Tanz Im August, Berlin: the last two days

Days 4 and 5: Saturday and Sunday, 25 and 26 August 2012

Vikram (India), Venuri (Sri Lanka), Lubna (Bangladesh) and Amir (Iran) at Uferstudios

I am writing this on the morning of my departure from Berlin. I’ve only been here five days, but it seems like much more. The trip has been packed with experiences – good, bad and indifferent – and I have to thank wholeheartedly the Goethe-Institut for inviting me, and specifically our local guides Martin and Claudia who have given so generously of their time, knowledge and friendship. Days before we left from India, we were sent a survey from the Goethe-Institut headquarters. One of the sections – rather strangely, I thought – had to do with our perception of Germans. I ticked mostly ‘don’t know’ – having never really been in Germany or interacted with very many Germans. I wish they had sent the survey now – that particular section would be much easier to respond to!

Tanz Im August: Day 3

Day 3: Friday, 24 August 2012

Tanz at the School of Dramatic Arts, Berlin

Friday was a day for more meetings than performances – but each of our three meetings could not have been more different from each other. We began by meeting Professor Ingo Reulecke, Director of the Dance Department at the School of Dramatic Arts. Post lunch we met with Scott deLahunta of The Forsythe Company, and then rounded off the evening with a tour through Radial System V with Jochen Sandig.

Tanz Im August, Berlin. Day 2, Part 2

Day 2: Thursday, 23 August 2012: Part 2

Jacque Poulin Denis

Performance-wise, we saw two very different pieces on Thursday. One was a work in progress (very early stages of progress) by a young dancer-choreographer from Montreal, and the other was a full-length dance work from Norway.

Tanz Im August - Day 2, Part 1

Day 2: Thursday, 23 August 2012

The second day of our time in Berlin proved to be quite varied. Accompanied by our wonderful local Goethe-Institut hosts Martin and Claudia, our first encounter for the day was with dancer and choreographer, Livia Patrizi who initiated and continues to run TanzZeit - Zeit für Tanz in Schulen – a school outreach programme for contemporary dance. The idea came out of a simple logic that she experienced during her career as a dancer touring across several countries as part of a dance company. She realized that in Germany itself, an informed contemporary dance audience did not exist. Dance work was shared only within a small, connected community and did not go beyond: nor did it create new audiences or audiences for the future. In a word – there was no dance education / appreciation work happening, and that is never a good thing for the future of any art form.

Tanz Im August, Berlin: Day 1, 22 August 2012

Akram Khan's 'Gnosis'

Vikram Iyengar - Artistic Director of Ranan - has been invited to Berlin by the Goethe-Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan as part of a dance-theatre delegation comprising members from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Iran. The visit coincides with the final week of the Tanz Im August festival in Berlin.

The Ranan blog will carry regular updates from Vikram over the next few days.

Day 1: Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Landed at 2pm local time after quite tiring flights from Delhi via Istanbul. But after checking into our hotel, we were ready to leave by 3.30pm for our first meeting with the Goethe Institut hosts here and the ten-member delegation from comprising members from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Iran.