Tanzplan Deutschland
Stempel
Take-off: Junger Tanz. Tanzplan Düsseldorf260


Current Activities64
The State has doubled its funding to 100,000 euros, the City has increased its subsidy by 40,000 euros to 190,000 euros, and each sponsor has highlighted the prospect of an additional 30,000 euros. Take-off has launched the Fresh Tracks Europe network with production partners in Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. The new network, which aims to strengthen international collaborative working, is funded by the European Commission. Dance for and with children and young people is therefore on a firm footing in Düsseldorf, now and for the future. (May 2011)618


Project description78
In Take-off: Junger Tanz, Düsseldorf presents an excellent overall concept for researching and developing high-quality dance education for children and teenagers in and around Düsseldorf. Through active participation and theory, children and teenagers will learn about the art of dance and possibly find it easier to take the path leading to a career as a dancer or choreographer.
Take-off: Junger Tanz is linked to the particular activities already carried out by tanzhaus nrw, but it will expand and create completely new and lasting structures for young dancers and choreographers. First, dance will be taught to pre-schoolers by gradually joining up with an expanding network of city cultural and recreational centres. Second, there will be more educational opportunities for teachers, dancers, and choreographers to learn how to teach dance both within and outside of the public school system. All responsibility for the project is in the hands of tanzhaus nrw. The project will also include a panel of expert consultants and a panel of expert producers, whose members will represent the city theatres, production workshops, and participating educational institutions.
Take-off: Junger Tanz will also have a supervisory board whose members will include the City Cultural Officer, the chairman of the City Cultural Committee, the director of the City Cultural Cffice, a representative from the state or State Ministry of Culture, a representative from the project sponsor, and three representatives from the fields of choreography, education, and research. Partners include Filmwerkstatt, Forum Freies Theater, Kinder- und Jugendtheater des Schauspielhauses Düsseldorf, NEUER TANZ, tanzhaus nrw, Tonhalle, long-term partners from educational institutions, University of Düsseldorf, local residents, and choreographers, dancers, and dance educators from outside the region. In order to reach the most children with the largest number of ways to experience and participate in various forms of dance, Take-off will work with elementary and secondary schools, pre-schools and youth recreation centres on what is called ”Tanzkunstpakete” (Dance parcels). This is a programme consisting of one to several days’ worth of dance workshops, presentations, and/or visits to rehearsals, pre-production workshops, or post-performance events. Children will also work on their own productions. The project will be divided into sections according to age group and type of dance (contemporary dance, show dance, hip-hop, or dance cultures). Children will also go on tour to present about twenty performances of their own productions. There will be continuing education available for dancers, dance instructors, choreographers, and selected teachers.
(Current as of January 2006)


Contribution by Gesa Pölert in
"Jahresheft Tanzplan Deutschland 2006/07" (March 2007)


