Germany

Battery Dance completed the second year of its Dancing for Trust initiative in Germany in the Fall of 2023, with workshops and performances centered around the city of Halle in the Federal State of Sachsen-Anhalt, and a refresher for teachers in Bremen where DfT had been launched in 2022.

One week of training was provided for 20 German school teachers, comprising 20 hours of theoretical and practical sessions devoted to introducing the methodology Battery Dance has used in schools across Germany, in the U.S. and countries around the world. Once the teachers were familiarized with the educational/creative process, they joined with the Battery Dance teaching artists in bringing it into their schools. This happened in two cohorts – with five secondary schools in the week following the teacher training sessions; and with five gymnasia in the two weeks afterwards. There was a gap of time due to a long weekend that included German Reunification Day which took place this year on a Tuesday, necessitating an extended time frame.

The final two days of the project were taken up with rehearsals and performances at the Volkspark, a multi-venue theater and community center with historical importance for the City. On Wednesday, October 11th, each of the secondary school groups rehearsed on stage in the afternoon and performed their completed choreographies in the evening. The audience comprised approximately 400 audience of families, teachers, peers and members of the general public and dignitaries who spoke at the beginning of the performance including Heike Piornak-Sommerweiss of the Landesinstitut fur Schulqualitat und Lehrerbildung Sachsen-Anhalt and Norbert Ryl of the Landeschulamt Sachsen-Anhalt and David Paned, Counselor for Public Affairs, U.S. Consulate General Leipzig introduced the program.

The following night, Thursday, October 12th, the five gymnasia followed the same pattern. This time, John Crosby, Consul General from the U.S. Consulate General Leipzig spoke in place of Mr. Paned. Syrian-German choreographer Saeed Hani introduced “The Wind in the Olive Grove”, as well as “A Certain Mood” by Taiwanese choreographer Tsai-Hsi Hung, both of which were created for Battery Dance on commission by the Renate, Hans and Marie Hofmann Trust.

Through the support of the Consulate General in Leipzig, the Company added an interactive event at the Grassi Museum in Leipzig, bringing audiences into the outdoor porch and indoor galleries that display Benin Bronzes and other relics from countries around the world. This event extended the Company’s reach into the Federal State of Sachsen and helped to spread awareness of the Dancing for Trust performances and workshops taking place in Halle.

Entrance and exit questionnaires were distributed to the student groups. An indication of the success of the program came the day after it was concluded when a teacher from a school in Sachsen-Anhalt wrote to inquire whether the Company would be returning and whether it would be possible for her school to join. The school offices in Magdeburg and Dessau, where earlier Dancing to Connect projects had taken place, contacted Frau Piornak-Sommerweiss with similar inquiries. Two teachers from a “gifted and talented” school in Halle took part in the teacher training sessions in week one of Dancing for Trust, despite the fact that an earlier-scheduled school trip precluded their students from taking part this year. There is hope that Battery Dance could send teaching artists in 2024 following the program it is scheduled to conduct in the Federal State of Brandenburg, to serve this and other schools in Sachsen-Anhalt.

Teacher Training

In Phase I of the project, Battery Dance’s team of six highly skilled teaching artists and the Company’s artistic director worked with 19 local teachers from Bremen and Bremerhaven over the course of a one-week, 20-hour training session. The goal was to equip local teachers with an understanding of the philosophy and introduction to the practical skills necessary to conduct Battery Dance’s arts education methodology, Dancing to Connect, with the intention that these teachers would then partner with Battery Dance’s teaching artists in conducting workshops in their schools. Teachers of various ages, ethnicities, and religions (including Russian and Brazilian emigres and a Ukrainian refugee) engaged in the physical and theoretical training conducted by the Battery Dance team. They shed their self-consciousness and entered the process with open minds and hearts. They displayed a spirit of camaraderie while summoning up creative expression that may have been nascent previously. Teachers of math and social studies as well as others who taught dance or gym/recreation participated. This was the first time since 2006 when Battery Dance launched its arts education initiatives in Germany that intensive local teacher training was achieved and thus the sustainability and multiplier effect of the project was brought to life

Student Workshops

Phase II took place during the second and third weeks of the program. The local teachers accompanied Battery Dance’s teaching artists into their schools, collaboratively implementing 20-hour dance workshops with their students. Eleven original choreographic works were created, each distinctive, unique and compelling in its own way. Bremen, being the most diverse Federal State of Germany, was a prime location in which to test the assertion of the project that the dancing workshops could dispel fear, misunderstanding and marginalization of students perceived as “other”. Approximately 200 students took part in the workshops.

