Yotam Peled spricht auf einem Diskussionspanel

Take a seat – for dance

explore dance was a guest at the Federal Cultural Policy Congress on June 14 in Berlin with the Pop Up Where The Boys Are by Yotam Peled. With the forum contribution Dance as a development space for (new) guiding principles, we asked how young people and artists can learn together and from each other through artistic production processes. Participants: Cosima Ruppert, Jette Zierke and Luna Rehnus, members of the JugendTanzCompany at the fabrik Potsdam; Dr. Kerstin Evert, director of the choreographic center K3 | Tanzplan Hamburg; Yotam Peled, choreographer; Nicolas Knipping and Andrius Nekrasoff, performers; Dr. Ulrike Wörner von Faßmann, dance scientist and dramaturge (moderator)

Dr. Ulrike Wörner von Faßmann | July 5, 2024

In English there is the expression ‘to have a seat at the table’. Originally called for in the 1970s by US House of Representatives Shirley Chisholm, in today’s usage it means that a person or group is involved in important discussions and their voice is given relevance in decision-making. At the Federal Congress of the Cultural Policy Society on June 13 and 14, 2024, explore dance took such a place to contribute viewpoints, help shape topics and make the voices of young people heard: In a forum consisting of a performance of Where The Boys Are by Yotam Peled and a conversation with artists and three young project participants, dance was discussed as a development space for (new) guiding principles and the potential of intergenerational dialogue was worked out within the framework of an artistic process. In addition to the 13 forums selected from numerous applications, the congress program consisted of prominent lectures and panels with actors from the fields of politics, science and art. The thematic focus of the congress this year took up the current political situation and questioned the role of culture, cultural policy and cultural and political education in dealing with polarization. In the explore dance forum, these aspects were transferred to the exchange between children and young people with the artistic teams, which is central to the project, and the space created for the perspective of young people was presented as an important source of inspiration for updating role models, values ​​and power relations.

To be taken seriously

So what does this intergenerational exchange look like and how do the three young people themselves experience the space created for their perspectives? Jette Zierke, a member of the JugendTanzCompany at fabrik Potsdam, says of the encounters during rehearsals in the context of explore dance: “When the artists come, it is always a give and take. We give something of ourselves, the artists give something back to us, which is very nice.” In order for this dialogue between the generations and between the worlds of everyday school life and art to take place, a great deal of openness and curiosity is needed on both sides. The feeling of being taken seriously is repeatedly mentioned in the conversation as a central quality in the meetings with the artists. What should be a matter of course is formulated in the comments as a positive example in comparison to other experiences with adults. The feeling of being noticed and heard encourages a re-examination of hierarchies and interpretive authority, it allows confidence in the relevance of one’s own voice to grow. The voices and impressions of the young people are regularly sought in the process support at explore dance. “When we see the finished piece,” explains JugendTanzCompany dancer Cosima Ruppert, “we write about how the piece touched us and what we took away from it. We then give the notes to the artists.”

When prejudices disappear

The wording alone shows how carefully the three students deal with feedback. No general quality judgments are formulated, but rather their own experiences are articulated. The impressions of the target audience are a central element for the character of the explore dance initiative and the development of the respective pieces. How can young people be encouraged to get involved so openly? This is the question that the artistic team around Yotam Peled asked themselves in the run-up to the visits to the school. They put themselves in the shoes of the students and considered how they could encourage them to shape the process. “Often the school context is more such that the adults convey or show something,” says the choreographer. “We wanted to reverse this imprint – we didn’t want to teach anything, but to learn something.” The encouragement was mainly provided through an impartiality. So no attempt was made to take anything concrete away from the meetings, but the focus was on dialogue.

In order to enable the discussions, conditions were created to facilitate exchange and various hurdles to expressing oneself in a group were taken into account. For Cosima Ruppert, Jette Zierke and Luna Rehnus, this honest interest in their opinion and the space created for them to exchange ideas was an important form of appreciation, according to the feedback. “The special thing overall,” Peled sums up, “was that we didn’t have to imagine the audience in this process, but could be with the students and they felt like ambassadors of the piece to us.” Two groups that would otherwise remain separated on the stage and in the auditorium enter into exchange with one another in this form of joint process. They speak from different perspectives about the art form of dance and the specific topics being negotiated. It is these forms of encounter that create openings and can overcome preconceived concepts of the other person. “It’s a beautiful moment when the prejudices disappear,” recalls the dancer Andrius Nekrasoff, and is confirmed by Nikolas Knipping, who highlights the emergence of a very special form of togetherness. This togetherness, the result of a joint work process in an artistic context, shakes up the myth of unattainable art and the concern about the loss of magic through proximity. In doing so, it questions practices, norms and hierarchies related to limited accessibility and creates the kind of new guiding principles that the Federal Congress of the Cultural Policy Society has been looking for.

where the boys are kupoge

Exchange at eye level

Yotam Peled also sums it up: “What has changed a lot for me since the process of Where The Boys Are is the idea of ​​not creating in isolation, but in exchange with representatives of the audience. These encounters naturally take up a lot of time, but since this experience I have always looked for such points of contact to see what what we are doing does to those present and vice versa. And I always have the question in the back of my mind of who this work is for and what relevance it can have for them. Regardless of whether a work is for young people or adults, this structure at explore dance has shown me that this exchange is very important. Especially in times of crisis, we cannot exclude ourselves from society in order to make art.”

Representation is key

The experiences with young people have already triggered numerous processes at explore dance. Artists are thinking more about their audience and the direction is increasingly focusing on impulses to bring contemporary dance art to places where it would not otherwise be found. The perspective of young people is increasingly being consulted: when selecting the choreographers for the new explore dance productions in 2024, for example, three representatives of the JugendTanzCompany Potsdam reviewed the concepts received together with the artistic project management team. “It was very interesting to see that the adults often had a different opinion of ours,” recalls Jette Zierke, “I think it’s very good that the group for whom the pieces are intended can also have a say in the selection.” In this process, too, assumptions were replaced by representative mood pictures and representatives of the target group were spoken to instead of about ‘the young people’. After the discussion in the forum at the Federal Congress of the Cultural Policy Society, Cosima Ruppert, Jette Zierke and Luna Rehnus also expressed their wish to speak with them rather than about them. They agreed that they would be happy to be available for such events again.

Taking a place at the important table of cultural policy and playing a multi-voiced role is a major concern of the explore dance initiative in order to advance its goal. The aim is to do work that does not just have a short-term effect and then fizzles out, but rather that thinks sustainably about stable structures, established relationships and artistic development in the field of contemporary dance for young audiences – and confidently demands the conditions to make this possible with combined forces.