The Instrument - Chapter Six - The Beating

Migros-Kulturprozent Tanzfestival Steps 2016
Symposium von Mittwoch, 13. April 2016, Volkshaus Zürich
Kollisionen und Konjunktionen
Von der Zukunft früherer und den Bedingungen heutiger Aufbrüche
Die Zukunft des Tanzes für die Zukunft der Welt
Acht Tanzspezialisten formulieren acht Statements zu den beiden folgenden Fragen:
Was wird den Tanz in Zukunft am stärksten beeinflussen? // In the future, what will
most strongly influence dance?
Und:
Wie wird der Tanz die Zukunft am stärksten beeinflussen? // How will dance most
strongly influence the future?
Fragen an 8 Personen:
Antonio Cuenca, Helena Waldmann, Madeline Ritter, Giovanni di Palma,
Chris Leuenberger, Gideon Obarzanek, Simone Aughterlony, Pedro Machado
Christoph Leuenberger
With the present refugee crisis more and more people face the challenge to adapt to
new environments and social realities. I expect dance as a social art form to
respond to that challenge by cultivating an awareness and appreciation for the
specificity of different cultures’ traditional as well as contemporary dance idioms.
Dance has the power to promote cross-cultural understanding on a much more
visceral and immediate level because the language barrier isn’t in the way. I believe
that dance, both as a performing art form and as a a social practice, has been and
continues to be an important resource in bringing people together and in bringing
forth new styles and formats of moving and sharing.
Looking back at our roots as well as at our contemporary cultures and sub-cultures
can be a great source of inspiration for all of us dealing with questions regarding
multiculturalism, identity and uprootedness.
Helena Waldmann
Die Frage ist doch eher: Wer will und kann (außer den Künstlern selbst) diese
Kunstform überhaupt beeinflussen wollen? In der Regel sind dies die Geldgeber, die
für ihre finanzielle Leistung eine Gegengabe erwarten - und den Tanz so
instrumentalisieren. Je mehr die Politik, zum Beispiel, von einzelnen Wirkungen des
Tanzes überzeugt wird, desto eher kanalisiert sie die Förderung z.B. in Richtung
Tanz in Schulen oder Community Work. Je mehr sie von der Harmlosigkeit unseres
Tuns überzeugt ist, desto mehr lässt sie uns in Ruhe und ohne Mittel.
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Antonio Cuenca
In the future, geography and civil rights issues will increasingly influence dance. The
will for a cultural and specific social freedom has a big impact on the way we move
— and therefore in the way we dance. Facing the need to invent a common
language in a context of social, political or cultural struggle, people develop new
dance moves. It's up to us to join that global and creative dynamic.
Simone Aughterlony
To be asked at this moment what the future of dance could look like feels somewhat
uncanny as I have just begun a research which looks at manifesting as one of it’s
lines of inquiry. We have begun to interrogate the phenomenology of manifestos
and how they solicit an inherent problematic: the fear that all things won’t fit to
succeed in the imagined dominant path. That some things must be lost or
eradicated.
What if, in the future, we didn’t fear the loss or disappearance or didn’t deem
necessary the eradication of what is marginal but engaged with a inclusive politic
that allows all things to still exist and be present even when they might be
reorganized, even when they might look different. What if there was an everexpansive horizon where we no longer felt obliged to rid ourselves of the things that
supposedly suspend or delay progress.
We don’t know what bodies can do but can open up to the virtual! If we understand
the virtual as being the sum of all possible alternative subjectivities and possible
futures; sources of energy that are enacted then the present is made active, vibrant
and liveable.
Giovanni di Palma
A hope a dream a desire, the power of dance in the future giving us even more
chances to grow among differences awakening more sensibility to creativity beauty
and love for each other .
Pedro Machado
Dance will have a strong role in the future in bringing people together and to remind
us of something about us that's inherently human.
Madeline Ritter
Mein Körper ist ein angstbesetzter Körper. Ich muss ihn in der richtigen Weise
ernähren, ihn fit halten und alles dafür tun, damit er möglichst lange am Leben
bleibt. Aber egal was ich auch tue, er wird am Ende versagen. Ein tanzender Körper
überwindet die Angst. Tanzend entsteht eine tiefe Verbindung – zu mir selbst,
meinem gegenüber und der Welt. Und so tragen uns unsere tanzenden Körper in die
Zukunft.
(English version: My body is body of fear. I have to feed it in the proper way, I have
to excercise to keep it in shape and I have to make it live longer and longer. But
eventually my body will betray me.
A body that dances overcomes fear. It connects with my deepest self, with the other
and with the world. Thus our dancing bodies will carry us into the future.)
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Gideon Obarzanek
There are in fact 3 things I think about when considering ‘the role of dance in the
future, or the role of future on dance’. First however I must qualify that when we
speak this sentence I take ‘dance’ to mean more ‘dance performance’ rather than
the more spontaneous or social act of dancing which I consider – apart from shifting
trends – to be relatively constant.
1. Dance performance will become more immersive and participatory for the
audience, shifting the act of performance into more of an event or even
ritual. This will further blur the divisions between performer and spectator
and professional and amateur.
2. Dance performance will shift further away from pure dance and movement
research – a phenomenon of the mid and latter twentieth century – and make
a return to being an important component of multi art form performance.
Unlike nineteenth century opera however or the rise of expressionism and
modernism from the Belle Epoque period, dance in the future will incorporate
whatever technologies will be available.
3. As visual arts increasingly considers the ephemeral and phenomenological,
dance will also become an increasingly significant player in ‘live art’ and
‘performance art’. The expansion of dance in the visual arts will see a greater
increase of performances in gallery spaces. For much of contemporary dance
I regard this shift as a correction rather than a development. Instead of a
theatre, the gallery is often a more accurate context for the work.
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