Syrian Guest Teaching Artist & Performer

The involvement of a professional Syrian refugee teaching artist, Amr Karkout, was integrated into the project. He joined the Battery Dance team for the 4th time, having learned the Dancing to Connect methodology in previous engagements with the Company. He visited each workshop during the two weeks of training, introducing himself with a brief overview of his journey and his current work as a member of Sascha Walz & Guests in Berlin. His presence added to the impact and the example of trust-building on a professional level for the local students as well as presenting a solo at the Metropol Theater in both final performances.

Performances

The Final Phase of the project took place at the Bremen’s opera house-style Metropol Theater over two nights in which first five and then six school groups presented their completed choreographies on a program that also included the solo by Amr Karkout, and “The Wind in the Olive Grove”, a newly commissioned work by Syrian-German choreographer Saeed Hani, performed by Battery Dancers. Battery Dance engaged a young professional video crew to document the performances and to make a short 5- minute documentary. We estimate the audience for the two performances at 1,200.

General Narrative

In response to the pandemic, Battery Dance transitioned its Dancing to Connect for Refugee Integration from live interactions to online projects — providing youth across Germany with opportunities to stay connected with one another, to explore their creativity and share their stories through dance. A total of 15 projects were completed over the course of 12 months, overcoming the challenges posed by the pandemic and responding, sometimes at the very last moment, to changing conditions.

As the pandemic situation altered possibilities for schools and their students and families throughout the year, the methodology for how these dance works were created and filmed changed as well. As a result, each project had its own distinctive different process. Some involved groups in schools, while others came about via an open call for participants that brought together individuals from across the country. Some allowed for youth to gather together in a group and touch, some did not allow touching, and some did not allow youth to gather at all.

Therefore, the dance films below showcase stories of the youth and their changing experiences during the pandemic, but also, taken together, illustrate the changing environment in Germany as the pandemic raged and waned. Above all else, the films exemplify the resilience of youth, their drive to connect and explore, and the unique ability of dance, even virtually across borders, to bring people together.

Battery Dance’s teaching artists Sarah Housepian, Vivake Khamsingsavath, Jillian Linkowski, Bethany Mitchell, Sean Scantlebury and Razvan Stoian led the workshops on Zoom from the U.S. and in cases where translation and support was needed locally, German dancers Antony Franz (Kassel - Lacking, Weinheim – Kaleidoscop/Kollidieren, and Guben – Stamm der Pink), Yara Eid (Halle - Constricted), Olga Miller (Halle – Dirt) and Amr Karkout (Offenbach – Home) collaborated. Antony was in the studio in Kassel for the first project; and went to Guben for the filming of the last project. Yara and Olga supported the projects remotely from their homes in Berlin. Amr traveled from Berlin to support the group in Offenbach in the school and in the park where the dance was filmed.

In the last case, the project in Offenbach, the students were led on a virtual tour of an art installation in Frankfurt’s Park in which American visual artists Caleb Duarte and Mia Eve Rollow had been commissioned to create a work that exemplified the living conditions of Refugees. The piece entitled The Embassy of the Refugee showed the highly constricted living conditions of families transplanted from their homelands through conflict and terror. This in turn allowed the students to reflect on their own home life, constricted by the pandemic. The resulting dance manifested concepts and physicalization of the theme.

Projects

See the projects here!

Kassel (October, 2020): "Lacking"

“Lacking” takes inspiration from the youthful participants’ feelings and raw experiences as they reflected on months of quarantine. In the workshop sessions, they explored the sensation of loss, of not feeling complete. Their journey from isolation to connectedness was accomplished through the process of collaborating with others. In that sense, “Lacking” illustrates the finding of peace within the storm, regaining strength and completeness through the building of community and sharing.

