Forum - Day 3

Programme
June 20, 10.00 - 15.00 h (Accredited Professionals & Public)

The accreditation badge gives all professionals access to the programme, however, admission is subject to capacity and operates on a first come, first served basis. We therefore encourage you to arrive in good time.

As interested public you can buy tickets for the events of the Forum on June 20 and 21. The individual sessions are directly linked to the according page in the online shop.

For all workshops, we kindly ask everyone to register in advance no later than the day before, as places are limited. To register, please contact: benjamin@tanztriennale.de

10.00 - 12.00 h
Session 17 | Dancing Bodies in Democratic Negotiation
Workshop & Panel Discussion
Theatersaal

In times of uncertainty, how do we come together? This session begins with a 60-minute physical workshop, co-facilitated by Ellen Steinmüller and Bianca Kruppa. The workshop approaches dance as a living space of democratic negotiations—of bodies, differences, commonalities and shared intentions. Through creative movement, we practice listening and responding, asserting and yielding, leading and following. Temporary togetherness emerges between individual agency and collective action, providing a collective and embodied experience to inform the following discussion, joined by Mia Habib and Noé Valdes Vega, with moderation by Sevi Bayraktar.

In the discussion, each will expand on how they apply their artistic and choreographic practices towards building spaces of collective agency and democratic exchange. They explore how choreographic scores can create the conditions for co-creation across communities and contexts, and how the decision of who is invited into participatory practice is itself a conscious act of redistributing power and access. Together the group reflects on how the negotiations practiced in the studio can inform daily life, and asks what responsibility artists and institutions carry to model, protect, and reimagine democratic values in a world where they are increasingly under pressure.

The workshop is co-facilitated by Dr. des. Ellen Steinmüller (community dance artist, choreographer) and Bianca Kruppa (dance artist and facilitator) and will move into discussion afterwards with Mia Habib (dancer and choreographer, Designated Director Carte Blanche–The Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance), Noé Valdes Vega (dancer and choreographer)

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Sevi Bayraktar (Dance Studies, Music, and Performance in Global Contexts, University of Music and Dance Cologne)

Designed in Cooperation with the Aktion Tanz, Germany's national association for dance in education and society, promoting inclusive, participatory dance through networking, participation and knowledge exchange.

10.00 - 12.00 h
Session 18 | Producing and Curating with Disabled Artists
Proberaum EG

The roles of the producer and curator in dance are always relational — when working with disabled artists and colleagues, that relationship demands particular attentiveness and willingness to rethink standard ways of working. This session explores what it means in practice to produce and curate work that centres disabled artists: how the collaborative process itself demands new producing competencies from access planning to dramaturgical sensitivity, how collaboration is structured to share agency, and how producers navigate a funding landscape that often fails to account for the real costs of access and inclusive practice. Drawing on the experience of dramaturgs, producers and artists working in Europe, the session examines what the field still needs to change — structurally, financially, and in its day-to-day professional culture — to make space for the full range of work that disabled artists are creating.

Guest speakers: Chiara Bersani (performing artist, choreographer, curator), Giulia Traversi (manager, curator), Noa Winter (Curator & Dramaturg)

Moderator: Dr. Kate Brehme (curator, Co-Strategic Director Making a Difference)

13:00 - 15:00 h
Session 19 | Dance, Health and Public Space – where can a body exist when language, memory, and self-determination disappear?
Film Premiere & Panel Discussion
Alabamakino

We invite you to the premiere of Martyre – I Swear on My Mother’s Life, a documentary and choreographic project that follows Marie-Bernadette, 74, who lives with Alzheimer's in a care home and has almost completely lost her ability to speak. Yet her body begins to speak: through gestures, through movements — in dances that emerge after her diagnosis, despite never having practiced dance before. Her daughter, a choreographer, follows this unexpected expression and turns it into the starting point of a cinematic search. What begins as quiet movement within the care home pushes outward: into corridors, onto streets, into cafés and public spaces, her body reclaiming environments where it seemingly no longer belongs.

Following the screening, the film's director Malika Djardi will be joined by neuropsychologist Dr. Ramuné Dirvanskienė and Aerowaves Co-Director Roberto Casarotto for a conversation that opens outward from the film into larger questions about dance, care, brain health and public spaces. The discussion will explore how dance moves within the gaps of traditional healthcare, particularly in relation to conditions such as dementia and depression. They will explore what brings bodies into movement and expression, what frees them, and how spontaneous dance in public space can be an act of reclaiming presence and belonging.

Guest speakers: Malika Djardi (choreographer, director), Roberto Casarotto (Co-Director Aerowaves), Dr. Ramuné Dirvanskienė (Neuropsychologist Lithuanian University of Health) Moderator: Prof. Dr. Sara Houston (Professor of Dance Studies and Community Engagement at University of Roehampton)

13.00 - 15.00 h
Physical Workshop | Counter Balance residency sharing: Amapiano and South African Culture Workshop
Theatersaal
Open to all

Tanztriennale’s Counter Balance residency artists, Foxy and Sizwe031, invite you to a shared space of conversation, music, and movement centered around Amapiano and South African culture. Beginning with a short lecture together with South African performer and researcher Balindile ka Ngcobo, the workshop explores Amapiano beyond the dancefloor, focusing on culture, representation, and the experience of South African performance practices within European contexts. The second part is a movement workshop led by dancer Keigh Gee, introducing participants to the foundations, rhythms, and communal spirit connected to Amapiano culture before moving into a shared choreography.

Guest artists: Balindile ka Ngcobo (South African performer, theatre-maker and writer) and Keigh Gee (South African dancer and performer)

Hosted by: Foxy and Sizwe031 (Founders of Junkpark, tandem artists of the Tanztriennale Counter Balance residency)

15.30 - 16.30 h
Presentation I Counter Balance Research Residency Sharing of ‘Authors’ by Aoife McAtamney and Lucy O'Donnell
Bücherhalle

What happens when performance and literature meet in the space of a library? Irish musician and choreographer Aoife McAtamney and Dublin's Lexicon Library senior librarian Lucy O'Donnell have been in residence at the LOFFT in Leipzig developing Authors — an interdisciplinary project exploring the meeting points between music, movement, and the written word. Taking the library and its community of readers as both inspiration and artistic space, and stepping outside of Ireland for the first time with Authors, this Counter Balance residency has been an opportunity to explore new approaches and ask what connects the worlds of dance and literature and the people who inhabit them. This sharing offers a glimpse into their process, what questions and discoveries have arisen during their research in Germany, and what might come next.

Guests: Aoife McAtamney (musician and choreographer) and Lucy O’Donnell (senior librarian Lexicon Library)