SHAKE IT! Symposium on dance, gender and bodypolitics

Foto: landesbüro tanz nrw

On 23.11.2018 i was invited as guest and workshop teacher for the SHAKE IT! Symposium, organised by Landesbüro Tanz nrw. It was a great day! The symposium started with lectures on bodypolitics and dance by Madeline Doneit, Sonja Eisman of MISSY MAGAZINE and Yvonne Hardt, Professor at the University of Music and Dance Cologne.

The lectures were followed by workshops, and i teached a class on Breaking: Herstory and Her Moves - Breakdance and Empowerment where i discussed the possibilities of empowerment for women in Breaking and the difficulties of set up structures within the scene in e.g. Breaking battles, where most times men are organising, and male judges, DJs, hosts and dancers get invited and therefore the view of the women on the dance gets hardly a voice. I pointed out the Youth Olympics with Breaking for Gold´s Bonnie & Clyde battle as one of the great opportunities of an equal space for bgirls and bboys and the problem, that the male way of dancing still refers as benchmark. 

After the workshop there was a fishbowl discussion round with the workshop teachers (Susan Bagdach, Diana Thielen, Ilse Ghekiere and myself) moderated by Dr Mithu Sanyal. It was a very intresting exchange!

After the discussion round we surprised with the freestyle performance of our girls urban dance project with Mädchentreff Alte Feuerwache, going on fron September - November 2018 and got lots of applause... (;

All in all it was a great day!