Weinheim, Baden-Württemberg (December, 2020): "KALEIDOSKOP/KOLLIDIEREN"

“KALEIDOSKOP/KOLLIDIEREN” is a collaborative dance film that explores our forced social shift to the online sphere. Flipping, mirroring, and repeating color, shape, and shadow create a kaleidoscope of fractal patterns to frame the dancers. By connecting colors, natural elements, geometric shapes, and emotions, the dancers demonstrate how we are all painted by the same palette, bound by our shared experience of humanity. How can changing our perspective actually change our understanding? When we remove our masks, what will we have learned?

Halle (January, 2021): "Constricted" & "Dirt"

"Constricted” takes inspiration from working within a confined space. The dancers created all the material from the safety of their own homes exploring unconventional spaces and restricting different parts of their body. The dancers only worked together on the day of the filming, and found a way to connect within the constricting rules of the pandemic.

During the workshop process for "Dirt," the participants needed motivation in creating their own movement. In discussion about the pandemic and its impact on their everyday lives, each individual chose a word to represent their feelings, and from those words, “COVID-19 solos” emerged which were converted into group phrases that formed the basis of the work. We found ourselves on a lot belonging to a local factory that kindly offered its space. It was snowing that day so we took shelter in one of the domes. There was a huge pile of dirt which became the background of the piece.

Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; Frankfurt & Kassel, Hesse; Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg (February, 2021): "Fragmentum"

Everyone was working remotely from home during quarantine time. In this process, we captured fragments of everyone’s very much changed lives across different parts of Germany. The students didn’t know each other beforehand and represented different interests such as music, gymnastics and even contemporary dance training. However, a bond developed quickly and allowed for the creation of the full puzzle picture made up of the different pieces.

Bickenbach, Darmstadt, Frankfurt, and Kassel, Hesse; München, Bavaria; Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg (February, 2021): "Phases"

“Phases” takes inspiration from the different moon cycles. The moon experiences these phases when sunlight is present to reveal more of the moon’s face. In contrast, the moon has periods of darkness where shadows cover portions of the moon to hide itself. Much like the participants personal journey in creating the work. The virtual workshop allowed them to fully shine a light on themselves and expose their individuality and creativity. Through community and creation the participants found full freedom in this new phase.

Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Fulda Eppertshausen, and Wiesbaden, Hesse (February, 2021): "perspective"

“perspective” is a visual collaboration between artists from different cities in Germany created from their respective homes. Through an open dialogue, the participants discussed what they experienced during this year of pandemic and turned it into movement. The themes of isolation, connection, and hope were some of the unifying elements that infused the film. Each person was able to express themselves via movement, location scouting and how they filmed their dance.

Bremen (February, 2021): "Translation"

“Translation” is a collaborative effort between the teaching artist in NYC, students, teachers in Germany and our videographer/editor. In addition to translating from English to German, each artist took an idea and translated it into a larger exploration of its meaning. The work itself is a dance, exploring various themes discussed by the students. These themes were translated into poses, formations, interactions and movement created by the students themselves. The underlying theme is the translation between individual and group, how do we communicate with one another through movement. The film was given another layer of translation with the interpretation by our videographer and editor who took our movement and captured its essence from a new perspective. We leave the audience with the final task to translate what this work means to you. How do you resonate with what we have created. What does it mean to you?

Bremen (February, 2021): "What Time Is It Now?"

During the pandemic, the sense of time is lost. The participants felt that they were drifting from day to day, moment to moment, without the structure of time. As a result, we decided to base the piece on the movements of the clock and the music track that was chosen is called “Clockwork”. The formation of the dancers in space was reinforced by the image of the clock. Our multicultural cast was strongly supported by the local teachers who worked with me (Sean Scantlebury) to help the students stay focused and integrated into the creative process.