Everything dances. Tomorrow’s audience

A certain utopian moment was always part of the self-image of the Düsseldorf tanzhaus nrw, from its beginnings in alternative sub culture until now, with world music, a wide range of dance courses and a internationally well-networked contemporary performance programme all coexisting together. This specific form of art appreciation has become even more importance since the Düsseldorf plans for Tanzplan Deutschland were forged here. “My vision is that all Düsseldorf should dance“, declared Bertram Müller, director of the tanzhaus, at the outset of the Tanzplan project. “Everyone who lives here should be able to say, ‘Düsseldorf is a city of dance!’”
The focus of such visions of the future is on those who have a whole life of dance or observing dance ahead of them, assuming that they develop an appreciation of it. “Take-off: Junger Tanz (young dance) . Tanzplan Düsseldorf” is dedicated entirely to dance for children and young people. The plan is to do something for tomorrow’s audience, especially in areas where they otherwise have little contact with the city’s cultural life.
One example of this is the Hauptschule (lower secondary school) Itterstraße, which is in one of the city’s less attractive outer areas. In September 2006 dancer and dance educator Amelie Jalowy held her first lesson here, a combination of a class discussion and small choreographical exercises. Seventeen sixth class students are in her course and all of them had something to say on the subject of dance right away. What is new for everyone is that dance is a school subject here. Dance teachers have been teaching at nine Düsseldorf schools and kindergartens since the beginning of the school year. The school in Itterstraße is the first in which dance has been included in the timetable as a regular subject for five years – a premiere in Germany, where attention was only really drawn to dance as a part of cultural education by Royston Maldoom.
Maldoom’s motto, “A dance class can change your life”, was implemented to great public success in the film “Rhythm is it”, which documents the collaboration of the choreographer and the Berlin Philharmonic with 250 young people. The film inspired great enthusiasm in the executive suites of cultural and education policy for dance as an integrative art form. So far there have not been any models for comprehensive, networked, wide-ranging work with dance for school and pre-school children. This is where "Take-off: Junger Tanz" comes into play, as the Tanzplan board and the Düsseldorf partner network envisage it: as an exemplary model experiment. A total of a million Euros is available to anchor contemporary dance in Düsseldorf schools, youth centres and cultural institutions. A supporting research programme will evaluate the potential of this work. According to tanzhaus director Bertram Müller, its declared goal is to "create entirely new, sustainable structures in dance for children and young people, while setting off a political and artistic process."
An extensive planning document drawn up in consultation with more than twenty regional partner institutions provides for a multifaceted, differentiated, graduated plan, in which almost all aspects of dance for children and young people are taken into consideration, from teacher training up to artistic production. Apart from the cooperating schools, youth centres, kindergartens, theatres and institutions such as the Düsseldorfer Filmwerkstatt, training institutions such as the Remscheid Academy or the Deutsche Institut für Tanzpädagogik are also involved in the programme. The sessions are designed not only for children and young people in four age groups (aged from 3-6, 6-10, 10-15, 15-18), but also for teachers, dance educators, dancers, choreographers and institutions.
The project is based on the cooperation of theatres with schools and youth clubs. The latter will receive whole "dance parcels" tied up with string as part of "Take-off: Junger Tanz". These parcels include dance classes, visits to performances and rehearsals, pedagogic preparation for and follow-up to performances, and dance projects with young people. Depending on their age and interest hiphop, dance theatre, contemporary dance or community dance are on offer; the latter especially with the support of choreographers from outside Germany. The groups themselves are also producing a growing body of work. The goal is 20 choreographers in five years. "For us it’s about a systematic transmission of the basics and the diversity of contemporary dance", says Martina Kessel, Project coordinator of Tanzplan Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf choreographer and stage designer V.A. Wölfl (Neuer Tanz (New Dance)) has declared his willingness to show and explain his pieces for theatrical-pedagogic purposes.
“Take-off” now has its own website, has developed its own first pieces, and the tanzhaus nrw and the Forum Freies Theater already are casting young dancers for new productions. In September and October last year Düsseldorf celebrated the first Tanzplan season with a big autumn holiday “Tanzcamp” (dance camp) and a festival (both are also planned for 2007). Ten productions for young audiences were also staged at this time in the tanzhaus nrw, the Junges Schauspielhaus, the Forum Freies Theater and in the Tonhalle Düsseldorf. The opening pieces demonstrated on the one hand the mainstream of dance pieces for children and young people, and on the other hand showed what is artistically possible, and that all on the first day.
Dutch company “Meekers’” piece, “Timbuktu Trio”, relies on comical stage design and very obvious dance-pantomimes and acted in a way that could be very conventionally understood, which is appropriate for children. The actors, dancers and multimedia artists in the Italian “Compagnia T.P.O.” in contrast, in their “The Japanese Garden”, projected whole picture books onto an interactive ‘dance carpet’, which could be designed together with the audience and experienced with the whole body. At last, a vision of how new forms of dance theatre for children might “look”.
Dance of course rarely changes lives in just one day. “This whole discussion doesn’t go deep enough“, says Royston Maldoom, who agreed to be a "Take-off" cooperation partner, talking about all the requirements that politics suddenly has of dance. “It disturbs me when people understand art simply as a kind of superglue for systems that don’t work."
Sustainable effects are therefore the goal of Tanzplan as a whole. For Düsseldorf this means that after five years of support from Tanzplan Deutschland, a model would be created that would no longer need support from the German Federal Cultural Foundation and at best could also be used in other cities and theatres. In terms of structure, the plan has good chances and prerequisites for achieving this goal. The tanzhaus nrw and the Forum Freies Theater have had their own children’s and young people’s programme for some time, which is supported through a consistent dance policy in at a city and state level as far as possible. The new Kulturstaatssekretär (Secretary of State for Culture) and long-time dance supporter Mr Grosse-Brockhoff, has stated that dance and working with children are a priority of his policy.262

Tanzplan Deutschland