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.
The
programme began with no funding, facing all the usual problems – reluctance
from schools, gender prejudice about boys dancing (and we thought that existed
only in India!). Over the years it has now developed into a programme with
regular funding from the Ministry of Education (which is a validation – more
than anything else – about the value of including arts appreciation in
education), a network of schools spanning all kinds from elite to deprived, a
youth dance group that has come out of school goers who wanted to continue, and
a pool of more than 35 artists who work on the programme with various schools
over the year.
I won’t go
into further details here. But it was a hugely inspiring and informative
morning sharing her experiences and her passion and belief in what she does.
Ranan is in the very early stages of launching a SchoolConnect programme, and
this interaction came at such an opportune moment for us. As usual, being so
disconnected in India, I discovered in the responses from the others that
Attakalari Bangalore did – at some point – have a school outreach programme,
that Gati in Delhi is planning something
similar… Does it really require a trip to Berlin for us dancers in India
to talk to each other?!
After a
light lunch at a rather fancy restaurant – treated by our hosts on behalf of
Goethe-Institut, I took a detour from the programme to meet Sasha Waltz and Bärbel Kern. Both had visited Calcutta last week on a reccy trip for a
site-specific piece Sasha is planning. This will be in collaboration with
Padmini Chettur, and is a Max Mueller Bhavan, Calcutta project. We are
production partners for this, which is how I can happily walk in to meet one of
the most well-known and sought after choreographers in the world now! How lucky
and unusual this is was brought home to me in the evening, when Claudia – our
host – who lives in Berlin AND works with the Goethe-Institut, said how difficult
it was to meet her and get tickets for her work.
After
completing some work about the project in Calcutta, Sasha took me to the space
her husband Jochen Sandig runs and where she has her studio – Radialsystem
V. This turn of the century vast warehouse like building used to be one of the
water treatment plans along the river in East Berlin. Spaces like these cry out for intelligent use
today, and this – I would say – is one of the success stories about what is possible.
The industrialist who bought over the space got in touch with Sashaabout 7
years ago, and asked her to step in. Managed by Jochen, the space now has a
large performance space along with a smaller one and a variety of other spaces
ranging from small workshop or meeting spaces to a beautiful first floor
courtyard overlooking the river – which makes you think you’re on some sort of
a ship. There’s a waterside café as well. All these spaces are available for
rent – by arts groups or by alternative organisations or even corporates.
RadialSystem V has run so far without any Government funding or sponsor!
But the
piece de resistance for me as a dancer and choreographer was Sasha’s studio on
the top floor. I expected it to be big and it was, but it was so airy, with
such a play of light and freshness and reflections of the water down below…
just being there was energising and inspiring! Sasha underlined that she had
never wanted a closed off kind of studio. This space makes her feel she is
still connected with everyday life and nature. So much of contemporary dance
has become obscure, removed, disconnected from and disregarding of the world
outside. To hear this from Sasha only days after we guided her through the manic
streets of Calcutta in which she immersed herself, gives me a wonderful sense
of community.
We went on
to speak about the abandoned waterfront spaces in Calcutta and the huge
potential that lay there waiting to be tapped. The river front in Berlin and the
whole area is dotted with converted spaces for the arts: there are so many
spaces in my own city which could be renovated, and re-energised to become
creative hubs for the city, for India and – who knows – for the world! We need
the vision and the drive to do it! It’s about time! Who’s with me?
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