Bremerhaven, Bremen (February, 2021): "Structure"

“Structure” takes inspiration from the participants' new guidelines they discovered while attending school in a pandemic. It illustrates their journey to find their movement and voice within this functional order on campus grounds. Despite having a militant and robotic undertone, it shows the collapsing and breaking down of order and function. Throughout the virtual workshop, the participants were also able to establish a new bond and structure of friendship and unity with one another, all the while observing physical distancing.

Guben, Brandenburg (February, 2021): "Stamm Der Pink"

“Stamm der Pink” takes inspiration from the strength of the female spirit. The dancers worked together in groups, duets, and trios to create intricate movement and partnering highlighting their creativity and ability to work collaboratively. They are one being, moving and breathing together.

Bremen (May/June, 2021): "Curious Voyage" & "TEAM"

“Curious Voyage” explores the impact on individuals as they come out of isolation and into the world once more. The students asked themselves, “What does it mean to be true to ourselves and equally true to our peers?” Razvan and Sara witnessed the students’ growth and willingness to explore. We hope they continue the journey with new confidence and sense of each other.

“TEAM” is a look inside the research of what it means to work together, listen and learn from one another, ultimately collaborating and creating as a unit. The students investigated through various activities individually, in pairs, groups, and collectively to construct movement based on abstract ideas. What does it meant to conceive one’s own perception of a concept and merge it with someone who sees it in different ways. “Team” is an idealistic window into what society could be when we are open to allowing new, different and sometimes contrasting viewpoints, and efficiently constructing a landscape that serves all.

Offenbach (September, 2021): "HOME"

In “Home”, participants took inspiration from an art installation by Mia Eve Rollow and Caleb Duarte called ‘The Embassy of the Refugee.’ Throughout the week, the dancers explored the differences in space, from being tightly confined in a small home to the vastness of an open field. They explored how space informed and affected their movement and emotions. The dancers investigated personally what the true meaning of home meant to them. They all shared a common thread and came to a common ground. It is a safe space where they felt peace, love, family and support. The creation of “HOME” rides the journey of their ideas.

Wittenberg, Dessau 2019

Three workshops were organized in the city of Wittenberg and two in Dessau- Roßlau, building on relationships developed over prior years with Sachsen-Anhalt State education officers as well as individual schools in some cases. The workshop participants ranged in age from 14 – 20 with a wide range of abilities, most with no prior dance training. Five local German dance teachers were recruited to serve as teacher-trainees and teachers from each school also observed and in some cases assisted the Battery Dance teaching artists.

The final performance took place in an historic military exercise hall, redesigned as a community gathering space. The city arranged for a portable stage to be erected, lighting grid installed and back curtains hung and a large two-part tent put up as a changing area. A nearby gymnasium was reserved by the city as a back-up space for the students to warm up, have a catered meal in between stage rehearsals and performance and to store their backpacks and street clothes during the performance.

By the time the performance began, every seat in the hall was filled and children and families found spots on the floor in front and side of the stage for overflow. The crowd was remarkable for its diversity. Families of the refugee and immigrant participants attended in large numbers which is not always the case. A standing ovation ended the evening with a great feeling of camaraderie and good spirit.

Cottbus

Despite challenges in participant attendance, we were fortunate to have successful workshops and performances in Cottbus. We were able to achieve meetings with city officials and the head of one of the larger comprehensive schools, as well as the director of the Stadthalle, resulting in the cobbling together of several groups of students as well as the lowering of prices charged by the Stadthalle for the technical setup, rehearsal and performance. Fortunately, the date for the final Dancing to Connect performance fit into the Interkulturelle Woche – a City-wide festival of intercultural events. This, along with last-minute word of mouth, secured us a large and enthusiastic crowd at the performance and a beautiful review in the local newspaper.

We were supported in Cottbus by two professional dancers from Berlin who commuted to Cottbus each day. Amr Karkout and Medhat Aldaabal, both Syrian refugees who have settled in Germany, served as teacher trainees in previous Battery Dance programs. They have become equipped with the skills to support the Dancing to Connect program. We included solos by each Amr and Medhat in the final performance – a practice we had not done before; but which seemed natural and added variety to the program.

