A model project for Saxony

Anne-Cathrin Lessel, when you and your institution, the LOFFT in Leipzig, were awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes last year, you said that you were not yet sure which projects you would invest the €100,000 prize money in, but that you definitely had "a drawer full of ideas." Which of these did you ultimately pull out?

Anne-Cathrin Lessel: In the end, we will actually implement three ideas – but they are all under the same big heading, namely: participation. As a cultural institution – and specifically as a production and presentation venue for the independent performing arts – we are of course always thinking very deeply about our role: What is the function of theater? Is it really just about coming here, experiencing art and then going home again, or does the theater also have relevance for city’s society beyond the actual performance? These considerations gave rise to the idea of approaching the topic of "participation" from different perspectives and ultimately financing three projects with the prize money: two artistic projects and one structural project, which is more inward-looking, directed toward the LOFFT team.

Let's start with the two artistic projects.

Lessel: We've had an idea for a long time, but we haven't been able to realize it yet for financial reasons: a façade performance. In other words, a dance-acrobatic art performance on the façade of our building that also addresses people who have perhaps not yet cleared the hurdle of going to the theater. After all, we are definitely operating in an elite bubble – especially in the independent cultural scene. What's more, in our particular case, we are in a location that you don't just happen upon by chance, but that you have to be heading to deliberately.

And that you share with prominent creative neighbors: The LOFFT is located just outside the city center on the grounds of the Baumwollspinnerei, where many artists from the Leipzig School also have their studios.

Lessel: Twice a year, the Spinnerei tours take place there, during which all the galleries and studios are open and in which we also participate. There are a lot of visitors from all over the city, it's a real experience, and we also want to implement our façade performance in this context. But the details are still being planned.

What is your second artistic project on the subject of "participation"?

Lessel: We have a professional mixed-abled dance company on site, in which people with and without physical disabilities work together. However, there is still a lot of catching up to do in the area of training, especially for people with disabilities, particularly in state structures. This gave us the idea of bringing practice and theory together in our FORWARD DANCE COMPANY and developing an academy for the training and further education of mixed-abled collectives, a kind of model project for Saxony.

Gustavo Fijalkow, you are the artistic project manager of the FORWARD DANCE COMPANY. What will this academy look like?

Gustavo Fijalkow: I should perhaps start by saying that professional dance training – not only in Germany, but in general – is geared toward training dancers with standardizable physicalities, as I call it using a term I coined in my dissertation. In other words, throughout the history of Western dance, dance training has meant – and continues to mean – learning standardized techniques that are designed from the outset for specific bodies and through which these bodies are further shaped and standardized during the course of study. In contrast, at the FORWARD DANCE COMPANY we also work with dancers whose bodies cannot be standardized by these techniques. We have specialized in working with different physicalities and, as a mixed-abled team, we also want to break out of this typical binary that draws a clear dividing line between bodies with and bodies without "disabilities."

Are there already examples of best practice that you can build on with your model project?

Fijalkow: In fact, people with a non-standardized physicality still have hardly any access to state dance training. There are now degree courses or even entire universities that are trying to open up, especially in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse at the moment. However, this is still very much in its infancy, especially as there is a lack of lecturers with the relevant expertise. We would have to rethink everything, from the admission criteria to the grading criteria.

And every dancer needs an individual training practice tailored specifically to them.

Fijalkow: Exactly, that already becomes clear in everyday life. A person who is visually impaired, for example, needs these grooves on the sidewalk, while someone in a wheelchair can be impeded by them. When we talk about access for all, for a mixed-abled ensemble this actually means that everyone needs something different.

So, it's really challenging pioneering work that you want to do.

Fijalkow: First of all, our idea is quite simply to invite dancers and choreographers to work with our mixed-abled ensemble – without any pressure to achieve results. At this point, it's not primarily about staging a new production, but about learning from each other through working together. We will closely monitor this process, look at the conditions under which encounters spark and, after the training sessions, discuss intensively what discoveries have been made and what doors may have been opened. At the same time, choreographers who themselves have a disability will also be given the opportunity to work with a professional ensemble in a professional context. The experiment is therefore carried out at different levels.

Does this mean that you develop your training and further education modules directly from your working practice?

Fijalkow: Exactly. We don't have to meet any external quality certification standards, but can define the quality ourselves – which is not only an advantage, but also a great challenge. Because in terms of the professionalism that we are pursuing with FORWARD DANCE COMPANY, this means developing a completely new set of criteria for assessing the work with mixed-abled ensembles – and with it a language in which they can be described in the first place. Ultimately, we have to learn to look at the entire history of dance differently. Because as long as the currently enforced canon remains in place, no quality criteria can be developed for dancers with non-standardizable physicalities.

We have talked a lot about the high barriers to access within the training context. But if you look at the stage, at least things seem to have changed there in recent years. Actors and performers with "non-standardizable physicalities" such as Samuel Koch or Jana Zöll are present in city and state theater productions, and the dancer and choreographer Lucy Wilke was invited to the 2021 Berlin Theatertreffen with her work "Scores that shaped our friendship." What is your assessment of the current situation overall?

Fijalkow: When I started working within this context in 2004, it would have been unthinkable that an independent theater like LOFFT could establish a mixed-abled dance company. In this respect, a lot has actually happened over the last 20 years. The discourse has become more sensitive to the work of dancers and choreographers with non-normativizable physicalities. And the fact that last year's Deutsche Tanzpreis went to the visually impaired choreographer and dancer Sophia Neises and that "Harmonia" from Theater Bremen, the work of a mixed-abled ensemble, was invited to this year's Tanzplattform Deutschland is truly groundbreaking. Nevertheless, I see a problem: on the one hand, a separate field for dancers with disabilities has tended to establish itself, while on the other hand, the establishment remains relatively closed off. You rarely hear of a dancer with a non-standard physicality having a contract with a state theater.

Lessel: We mustn't forget that a lot depends on the individual environment. For example, you mentioned Jana Zöll and Lucy Wilke: If you ask these artists how they managed to make it despite all the hurdles, you realize what a big role family support plays, for example. And, of course, not everyone has access to that. In March, we had a guest performance with the FORWARD DANCE COMPANY in Annaberg-Buchholz, a town of 20,000 inhabitants in rural Saxony. There were lots of young people in the audience, including a few kids in wheelchairs who stayed for a chat afterwards. One of them said that the performance was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. That was a moment that gave me goosebumps, because comments like that make it clear what horizons are being opened up for people who perhaps haven't even considered a professional artistic career because they weren't encouraged at home and therefore weren't even aware that such a path was possible. I think it's essential to create these access points and enhance opportunities.

Let's move on to the last aspect of how you are investing your Theaterpreis money: internal participation.

Lessel: A theater and its management structure are only as strong as the team behind it. Our team has also grown considerably in recent years. That's why it was important for us to exchange ideas and hear from each other about what visions the various departments of the LOFFT have when it comes to the venue, how they can be involved in certain decisions and, in general, where we want to go with the venue, the program and the future direction. This is an internal process that we had already initiated beforehand. But the prize money now gives us the opportunity to regularly go on a retreat with an external moderator for one or two days over a longer period of time. To implement this without any financial support would mean having to cut a small production from the program – especially since in times when the regular budgets for artistic production are getting smaller anyway, such an investment would be pretty much impossible. But that’s also an aspect inherent in the prize: strengthening the institution. We are therefore delighted to be able to use the prize money for various participatory projects at the theater.