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!

Anyway – back to the last two days. The weekend was less programmed for us with a lot of free time to do what we wanted – which was a very good thing. We had heard so much about the Uferstudios from so many people that a few of us decided to go and see what all the fuss was about. Also, several people had recommended that we check out some performances happening at the Tanz Nacht there. Tanz Nacht is rather like the fringe event of a main festival, but – unlike Edinburgh – it is curated and not self-produced.

The Uferstudios is a row of low warehouses – about 15 of them – which have each been converted into Studios. Very impressive and fully equipped studios they are, but I felt that what could have been a series of highly atmospheric spaces had been neutralised completely. But I suppose that may work better for a space where one wants to teach and explore choreography rather than be overwhelmed by the silent dictates of the space. The fact that it works wonderfully as a performance venue I discovered the next evening – but more of that later.

Children performing at Uferstudios

Unfortunately, all the performances for the day were sold out. But the atmosphere of celebration and participation in dance was so strong through such a large and diverse crowd of people milling about – dancers, artists, children and their parents, lay audiences … the space invited anyone in. In one constantly open session, choreographers and dancers met to converse at a round table throughout the day – ten hours of talk! Anyone could drop in, participate or just sit on the fringes and hear what people had to say. We sat in on a very interesting section where they were talking about the habit of programming Hip Hop in a particular venue, and questioning why other forms of social or street dancing rarely featured. And a section about curating festivals, talking about individual experiences of a range of festivals including one in Iceland that has no performance programme as such! But then – who is such a festival for, one of them asked? What’s the audience? Or is a meeting of artists? But an event where audiences are invited to participate freely in scheduled conversations, exchanges and even community cooking and eating, with the possibility of anyone announcing a small performance or showing at any time – can one call that a meeting? This led into a discussion on choreographed events rather than performance, and flagged several very interesting issues on the changing nature and perception of dance, choreography and performance – and what it means to be an artist in Europe today.

Jewish Memorial, Berlin

From the Uferstudios, Claudia accompanied me to the Jewish Memorial near the Brandenburg Gate – the site where the wall first came down in November 1989. The imposing gate and the site of the Memorial – for more than 20 years – was situated in the no man’s land between the two high walls that separated East and West Berlin. And the wall itself passed within 3 metres of the German Parliament Building on the West side. The route of the walls is marked in the streets and pavements that now bear no evidence of the area being the so-called Death Strip. This entire scenario is one of the finest examples of human ridiculousness that I have ever come across!

The following day some of us visited the Neues Museum on the Museum Island. The island is in the river Spre that runs through Berlin, and houses five museums in close proximity to each other. The Neues Museum – or the New Museum – had been highly recommended to me by several friends. This large and imposing building had been constructed some time in the mid-1850s to house Egyptian, Greek and Roan artefacts that were being brought back from archaeological digs. These artefacts spanned pieces of pottery, small and large scale sculptures, entire murals, sarcophagi, and even whole sections of Egyptian tombs! The interiors of the building were designed according to the cultures they harked back to, giving a sense of the spaces in which these artefacts would originally have existed. Unfortunately, bombing in Second World War extensively damaged the building. It was only recently that architect David Chipperfield renovated it, creating a fantastic space marrying the remains of the original brick, plaster and architectural work with sensitively conceived modern interventions and structures. The new museum opened with a ‘temporary’ exhibition – a site-specific work by Sasha Waltz involving over 70 performers. It now houses Berlin’s rich collection of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman art.

Sasha Waltz's performance at Neues Museum

Sasha Waltz's performance at Neues Museum

the bust of Nefertiti

The piece de resistance in the museum is the bust of Nefertiti – now over 3000 years old. Sculpted actually as a sculptor’s model rather than a finished piece, the bust has retained it’s vibrant colours, superbly chiselled features and life-like glance – even though the last impression is merely created with a glass marble in the right eye, while the other eye socket is empty. It is housed in a domed room all by itself and creates an uncanny effect of waiting to turn around and converse with you. There are now two pieces of sculpture that I could spend hours looking at – Michelangelo’s David in Florence and the bust of Nefertiti here.

The Odyssey Complex

That evening five of us had managed to get tickets to the last performance as part of Tanz Nacht at the Uferstudios. Catching something at a fringe event is always a case of trial and error, but this piece by Felix M. Ott – The Odyssey Complex – turned out to be by far the best thing we saw at the festival. Using Homer’s work as a point of departure, Ott along with two other artists had created a series of responses involving movement, text, film and simple but wonderfully innovative visual design. The piece began with a wholly false impression with an injured Ott talking to us leaning on a waling stick – he first said that he would not be able to perform due to his injury and talk to us about the work instead. Gradually as things progressed the performance became more and more inventive and surprising – but never gimmicky. At the core of the piece was a simple diagram. Ott had mapped the hero’s journey through 12 specific steps onto a circle that was divided through the middle into the Ordinary and the Special world. The performance’s gradual transition from the ordinary into the special (which can be both rewarding and terrifying in its unfamiliarity and uncertainty) – from a upside down image projection to a fan blowing his papers away to cascading rain over the table at which he sat – was a visual and sensual treat. Each bit was carefully thought out, and never did I feel something was being used just to create a ‘cool’ effect. Some images will remain etched in my mind: the drenched table attached to pulleys being pulled by Ott with a curtain of water falling from it; the simple ‘follow’ spot manned by a co-performer as Ott arrived in this new, daunting universe, the coordination between the projection and his own movements… and so many more. The piece had pathos, pain, struggle, a sense of being remote controlled, humour … and through it all maintained the essence of what Odyssey is about: one man’s journey and struggle to a point of enlightenment, the point where he looks God – whoever or whatever that may be – in the face.

A marvellous finale to my few days in Berlin, proving once again that often what happens on the edges of anything is so much more interesting, inventive and inspiring than what happens at the centre. Perhaps we should have seen more here, and less at the main venues! But – overall – no complaints. It has been a wonderful and energising trip. I go back with so many articulated and unarticulated thoughts and impressions. Who know how they could work themselves out and infect what we do back in our spheres in India.