Weinheim

Returning to Weinheim was a welcome relief since our partners there, Alexander Haas, Halo Azad and Eva Gersbach had worked with us twice before and had taken care of many preliminaries before we arrived. The Stadthalle was once again donated by the City of Weinheim. Syrian refugee Saeed Hani served for the second time as a teacher trainee, traveling from the City of Trier, and staying with the group in Weinheim for the duration of the tour. Having had a successful experience with Amr and Medhat in Cottbus, Battery Dance invited Saeed to perform in Weinheim and he presented a beautiful solo.

Kassel

Preparatory Visit

Artistic Director and Project Manager Jonathan Hollander and Production Designer Leonardo Hidalgo spent a day in Kassel a week prior to the start of the program.  They met with Charlene Hackley for the purpose of confirming all of the details of what was a first-time program in Kassel.  They met local host institutions, visited all of the workshop spaces as well as the performance venue, met with the vendors who were providing the lighting and sound equipment for the performance, met Charlene's office supervisor who had approved the project, and checked out the hotel where the group would be staying and the public transportation hub nearby.  Charlene had done a meticulous job with the arrangements, and they returned to Weinheim the same evening, feeling confident that the program would be managed well.  

Tragedy in Halle

On October 9th, the first day of the Dancing to Connect workshops in Kassel, an anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic attack targeting a synagogue and kebab store occurred in Halle, just two hours away. The attack and our learning the story of the ”controversial” Monument to Strangers and Refugees, pictured right, reinforced our mission in Kassel and demonstrated the continued need in the region to bring people together to change perceptions and build unity.

Workshops

The Dancing to Connect workshops took place at a variety of community locations across the city of Kassel over the course of four days, for five hours each day. The 44 youth who participated in the program were dedicated to the workshop process and schedules. Ages of the participants ranged from 11 – 26. Half of participants identified as being German. The remaining participants identified nationalities from 14 different countries. Through the workshops, the participants had an opportunity to express themselves in a new way and to explore their creativity. Sequential activities were utilized to first get participants comfortable with self-expression, creative movement, and one-another, and later to get participants to find out more about themselves and those they were working with. Through this process, five new original dance works were created by the workshop groups that told the stories of the participants.

Six local dancers assisted with the workshops, mirroring Battery Dance’s teaching artists. Through their participation, and exposure to Battery Dance’s teacher training manual, the local dancers were trained over the course of the week in the Dancing to Connect methodology.

Film Screening

A free public screening of Moving Stories, which chronicles Battery Dance’s work across four countries, had its first Germany premiere at the Gloria Kino Theatre in Kassel. Approximately 75 audience members made up of Dancing to Connect participants, their families, and the general public attended.

Performances

The five original student works premiered at SOZO Visions In Motion Halle 2. Prior to the performance, Production Director Leonardo Hidalgo worked with technical staff and equipment vendors to set up the lighting, sound, and raised seating in the large studio. To accommodate an overflow audience, black curtains were also removed from adjacent the seating area. Two performances took place at 5pm and at 7pm. Each performance had an overflow audience of 150 each, with some audience members standing, and students sitting on mats placed on the ground.

Both performances elicited rapturous applause from participants, encouraging and motivating their fellow students, and from the audience that watched the emotional stories of the students performed on stage. While the stamina of the participants, especially the younger students, to perform in a second performance was of concern prior to performance day, this proved to be a non-concern as students gained even greater momentum and energy after the first performance.

Short Film

A short film that documents the process and performance in Kassel was shot by Murad Abu-Eisheh, a Jordanian filmmaker living in Germany as an international fellow at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Murad’s most recent documentary was featured at DOK.fest Munchen.

Battery Dance returned for its 3rd consecutive year to cities across Germany with Dancing to Connect for Refugee Integration. Each workshop followed the parameters Battery Dance employs in all of its Dancing to Connect programs: +/- 20 students, ages 14 and up, in each of 19 individual workshops. Twenty hours of practice time were spent in the creation of original dance works comprising movement sequences generated by the participants. The workshops culminated in performances on large stages with fully professional theatrical conditions alongside performances by the Battery Dancers.

