***POSTPONED*** Dance & Community Building - Utopian Practice in the 21st Century

Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Lecture Series
7.30pm CET

Curated by Jacalyn Carley, co-founder of Tanzfabrik Berlin, choreographer, and author of  “A Handbook: Royston Maldoom: Community Dance—Everyone Can Dance!”


What makes a more perfect society? Plato and Socrates began the discussion, they went so far as to provide detailed plans for a utopian community. It included a specific number of sheep, liberating women to do soldiering, finance rules, and dance—‘beautiful movement.’ Later in the 19th century, a Greek revival movement spurned the creation of experimental nonreligious (as opposed to those in the US) utopian communities. Again, dance—expressive and modern, not folk dance or acrobatics—played a central role in these very real places. “Community Dance” evolved directly from those utopian experiments to become a major force in education and European arts today. It removes the ‘elite’ from modern dance without compromising artistic integrity, while helping to establish, giving purpose and support, and even redefining ‘community’ in places like refugee homes, prisons, inner city schools, conflict zones—from Addis Ababa to Berlin, from Ireland to Iran. Community Dance is thriving in Europe yet is hardly understood in the US. This short lecture series explores the role dance has and continues to play in improving both community development and the lives of its individuals, from the vantage point of experienced practitioners. 

This lecture series forms the first part of a course that will be offered next fall entitled "Dance and Community Building: Utopian Practice in the 21st Century". It is sponsored by the Mellon Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education.

Dates 

Lecture 1
Weds., Oct. 28 - An Overview: Dancing through the History of Utopias — Jacalyn Carley (Co-founder of Tanzfabrik Berlin, author of 'A Handbook for Community Dance' (Henschel Verlag), On-site Director Summer Arts in Berlin/Sarah Lawrence College).

Lecture 2
Thurs., Nov 5 - What Community Dance can Achieve: Looking at the Life and Work of Royston Maldoom — with Royston Maldoom (Pioneer of Community Dance, numerous international projects and awards, Order of the British Empire recipient)

Lecture 3
Tues., Nov 10 - Hands On: Community Dance Practice — Prof. Ingo Reulecke (mentor/educator Hochschulubergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin and Ernst-Busch-Hochschule, choreographer and Real-Time-Composer)



 
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