Kategorien
Allgemein Flutgraben Performances Residencies

Planned funding cuts are a disaster for dance artists

As one of the many grass-root artistic initiatives that make up Berlin’s vibrant and internationally renowned independent dance scene, we would like to express our concern in the face of the announced budget cuts in Berlin’s public arts funding. We feel it is necessary and urgent to emphasise a perspective that has been completely invisible in the ongoing discussion: dance and performance artists and their particularly precarious working conditions in Berlin.

Berlin has art galleries and museums for the visual arts, concert halls for music, and theatres for drama and opera. Unlike these art disciplines, and unlike many other cities known for culture, there is no public institution for dance in Berlin. While the city has several national theatres all of which are funded with millions of euros, choreographers and dancers have to work without any comparable supportive infrastructure. Because of this situation they have to work from project to project. All of these projects are realised via public project funds.

It is with great concern and anxiety that we read that these already (in comparison) small funds are now to be cut by 14% (we read that €500,000 is to be cut from €3.3 million fundings for theater AND dance)! This would mean that the funding that is the heart of artistic production is cut even more than the big institutions! What is a very small amount to consolidate a €5 billion debt means a lot of grants, projects funded and ideas realised. This is increasing the precariousness of dance artists to a point where it would not be possible to continue to work.

If public funding for artistic production is cut, this will TERRIBLY DAMAGE the Berlin dance scene!

With Flutgraben Performances we have been working with choreographers and dance artists for over ten years. We organise events to present new work, provide space for dance artists to produce it and host a community to discuss it. Together with other initiatives, we are the backbone of the Berlin dance scene. We already had to deal with dramatically insufficient funding, as every Senate jury reports every year. If this already low funding is reduced even more, we lose our basis to create art and Berlin will lose what it is famous for.

Dance artists show their work in Sophiensaele, HAU, Tanzfabrik, Dock 11, and other places.. None of these venues have proper production budgets. It is the artists themselves who have to organise production money from somewhere else for their projects to be able to present them in the existing infrastructure. If public project fundings are lowered even more, dance artists will not be able to produce any work and there will be no shows in theaters.

We raise our voices against cuts in public funding; funding is the only possibility to allow for artistic production, research and rehearsal spaces. Cutting these funds will not bring substantial savings on a city level but it will cause devastating and irreversible damage to dance as an artform in Berlin.

As cultural senator Joe Chialo himself said at a recent discussion at the Schaubühne: the independent art scene does not cost a lot of money for the benefit it brings to the city. We agree. But the dramatically underfinanced independent art scene and dance in particular is very fragile. Dance has no home base and can therefore be easily destroyed.

We see currently a lot of discussions about the importance of cultural institutions and we support the fight against cuts in their budgets, too. But the dance scene in this city does not have any institutions at all. Dance productions need public project fundings to be able to create. We ask you to be aware not to irreversibly destroy one of the city’s greatest artistic assets.

Flutgraben Performances is an artist-run initiative for research, production and presentation of dance and body-based art, currently directed by the choreographers Clément Layes, Moritz Majce and Adam Man.

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

FPR in TanzRaumBerlin

FPR

The three of us (Adam, Clément, Moritz) wrote a text for TanzRaumBerlin about Flutgraben Performances Residencies – the concept, the ideas, the practice – and about the increasing importance and significance of residencies in general. We are happy and grateful that we can discover and unfold this exciting format together with all of you who join and participate!

Read it HERE

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

Flutgraben Performances Residencies: Residency in April 2024

We are happy to announce Mahsa Saloor as our next resident artist this year.

Mahsa Saloor is a Berlin based artist and works between painting, performance, poetry, and film. Their practice explores themes of nature, desire, relationality, and spirituality. Mahsa’s poetry explores the relationship between eros, metaphysics, the sacred, and sensuality. Their performances are often based on their writing practice.

At Flutgraben Performances Residencies, Mahsa plans to collaborate with performers for their upcoming project, Angels Too Require Care. The work centers around an androgynous lesbian vampire painter who, while navigating chronic pain, becomes obsessed with an angel that travels between earthly and celestial realms. Using visual and narrative elements, the movement practice will incorporate notions of longing and loss, through touch and sensuality. The project explores themes of corporeal sensuality, care, queer desire, belonging, and intimacy.