The schedule of workshops was based upon the academic calendar of the German Federal States, beginning in Sachsen-Anhalt where Battery Dance returned to Dessau-Roßlau and the surrounding cities of Bitterfeld-Wolfen and Wittenberg for the first time since 2009. Three workshops took place in Dessau with one each in B-W and Wittenberg. With the anticipation of an audience in excess of the capacity of the Marienkirche, an historic church in the center of Dessau-Roßlau that has been converted into a stunning performance venue, two performances were scheduled. City officials and leaders from the Landeschulamt invested great care in organizing the program. Among other things, they arranged for dance flooring to be laid on top of the stone surface of the stage area to ameliorate the hardness. Exceptional hospitality was laid on, with tours of the city and a celebratory reception following the final performance rendering a true sense of partnership. Despite what appeared to be minimal publicity, the Marienkirche was packed with every seat taken and some standing on the sides for the matinee and evening performances.

Next, the Company returned to Brandenburg State, with workshops in Potsdam (2), Rathenow and Oranienberg. The Battery Dancers were supported by 5 teacher trainees, one of whom was a Syrian refugee and professional dancer, who had supported the workshop program in 2017. The students gave their all in the final performance at Schlosstheater Rheinsberg, which was documented on video by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Brandenburg. Another separate performance by students from the Steuben Gesamtschule was presented before a full house at the Reithalle of the Hans Otto Theater for a special ceremony honoring innovative programs for refugees across the region.

Responsibility for the 3 programs in Weinheim was handled by the head teacher from the Helen Keller Schule in Weinheim, Alexander Haas, who had done so in 2017 as well. The school provided the necessary spaces for three workshops; and music, theater and social work teachers supported the workshops along with Iraqi refugee Halo Azad (who had been a participant in a Dancing to Connect program in Erbil, Iraq, in 2012!). Simultaneously, a group of refugee students in Mannheim worked with two Battery Dance teaching artists supported by Syrian refugee Saeed Hani acting as a teacher trainee and translator. Saeed has established himself as a professional dancer/choreographer based in Trier and relocated for the duration of the program to Mannheim. His German, Arabic and English skills made him an invaluable support – and learning Battery Dance’s arts education methodology will add to his portfolio of skills for future work.

The finale among the schools in Weinheim and Mannheim took place in a sports hall at Heddesheim since it had proved impossible to source a theater venue in the participating cities. A good crowd showed up to celebrate the achievement of the students, with Halo Azad serving as the master of ceremonies.

Dancing to Connect for Refugee Integration was chosen as the opening event of 2018 American Days in Stuttgart . Christiane Pyka and her staff at the DAZ organized the entire project, beginning with an opening press conference and a meet-and-greet reception for all teachers and local coordinators from the Theaterhaus Stuttgart with the Battery Dance team. Battery’s teaching artists fanned out across the metropolitan region the next day, provided with maps and public transit tickets provided by the City. Workshops reached diverse schools with an age-spread of 14 – 22 years old and various educational levels. The theater was packed full and received a standing ovation from VIPs as well as parents and teachers from the participating schools.

For the second year in a row, Battery Dance transformed its Dancing to Connect methodology to address the humanitarian issue of refugee integration across the German nation. The plan for 2017 included two phases, necessitated by the school schedules in the Federal States of Baden-Württemberg, Sachsen-Anhalt and Brandenburg.

Each workshop followed the parameters Battery Dance employs in all of its Dancing to Connect programs: +/- 20 students, ages 14 and up, comprise each workshop. Twenty hours of workshop time were spent in the creation of an original dance work in which the participants generate movement sequences that are shaped by BD teaching artists and their teacher trainees into works of choreography which the participants perform on a large stage with fully professional theatrical conditions alongside performances by Battery Dance from its repertoire.

The unique element of this initiative is in the composition of each workshop group – a mixture of refugees, some of whom are unaccompanied minors, with their German counterparts. Changes were observed in each workshop – German students began to cross the chasm that separates them from refugees, refugees became more at ease in expressing themselves physically and verbally, stories were shared and empathy increased. By the performance day, groups were cheering each other, participants from different backgrounds formed an indivisible ensemble, pride was overflowing. Refugees from conflict zones in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Kosovo, Gambia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and elsewhere had made their way to Germany in harrowing conditions, escaping from unimaginable devastation. Seeing them free themselves, at least temporarily, from the grip of their nightmarish past, and their hankering for their families and friends back home, was tremendously moving.

