In this conversation, we meet Dascha Belous, Derin Cankaya, Liisi Hint and Gareth Okan - students from the Bachelors Dance, Context, Choreography programme at the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin/Inter-University Center for Dance Berlin. The group shares their perspectives and experiences from the 8th Tanzausbildung Biennale Stuttgart 2022.

For further details and full episode notes, visit the artistic documentation site of the 8th Tanzausbildung Biennale Stuttgart 2022.

We begin with an excerpt from HZT's performance, hearing a sonorous melody created by a clapping of the dancer's thighs.
On a discussion about a memorable highlight from the Biennale so far, Gareth shared a moment from Arkadi Zaides’ Documentary Choreography workshop. One of the participants asked, “Are we going to dance at all?”. He was fascinated by the honest place from which this question emerged. Liisi appreciated the discussion from the Students Reflection Feedback session which involved comments on what dance is, and the different ideas that existed in the room, through different bodies and different institutions. Everyone is a little in a bubble and this exchange breaks that bubble. [2:00 – 4:22]

Nicola wonders if there has been any crossover in between these bubbles. Gareth sees some exchanges trying to happen, sometimes unsuccessful. Some people danced at other people, and they were responded to not with dance but with ‘what are you trying to say?’. However, personal exchanges have been possible now and then. [4:22 – 5:26]

A typewriter was placed in the Theaterhaus atrium by nicola and Parvathi as a site for participants to spontaneously share reflections and messages. After the awards/certificate ceremony on Day 3, someone had written on the typewriter page: “There is no competition in solidarity”. Dascha shares that the Biennale is like a different reality, observing that there is a lot of perceivable tension. She says “Dialogue can only happen when there is no tension.” As an example she shares that this is visible when teachers enter the student’s discussion rooms. She asks - why are there separate meetings scheduled, not shared ones? why are we speaking in such different languages? [5:27 – 8:34]

Gareth comments with a guess that perhaps the competition aspect comes from the need for funding and support from the German government. This binding between financial support to an idea of competition is felt to be weird. Liisi adds that in that context the idea of Solidarity as a theme for the Biennale is a bit hypocritical. [8:35 - 9:59]

We then played a simple game with the group to arrive at some prompts that they could respond to. The first prompt was: Creating in equal learning space for dance…to which Liiisi quipped “yes, please! Let’s do that!” [10:00 – 11:03]

The next prompt was: If solidarity had a sister, her name would be…Derin suggested solidarity’s sister could be Cinderella. They sound similar and also that Cinderella could use some solidarity. They don’t like they we are shaming this character, when Cinderella could be perceived to be very strong and is doing her best to escape abuse. The next one prompted them to take a moment to stretch and invite someone to stretch with them. [11:03 - 15:12]

The next prompt was: I witnessed a change in how they moved after...to which Gareth said the first day of afternoon workshops. Some of the participants did not continue with that particular workshop, after which the energy and focus in the workshop shifted. [15:13 – 17:12]

Sharing their perspective of the Biennale in one word: some words that came up in response are: Heavy and a lot. Derin’s experience differed saying that for them it was not heavy, just intense in terms of lack of personal space. For them it was interesting to be outside of their bubble, and an opportunity to e

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