We wish Mahsa an inspiring and generative time during their residency!

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

Flutgraben Performances Residencies: Residency #2 in March 2024

We are happy to announce Mei Long Bao as our next resident artist in 2024.

Mei Long Bao (they/them) is a Danish-Chinese activist, performer, dance artist, musician and producer based in Berlin. They have worked as a drummer/vocalist in the band Felines with several European tours and album releases; and as a performer/drummer/vocalist in the activist art group GP&PLS. Their work is deeply rooted in the in-betweens, both as interdisciplinarity and neverending translation between artistic expressions, but likewise as the situatedness of identity, as non-binary, Chinese-Danish (colonised-coloniser), working class-academic, and amateuristic punk perfectionist monk. Mei’s current artistic practice entails performing in works by other choreographers, teaching traditional Chinese movement practices, making soundscapes for dance pieces and working on their own artistic work based on the Chinese straight sword.

In their time during the residency at Flutgraben Mei is working on ‚dull blade, keep sharpening‘: ‘dull blade, keep sharpening’ (working title) is a practice-performance centered around the straight sword in Chinese martial arts. A work in progress/digress, it inquires into the in-between of sword and practitioner. “I use the sword as a prosthesis, modifying my body, detachable and pointing at something I lack. I use the sword as a tool, to focus or think. The sword can be a symbol, of power or phallos, of violence or equilibrium. I practice the sword as a discipline, a work of becoming, a form that transforms. I view the sword as an object of metal and wood, erect, hard and malleable.”

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

Flutgraben Performances Residencies: Residency in March 2024

We are happy to announce Corey Scott Gilbert as our next resident artist in 2024.

Reflecting further on the idea of “trembling thinking” in the context of diaspora, I extended an invitation to Corey Scott Gilbert to join the Flutgraben Performance Residencies. For many years I’ve known Corey as a performer and only recently as an emerging choreographer. I perceive his creative process as exploring the oscillations and frequencies present in the room, while being attuned to his extraordinary technical training.  I’m excited to exchange our experiences as performers, how we work with “the gaze” and how “vibrations” appear in each of our processes.

Laurie Young, Flutgraben Performances Residencies artist 2023, on her choice for Corey Scott Gilbert

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

Flutgraben Performances Residencies: Residency in February 2024

We are happy to announce Cintia Rangel as our resident artist in 2024.

Cintia Rangel, born in Rio de Janeiro, is an artist who transcends borders through dance. With an academic education in art history, Cintia found in dance not only a form of expression, but a true lifestyle. In her own words she rejects the idea of a »professional dancer« Cintia and »a dancer outside of dance«, because for her, dance, like art, permeates all aspects of her existence. Cintia spins a unique narrative through her movements. She strives to build a bridge between past and present, using contemporary tools to explore new forms of expression and communication through dance. Her dedication to dance goes beyond the stage and extends to everyday life, where she sees every movement as an artistic expression of her own lifestyle. For Cintia, dance is more than just a profession, it is a form of intrinsic communication, a language that transcends words and becomes an integral part of her identity. By choosing dance as her mode of expression, Cintia not only inspires her audience, but also questions the dichotomy between professional and personal life. Her passionate dedication to dance and art as an authentic and integrated lifestyle sets her apart as a unique artist who transforms every step into a continuous and captivating narrative.

We wish Cintia a great and inspiring time during her residency!

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

jee chan: Open Studio, 5 August 2023

laut jerebu (the sea where land is out of sight)

This sharing takes the shape of a conversation between jee chan, Jelena Golubović and Bilawa Ade Respati. Drawing upon our respective lived experiences across Southeast Asia and Southeast Europe, we discuss issues surrounding language, mapping, nationhood and diaspora in relation to the construction of identity. The conversation will be interspersed with moments of song from the Central Javanese gamelan tradition—the context in which the three of us met, as well as a point of reference as we flow through the afternoon. This event marks the end of jee chan’s research residency hosted at Flutgraben Performances (July/August 2023).