An evaluation of the program was undertaken by BD staff using matched entrance and exit questionnaires filled out by participants in each of the three program sites. The results have since been analyzed and reveal several significant improvements experienced by the participants of the program.

In the words of Chargé d’Affairs Kent Logsdon, U.S. Embassy Berlin:

I would like to take this opportunity to commend Jonathan Hollander and his dancers for all that they do to promote intercultural understanding. Over the past twenty years, the Battery Dance Company has performed in over 60 countries on 6 continents. It is a dance troupe of international renown. But what makes the Battery Dance truly incredible is its commitment to the Dancing to Connect initiative that it launched over a decade ago.

Both my wife Michell (U.S. Embassy Cultural Attaché) and I have devoted our careers to diplomacy. We have both seen many worthwhile and gratifying examples of cultural diplomacy. Well, Battery Dance is cultural diplomacy – dance diplomacy – at its best. It brings people together through creativity and team building. As Jonathan Hollander says: "You can't dance with someone you don’t trust."

In my opinion, that is the key to the Battery Dance’s success as an agent of change and social action. Dancing to Connect has held workshops focused on providing hope, confidence, leadership and life skills to the least advantaged youth in society. It has conducted sessions focused on combating xenophobia and ending discrimination whether it be based on religion, nationality, ethnicity, age, or class. It has shown how public perceptions of the disabled can be changed, and brought attention to the needs of disabled communities around the world.

They are all part now of a broader community, not just here in Freiburg, but a global Dancing to Connect community. For just as Dancing to Connect becomes embedded in the countries it visits, it also communicates a sense of awareness of the world as a whole and an openness to different cultures. This in the inspiration and passion that drives Jonathan and his dancers. And it is something that we can all learn from.

On June 23rd, Battery Dance Company returned to Breisach, the city where it had staged the acclaimed “Dances for the Blue House” in 2006, to participate in the 10th Anniversary commemorating the opening of the Blue House as a living memorial to the Jews of Breisach. Seven members of the Company participated – 5 performers, artistic director and technical director.

Three events took place in close succession before an audience estimated at 200. First, a series of site-specific performances were presented within 5 rooms of the Blue House:

• a community room on the ground floor where a BDC dancer performed along with musician Thomas Wenk (resident of Breisach, professor of music at the Freiburg Conservatory)

• A prayer room in which dossiers of Jewish families are stored in a wooden ‘ark’

• A study room where the recently deceased Cantor, Ralph Eisenmann, had prepared his sermons

• The former bedroom of Eisenmann and his wife, where a rock came through the window, a precursor to the events that were to follow in the Nazi movement

• A small kitchen where the audience watched the dancer and reader from the open doorway.

The audience was asked to form a ‘silent procession’ and filed through the rooms, following a pathway that was marked on the floor with colored tape. There were readers in each room who recited passages from texts included as an addendum to this report. After the audience had filed out of the house and seated itself on chairs and benches that had been placed on the closed-off street and in the shade of a large tree, the dancers dashed out of the house. They had changed from their cream-colored silk costumes into brightly colored “rain suits” and ran around the side yard of the Blue House, climbed a scaffolding, and ceremoniously unwrapped the plastic sheeting covering a newly installed sculpture created by German artist Heike Endemann. While the audience took respite in the garden of the Blue House, with cakes and coffee, the Battery Dance Company team was transported to the Breisgau Halle where the Company’s tech director had been working all day with local crew on preparing the stage, lighting and sound for a full-fledged performance. At 7 pm, the performance took place, featuring a new work, “Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost” by Polish choreographer Jacek Luminski and two segments from “AUTOBIOGRAPHICA”. Introductory remarks were given by the Public Affairs Officer of the Consulate General Frankfurt and by Battery Dance Company Artistic Director. The audience included a huge span of generations with local children of under 10 years old all the way up to people in the 80’s. Jewish Holocaust survivors and families of survivors from Breisach came from as far away as the U.S., Switzerland, U.K., Israel and France. For them, the events had a special resonance. However, the local audience from Breisach and Freiburg, including 4 young adults who had participated in the original Dances for the Blue House and Dancing to Connect programs, as well as teachers from Freiburg schools who had coordinated the earlier programs, also attended and accorded powerful appreciation for all of the events.

