MA CoDE: summer semester 2024
April, 2nd - 8th, Exchange Stockholm University of the Arts 3
MA CoDE welcomed Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt and Tone Pernille Østern as well as students from M.A.D.E in Frankfurt. During the week on “Documentation, Reflection and Critical Review” different methods of documentation, reflection and the analysis of artistic and mediation processes were considered. As an example, the students worked with Research Catalogue, an international database for artistic research. Julia Wehren also presented her project on the oral history of Swiss dance history.
April 10th - 27th, Research Project
MA CoDE dealt with the artistic working methods of Ioannis Mandafounis, the new director and choreographer of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (DFDC). The students worked with the text, film and interview material “A Choreographic Methodology” and analyzed the performance “Lisa”, which premiered on March 28th at Schauspiel Frankfurt. The annotation process was closely supervised by David Rittershaus, Project Manager Motion Bank and Philipp Scholtysek, Dramaturg DFDC. In addition, the students got to know Ioannis Mandafounis' way of working in an intensive exchange in the studio. From these different perspectives, the students developed lessons and mediation formats for various target groups and tested them during the semester.
April 16th - June 11th, Postcolonialism in Dance
In an ongoing seminar, the students dealt with postcolonialism and the current discourse on decolonization in dance. The seminar was led by Amelia Uzategui Bonilla and covered topics such as colonialism, class, power hierarchies, empowerment and resilience. The workshop “Cultural appropriation in dance” by Amelia Uzatgeui Bonilla and Ly Thien Co Friederich, which both had already taught at the SNDO in Amsterdam, was integrated into the seminar.
May 24th - May 25th, Audio description
A workshop on audio description with Lisa Rykena, Carolin Jüngst and Pernille Sonne took place as part of the seminar “Writing about movement, dance, performance” by Prof. Dr. Katja Schneider. Both events were open to students of MA CuP, University of Giessen and MA Aesthetics, Goethe University.
May 08th - June 05th, Communication
Dana Caspersen, a specialist in conflict management and long-time dancer with William Forsythe, incorporates her artistic experience into new formats of conflict resolution. Continuing the content of the winter semester, she gave students an in-depth insight into her “Changing the Conversation” strategy and participatory projects that she has realized in recent years in four online meetings.
May 12th - 17th, Excursion Outokumpu + Helsinki, Finland
During this working week, the MA CoDE students presented future-oriented teaching formats with individual profiles that they had developed from the movement material and vocabulary researched by Ioannis Mandafounis. A curriculum was designed, which was used in the undergraduate and contemporary training in Outokumpu and discussed with the lecturers there. It was the eighth collaboration with Riveria / tanssin koulutus / dance education in Outokumpu. At the end of the week, the MA CoDE students taught an open workshop for MA students, Uniarts Helsinki and the independent dance scene at the Zodiak Centre for New Dance.
May 22nd - June 26th, Teachings in Fachbereich 2
MA CoDE students taught the module Music and Other Performance Forms to L1 students from FB2. They gave a practical insight into artistic choreographic working methods and contemporary movement approaches, as they have been used in the environment of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company for the development of pieces since this season. Beyond a mainly didactic focus on movement training, the MA CoDE students offered various improvisation concepts, such as the special improvisation technique of live choreography, in order to enable a playful approach to choreographic handwriting and movement, while at the same time revealing the contexts. The results were reflected on with the participants in a short feedback session.
June 4th - June 11th, Performative arts in social fields
Initiated by Katharina Stephan and Ingo Diehl, the exchange between the two MA programs on questions of mediation took place in the MA CoDE Studio and the "Fliegendes Künstlerzimmer" in the Quartier. The students held discussions with the supervising artists and representatives of the Crespo Foundation.
June, 07th & 08th, Audition MA CoDE
The application process for a new group of students was completed with the audition on June 7th and 8th in Frankfurt. Six study places were awarded to the promising applicants from Argentina, Germany, Colombia, Italy and Spain.
June 30th, student project DeDa Productions
The new student project in the 3rd semester to sharpen their profile was developed and carried out entirely by the students themselves. The current group of students decided to produce teaching trailers for entry into the professional field, which were created in collaboration with De-Da Productions.
July 3rd - 7th, Think Big! Festival Munich
MA CoDE traveled to Munich for the opening of the Think Big! Festival in Munich. The international festival is known for its dance and performance mediation projects for a younger audience. International productions were shown that are oriented towards the themes and needs of this target group in terms of content, aesthetics and space. In addition to an academic exchange, the students attended performances and broadened their teaching perspective through workshops on body resilience with Haymich Olivier (Namibia) and on empowering dance with Patricia Carolin Mai (Hamburg). On July 5th, they took part in the symposium “Tanz von Anfang an”, an exchange of knowledge with international guests on anchoring dance in cultural education, moderated by Elisabeth Nehring.
At the same time, the students met with selected representatives of the institutions in Munich and discussed dance policy issues.
July 11th, Mentoring
At the end of the semester, the students shared their mentoring processes in the group and disclosed their individual processes and agreements between mentor and mentee. Britta Schönbrunn, Nira Priore Nouak and Frieda Laux were selected by the students as mentors.
HTA-Ring lecture "Learning to learn"
Learning is something that affects us all. Knowledge is not objective, and learning is not neutral either. Nevertheless, we often do it without questioning it more closely. Who learns what using which methods? How have universities and colleges long been spaces that not only tell us what to learn, but also dictate how we should learn? What is excluded from academic learning and why? And what approaches are there, especially in and from the arts, to practicing other ways and forms of learning, knowledge production and knowledge sharing?
The HTA lecture series invites five positions to five sessions, each of which will share their strategies, practices and techniques of other, playful or artistic learning with us in a lecture followed by a workshop.
Penny Rafferty
On Learning and Games: Thu, May 2nd, 18-20h
Pavel Dudus & Melanie Bonajo
On Queer Community Learning: Thu, May 23rd, 18-20h
Alex Martinis Roe
On Feminist Learning: Thu, July 11th, 18-20h
Valentina Desideri
On Learning as Artistic Practice: Thu, July 18th, 18-20h