MODE05

This letter is an attempt to formulate some basic ideas and motivations concerning the initiative, upcoming process and aims of mode05. It has been written by the organizers and is thought of as the starting point and initial material for a rewriting process involving everybody connected to the project.

Ulrike Melzwig, Martin Nachbar (January, 2005)

Starting Points

mode05 attempts to articulate the need for German educational programmes in dance and choreography which offer students broad access to fields of knowledge and discourses surrounding dance and choreography while not necessarily focusing on the training and instruction of skilled dancers. German dance training centres are apparently quite academic, genre specific and seemingly uninterested in teaching dance as critical discourse or as an experiment in combining and contrasting the theory and practice of dance and choreography.

mode05 aims at creating an initial, critical and open platform that contributes to an ongoing discussion and reflection on the issue of education in dance and choreography.

Of course, there are several concrete interests connected to the project itself that need to be articulated:

fabrik Potsdam

fabrik Potsdam is the initiator and host of mode05. While acting as a dance and choreography centre which both produces and presents work from local and international artists, fabrik Potsdam also offers classes and workshops on professional and non-professional levels. Artistically directed by a collective of artists, its aim is to initiate and establish an educational programme at fabrik Potsdam within the next few years.
For the fabrik Potsdam team, mode05 is a research phase and a first step into this direction, a time to try and make use of existing ideas and models while harnessing the potential of an encounter between a wide range of people who are already dealing with educational concepts. Sabine Chwalisz, one of the artistic directors at fabrik Potsdam, is also part of the organizing team of mode05.

Kulturstiftung des Bundes

A currently expanding awareness of dance/choreography in Germany lends a broader context to mode05. A major initiative by Kulturstiftung des Bundes (Federal Cultural Foundation) called „Tanzplan Deutschland“ is meant to push dance on several levels. As education is one of these and mode05 is one of the first initiatives to be hosted and to a large extent financed by Kulturstiftung des Bundes under this programme, one of the foundation’s goals for the meeting is that it functions as a research phase for „Tanzplan Deutschland“, formulating ideas and basic concepts for possible future educational structures in Germany. The results of mode05 will be presented, in whichever format emerges, during the Berlin “Tanzkongress”, 30th June – 3rd July, 2005, hosted by Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

The organizers

We, the organizers of the mode05 meeting, are connected neither to fabrik Potsdam nor to Kulturstiftung des Bundes directly. The concept we have been trying to realize while preparing the meeting is based on the idea that contemporary educational models MUST deal with a multitude of knowledge and the largest possible amount of connections between different fields and approaches. These models also have to radically question the ethical notions connected to terms such as „school“, „teaching (art)“, „educational institutions“, etc.

We tried to prepare the meeting in a way that integrates a mode of knowledge production which is based on the collaborative and experimental exchange of the issue. In contrast to traditional congress formats that very often merely consolidate existing concepts and points of view, mode05 will offer a frame for debate that encourages a wide range of participants with different ideas and specific experiences to contribute. This approach also reflects our basic assumption that in order to avoid any kind of ideological manifestations contemporary educational concepts cannot be based on one or a few person’s understanding of contemporary dance and choreography but on an ongoing and participative process of reformulating these concepts.

In this sense we see ourselves as facilitators of a common and shared process of rethinking dance/choreography education without having a specific outcome in mind.

The participants

From our side the aim was to invite a group of participants with a wide range of backgrounds and approaches to the topic. Finally, this group consisted of choreographers, writers, dramaturges, organisers, dancers, facilitators, theoreticians, video artists, critics, philosophers, teachers, and researchers. Each one of these participants is somehow dealing with or working within the field of education in the arts, especially in dance and choreography. Still, this selected range of participants is not at all meant to be a gathering of THE representatives of European dance/choreography education.

Much more than this, our most important criteria was to invite people whom we thought of as critical minds dealing with dance/choreography education in one way or another. Thus, we hope to gather motivated people open to a process which intends to seriously question existing educational ideas and models and tries to bring some different and concrete approaches to this issue into public discussion.

The process

The mode05 meeting itself will take place from 13th – 19th of March, 2005 at fabrik Potsdam. Around 25 international participants are invited, plus several guests who will be present as observers or advisors. There will not be a fixed schedule or programme for the week. Instead, a working situation will be established, a frame or playground: the one-week timeframe, certain rules, exercises, proposals, offers and several different spaces equipped with specific tools, such as internet access points, (media) library, video equipment, screening facilities, a dance studio, discussion tables, individual working areas, etc. Of course, there will also be the group of participants itself and the overall theme of rethinking “dance/choreography education”.

At this point of preparation there are obviously three levels of participation we will be dealing with:

One level is that people are going to meet, talk, discuss and spend time with each other.
Another one is the process of collaborative text production on the issue, using Wiki- and backtracking software, which is designed to enable collaborative processes. On this “text level”, ideas, thoughts and individual concepts will take on a more binding character. At the same time, a process of serious response to one another’s texts, commenting, finding differences as well as common grounds, contributing own materials, pushing things forward, learning from one another, etc., will be stimulated.
On a third and somewhat meta-level participants will permanently reflect and adapt the process itself.
These three different modes will exist parallel, will merge and hopefully inspire each other.

Regarding the preparation and moderation for this kind of process, we will be consulting Lorenz Kielwein, an experienced practitioner of “flow performance” processes.

Furthermore, since we believe that certain uses of internet technology (such as open source, Wiki, etc.) have the potential of facilitating collaborative, non-hierarchic processes, we wanted to connect these fields. This technological preparation process is based on a collaboration with Florian Schneider, an internet activist who is an important part of the organizing team and will be present during the meeting in March.

The experiment

Based on what has been said so far, it is obvious that mode05 already creates a different kind of learning environment, a place for shared knowledge production, practice and research. In this sense, it could be viewed as one possibility for an educational platform, in terms of the topic of dance/choreography education itself.

We cannot know by now the actual result of the meeting. But we are aware that the success of the mode05 initiative lies in whether it will live on after the meeting in March or not. And we think that in order to keep the ideas of mode05 alive, we will need as many people as possible to connect and contribute to the topic. To facilitate such process, we would like to apply “creative-commons-licenses” to text and materials.

In our minds, there is no need or intention to end up with a common agreement (regarding modes of teaching, school administration, curriculum, etc.). The only agreement that assists the idea of mode05 would be to agree on and commit to a process which is, especially in the field of education, experimental. This commitment builds on everybody’s motivation to take part in an open and collaborative process and contribute his or her time, knowledge, experiences and ideas. The same process could, consequently, allow everybody to gain knowledge and ideas from all other participants.

“Equally, to speak of mutualities is to think against the grain of ideological mobilisations that are grounded in the pursuit of an end, of a conclusion, of a resolution, to replace that ideological imperative with the ongoing processes of low key participations that ebb and flow at a barely conscious level.” (Irit Rogoff, “We - Collectivities, Mutualities, Participations")