat notorious for its right-wingers. The workshop as illustrated by Christian's photos shows Sophie Bortolussi and Alessandra Larson building trust with the students who are in a special vocational training program.

Dancing to Connect: Berlin II

Sunny autumn weather greeted us in Berlin and Potsdam today as we set about the preliminaries for our workshops, 2 in Berlin and 3 in Brandenburg State.

We had a site visit at the very impressive Nikolaisaal in Potsdam in the morning followed by a lovely lunch with Inka Thunecke and her staff from the Heinrich Boell Foundation who are coordinating our programs in the Brandenburg schools. We then rushed back to Berlin for a press conference and an orientation meeting with teachers from all 5 schools, as well as with Barbara Tennstedt and her colleague Carla from Fippe e.V., who have spearheaded our program here for the second year in a row!

Galerie Hans Mayer

Untethered from their teaching responsibilities for a day or two, the Battery Dance and Drastic Action dancers took the opportunity to create new site-specific material in response to the art work in Duesseldorf's estimable Galerie Hans Mayer. The art cognoscenti flocked to the gallery tonight and witnessed the quizzical, athletic and/or meditative movement studies designed by Sophie Bortolussi, Robin Cantrell, Alessandra Larson, Cara Liguori, Bafana Matea, Carmen Nicole, Sean Scantlebury and Mayuna Shimizu. Barry worked with Hans and his staff to support the dancers' experimentations.

And now for something completely different...

If you are in the vicinity of Düsseldorf (Saturday, October 3), drop in at the Galerie Hans Mayer from 6 - 8. Nine of the fabulous dancers from Battery Dance Company and Drastic Action are staging a site-specific performance, responding to the gallery building itself as well as the stunning art that is on display by Jon Kessler, Robert Longo, Konrad Lueg and others. Click here for more details: http://www.amerikahaus-nrw.de/event-einzelansicht/events/105.html

Dancing to Connect Stuns Essen

A cheering crowd of 1,000 welcomed students from 5 schools in Essen and Duisburg.
Nerves were running high before the show. A t.v. feature that was purported to be about the dance project had turned out to be a degrading piece that used the student as bait. However the showmanship and high spirits of the students returned during the dress rehearsal and everything went off magnificently. Tears, flowers and mementos were exchanged at the end.