The event is free of charge, and requires registration. There is a capacity of 30 guests. Please send an email to flutgrabenperformances@gmail.com to confirm your attendance on a first come, first served basis.

5 August 2023
14 – 16h
Public in Private studio, Flutgraben e.V. Am Flutgraben 3
12435 Berlin

Pip Studio is located at the 1st floor of Flutgraben e.V. building.
The building isn’t accessible to wheelchairs.

jee chan is an artist and choreographer whose practice often examines the potential of the displaced body, driven by their research concerning ancestral epistemologies and oral histories. As a leitmotif in their work, the sea has evoked themes of migration, memory, grief and transformation to address deep historical violence, particularly through the lens of island Southeast Asia. www.zuntukyun.com

jelena golubović’s interests, creative pursuits and scholarly endeavours stretch over music, the visual arts and conceptual art: interplays between language, societies, and visual thinking—communication of the unspeakable through the absence of verbal expression—transregional and border thinking.

Bilawa Ade Respati is a musician based in Berlin, performing on and writing for the Javanese Gamelan and the guitar. His current artistic interest is in the dialectic between tradition and innovation, where he experiments with the amalgam of algorithmic music composition and the idiom of gamelan music. https://sastraswara.site/

Special thanks to Ana Bibiscus, Toni Flügel, stefan pente, Thow Xin Wei, Lindhu Raras, and the team of Flutgraben Performance Residencies—Tiphaine Carrère Loquet, Clément Layes, Moritz Majce and Sandra Man. The residency program is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. The event is kindly supported by the Rumah Budaya Indonesia (House of Indonesian Cultures), a project of the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Berlin

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

Flutgraben Performances Residencies: Residency in August 2023

We are happy to announce Emil Ertl as our next resident artist in 2023.

Emil Ertl is a dancer and choreographer based in Berlin. For their time at Flutgraben Performances Residencies, they will collaborate with performance artist Onur Agbaba. Serpentine serpentine never a straight line serpentine serpentine serpentine never a straight line serpentine. Along the lines of Peaches’ song Serpentine, Ertl and Agbaba investigate the notion of creases, wrinkles and folds.
The German word for straightening is »glätten«. Straightened things appear to function, to be correct, to be clean. Wrinkled or crumpled stuff on the other hand commonly is thought of as messy, wild or inappropriate. In this research, Ertl and Agbaba wish to dissect this dichotomy and examine the potential of the act of crumpling. If the act of straightening stands for heteronormativity, can the act of crumpling be a queer act of resistance? How can we use choreography as a tool to research the act of straightening things out?

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

Flutgraben Performances Residencies: Residency in July/August 2023

We are happy to announce jee chan as our next resident artist in July/August 2023.

jee is an artist and choreographer whose works are characterised by investigations into memory, displacement and grief, and often question the potential of the displaced body. Their current dance practice is driven by their research concerning ancestral epistemologies and oral histories. As a leitmotif in jee’s work, the sea has evoked themes of conquest, migration, transformation and healing to address deep historical violence, particularly through the lens of island Southeast Asia. jee will use the residency to develop choreographic scores for a new work, based upon experimental breath techniques which emerge from the relationship between the breath and the cyclical movement of the ocean’s tides. They are interested in situating this practice in dialogue with collaborators who hold immigrant histories, both in one-to-one and collective formats.

We wish jee a wonderful and inspiring time during their residency!

Kategorien
Flutgraben Performances Residencies

Flutgraben Performances Residencies: Residency in May/June 2023

We are happy to announce Laurie Young as our next resident artist in May/June 2023 (from Open Call #3 – 2023 // please check our ongoing Open Call #4 till 2nd June).

Laurie is a Berlin-based dance artist who focuses on the embodiment of unauthorised histories and their representation and how relationships are choreographed between human and non human in the theater, museum and city. She will base the residency on a choreographic and therapeutic search around trembling, navigating between Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) and the concept of trembling thinking of Édouard Glissant. She will research haptic sounds as vibratory practice by creating installation structures. She also wants to bridge relationships with organisations aiming to create a safer space of empowerment. During her residency she will offer TRE sessions and engage in experimental collaborations with an interdisciplinary focus on trembling.

We wish Laurie a vibrant and inspiring time during her residency!