Dancing to Connect 2007
Battery Dance Company and Drastic Action, two dance companies from New York who cooperatively presented the internationally acclaimed Dances for the Blue House in Germany in 2006, will lead intensive dance workshops with high school students in Freiburg, Germany, in summer 2007. With guidance from eleven American teaching artists and their artistic directors, 100 students will create choreography based on the theme of Dancing to Connect, culminating in performances in the Large Hall of Freiburg’s City Theater on Tuesday, July 17.

Tolerance, integration and intercultural understanding comprise the thematic core of the workshops, embedded into the choreography and addressed while building dance skills. The lingua franca (English) and the universal languages of dance and music build communicative bridges among students who represent diverse populations, immigrant and native, high-performing and educationally-challenged, Christian and Muslim. Likewise, the American professionals cross bridges in mentoring their youthful German charges.

Dance facilitates self-respect, an important pre-requisite for developing tolerant behaviour. During the workshops the students explore their own feelings and sensations, some new and surprising. They relate to each other and to the teaching artists across generational, gender, ethnic, religious and social differences, converting their explorations into physical expression. The discovery of the self goes hand in hand with the discovery of the other. Though this profound process would be reason enough for engaging in this project, the public will also share in the experience through performances by the young participants in Freiburg’s City Theater as the culminating event of the theatre season.

The five participating Freiburg schools have been chosen to represent the broadest cross-section of educational levels available to German students. Gymnasien (gymnasiums): Kepler-Gymnasium and Berthold-Gymnasium, Gesamtschulen (high school, comprehensive school) Staudinger-Gesamtschule, Realschulen: Pestalozzi- Realschule and Hauptschule: Emil-Gött-Schule. This wide range presents an ideal subject for evaluation and assessment by professors and students of Freiburg’s Teachers College. Professors at the Pedagogical College will utilize Dancing to Connect as a model project, surveying the students and teachers before, during and after the project for analytical and evaluative purposes.

The results will be documented and form the basis for future program development both in Freiburg and elsewhere in Germany, the European Union and the United States. (Full description)

Sponsors: City of Freiburg, U.S. Mission to Germany, Citibank Privatkunden AG & Co KgaA, Stadt Theater Freiburg, Price Waterhouse Coopers-Stiftung, Badische Zeitung, Körber Stiftung