Battery Dance Company performed here as a part of its Dancing to Connect program in February 2011. This was a groundbreaking, multinational project uniting Israeli and Palestinian teens through dance for the first time in Bochum, Germany. Four BDC teaching artists conducted an intensive week of workshops with mixed groups of students from Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Bochum, brought together under the auspices of Encounters, Peter Maffay Foundation & the NRW Government. A trilateral youth exchange, this iteration of Dancing to Connect aimed to train the young people as mediators in the Middle East conflict and as exemplars of tolerance and dialogue. DtC introduced the universal languages of dance and music to build communicative bridges among students whose backgrounds are starkly polarized. This program was continued in June when the same German and Palestinian youth were invited to Israel to continue the historic collaboration. See Kfar Menachem, Israel for more information.

Please see Germany 2010 Overview for the narrative in Aachen, Bochum-Wattenscheid, Essen-Kray, and Witten.

Please see Germany 2010 Overview for Narrative of Frankfurt and Wiesbaden.

Battery Dance Company’s Dancing to Connect program in Germany entered its 5th season in June, 2010, with workshops stretching across 10 cities in 4 Federal States. The over-arching theme of the 2010 program was Inclusion/Exclusion. This theme was first posited by Inka Thunecke, Director of the Heinrich-Böll- Stiftung-Brandenburg, at the end of the 2009 iteration of Dancing to Connect that had been centered on the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and on which H-B-S-B and BDC had first collaborated. Inka was inspired by the impact of the teaching artists of Battery Dance Company and its partners from Drastic Action who she had seen working with children of Turkish immigrants in Berlin and learning disabled jobless youth in the depressed town of Eberswalde. She had witnessed how the DtC project injected a spirit of optimism, empowerment and self-realization for these ‘have-nots’ of German society.

10 American teaching artists from Battery Dance Company and Drastic Action collaborated on the Dancing to Connect workshops in 2010, with program management handled by BDC Artistic Director and technical support for each of the five culminating performances by BDC’s production designer.

In the original plan, German free-lance dancers and dance teachers would have been trained in the Dancing to Connect methodology in each city where workshops were held. In this way, the gains of DtC could be multiplied even after the American artists had departed. Unfortunately, funding was not sufficient to realize this plan in full; however, in five of the cities -- Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Potsdam, Wittenberg and Witten – training was held with local teaching partners. In the first two cities, trainees were selected from the pool of graduate students in the Masters Degree program in Contemporary Dance Pedagogy at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. Throughout the tour, an Australian dancer accompanied the team, gaining training through a fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts.

The multi-layered, international cast of characters that had come together to forward Dancing to Connect in Germany might appear to be the result of a carefully constructed business plan. However, the truth is very different: In 2005, we envisioned the project in Germany to be a one-off event.

Looking back at the formative stages that had laid the groundwork for this unexpected evolution in Germany, a conversation in Washington with a long-time staffer at the Department of State’s Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau had provided guidance that was pivotal. She suggested that we apply for Speakers Grants from the US Embassy in Berlin in order to lay the groundwork for what was, at the time, a small and contained program. The meetings and talks with different stakeholders in Freiburg and Berlin, representatives of educational, funding and community institutions, yielded unexpected results. It was suggested that we exploit the opportunity of having our dance companies in Germany to work with youth in schools. Here was one of the keys to our success: the fact that the formative notion of a youth outreach program was offered by the host country. In the next 6 years, unimagined developments occurred: the project continued in Freiburg for the next three years but also expanded to 23 other cities; funding continued every year from the US Embassy in Berlin and Consulates in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Leipzig; but in 2009 and 2010, U.S. support was overtaken by support from the German Government and German foundations, guaranteeing the growth and sustainability of the program.