Das Plateau

In April 2016 I attended a dance workshop in Frankfurt am Main. I have to confess at the beginning that I am not very huge fan of dance or at least I never expected to do it on my own. Honestly I attended it more or less by accident, but finally it was very interesting so far for me to get into the collective of professionals in this art discipline.

At first I would like to describe a bit more, what is exactly going on in this Project: Das Plateau is a platform for contemporary dance disciplines. Two time a year: in April and October there are four days of different kind of workshops of contemporary dance happening in the Z-zentrum in Frankfurt. The lecturers during workshops (2-8 hours) present their own development and experiment in their dance method. For my own surprise, learning choreography was not the main point of the workshops. Each of every workshop had a bit different main point. But of course  all of them were connected through the expression through body and dance.

Perception and Breath: Ewelina Zielonka (Poland)
The Lecturer of this workshop worked simply with our most natural movement and reflex: Breathing. During the eight hours in the four days workshop we were developing movements of the body and muscles which are natural for our breathing in and breathing out, and natural tension and release, which comes with that. We learnt to not push our body to unnatural uncomfortable movements, but to use its natural balance. 

Tanzpädagogische Werkstatt: Choreografische Arbeit mit Kindern und Jugendlichen: Jungyeon Kim (South Korea) 
The workshop with Jungyeon Kim also suprised me a lot. Before, I had no idea that in school, we can use the method of the dance or choreography. Then I realize how many people are interested into this discipline. If we want to learn how to use this methode best, we should try it ourselves. So we spent two hours every day of workshops more less play like a little kids, discovering new methodes, together or alone. For example we were discovering how many different ways we can move or how to make choreography, which is very simple for all of the participants but also looks very good. 

MomenTanz: Zoe Alibert (Germany)
The third workshop I liked the most, even when at start there was a lot doubt, what really was going on there. The base of the workshop was half in the meditation and half in contact improvisation. First skills were moreless about feeling our body and listening to music. The movements came quite lately: we tried to dance ourselves, later we just dance or watch someone else in pair and finaly in the fourth workshop all of us really danced  together. 

I think during this workshop I finally realised what is really happening in the dance and what I should admire about it. I always thought it´s about complicated choreography, which I was never able to learn, but after that, I discovered that dance is about presence. Realizing your body, your soul right now in this moment, but perceiving also the outside atmosfere, music, room and of course the people around you. When we learnt the way how to perceive all of that, how to communicate throught dance, we didn´t even need choreography to have a beautiful dance performance. 

If you are interested in visiting the next workshops, you'll have the next opportunity in October: http://dasplateau.org/index.php?id=about