Guiding principles
Tanzhaus NRW is at the same time a performance venue with around 200 changing annual events on 2 stages, as well as a production centre for professional artists and an academy with an average of 350 courses and workshops per week and a centre for dance with and for children and youths, the Young Tanzhaus.
Since the season 2014/15, when Bettina Masuch became artistic director of the Tanzhaus NRW, 3 Factory Artists started to work in the house: Alexandra Waierstall, Jan Martens and Sebastian Matthias. The next generation since 2017 are Claire Cunningham, Ligia Lewis and Choy Ka Fai.
Another artistic focal points are the festivals so called Dance Days. These festivals create among other a tangible fusion of cultural and aesthetic forms of expression in the training studio as well as on stage.
Together with a large number of partners engaged in the cultural sector, Tanzhaus NRW is doing since more than 10 years also pioneer work to familiarize children, youths and young adults with dance art by allowing the young spectator or dancer to experience dance either in the classroom or on stage. Today the whole range of activities is called Young Tanzhaus.
History
Tanzhaus NRW evolved from Die Werkstatt, which in the middle of the 1970s began to give a continuously growing mixed-age audience an understanding of contemporary dance in its aesthetic and cultural diversity. Tanzhaus NRW has succeeded in joining under one roof different areas of dance that usually occupy different spaces and structures: it is at the same time theatre and school of dance, production site for free choreographers from North Rhine Westphalia and Europe and internationally respected lively role model for promoting dance at all levels.
Find the full history of Tanzhaus NRW on its website.
Building and facilities
Since 1998 the Tanzhaus NRW is situated into a former tram depot on a 4.000 m² surface. In 2000, architect Jochen Boskamp and Tanzhaus NRW were given the award for “exemplary buildings in North Rhine Westphalia”. Tanzhaus NRW has 2 stages with 320 seats in the big stage and a smaller 90-seat, plus 8 training studios and rehearsal rooms used for production development and advanced training of professional dancers and choreographers.
The GERMAN DANCE PLATFORM sees itself as a forum to present recent developments and innovative currents in German contemporary dance. It offers an overview and a presentation platform for the most remarkable positions of present- day creation in the fields of domestic dance and choreographic performance.
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While many EDN members are still closed for public, activities continue to take place remotely - both for artists and audiences! We bring to you plenty of shows, trainings, celebrations, reflections. Take your peak!
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Since 1994, the festival has been taking place biennially in various host cities throughout Germany, determined by the collective of co-organisers, who for 2022 have selected HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin.
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The EDN Conference Inventur 2 took place at tanzhaus nrw from 1 to 3 June 2017 and analyzed the current situation within contemporary dance and performance, across genre boundaries and in a cross-sectorial manner.
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With this Atelier at Tanzhaus NRW, EDN aimed to gather knowledge about the relatively young history of the development of European dancehouses since the 1970’s. During the meeting EDN members set up a working group and defined research topics around the history, buildings and projects of dancehouses.
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Léim (2013 - 2015) aimed to offer participants the opportunity to undertake a personal and collective professional leadership development journey in organisations with a high degree of expertise in dance, both in their own countries and across Europe.
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The cooperation project European Video Dance Heritage aimed to encourage and support cultural cooperation within Europe in order to bring European common cultural heritage to the fore working across disciplines with the media.
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Modul-dance was a multi-annual cooperation project with the participation of 20 European dance houses from 16 countries. Its main aim was to support development, mobility and exchange for dance artists.
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From 2012 to 2014, Tanzhaus NRW led a project aiming to initiate long-term cooperative relationships between several dance centres in Africa (Mozambique, Mali, Tunisia, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa) and a number of key dance venues in Germany.
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Kore-A-moves (2010-2013) provided an intensive introduction of Korean choreographer’s works to audiences in Europe and the establishment of horizontal exchanges for the future between choreographers and companies, structures and models between both regions.
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One of the first international projects in the frame of EDN, Chin-A-moves aimed to nurture connections between younger independent artists from both Europe and China. Additionally, the project initiated and cultivated a network of European dancehouses and festivals and Chinese dance companies, theatres and performing arts festivals.
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The very first step towards EDN, IDEE was proposed by 9 dancehouses working together for the first time as a network. It set out to work with emerging choreographers to help them to make connections across Europe and to contextualise their work for international audiences.
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In February 2017 a group of eight representatives of EDN attended a very rich programme of initiatives, participated in speed networking sessions with artists and professionals, developing new connections and dialogues, being introduced to representatives of Asian funding bodies and supportive organizations. This was the first step in the collaboraiton with AND+.
Roberto Casarotto shares his report of the meetings.
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By invitation of the West Kowloon Centre, four EDN members joined the 4th edition of the Producers' Network Meeting and Forum. It provided a new occasion for EDN to connect with AND+ since the Encounter in Japan in 2017.
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Those are some of the questions addressed during the Atelier hold at K3 - Zentrum für Choreographie.
Organised as part of the first edition of “Explore dance – Festival for young audiences” it gave to the participants the opportunity to watch up to seven new dance pieces for young audiences and encounter the artists, to exchange with other colleagues on short best practice presentations from different parts of Europe.
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EDN representatives travelled to Chile to attend the 14th edition of the festival Danzalborde. Additionally, EDN members visited the School of Architecture of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Maria. Directors of dancehouses and students shared conversations about the buildings for dance.
José Laginha, director of DeVIR|CAPa, shares his experience of Valparaiso and Santiago de Chile.
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Many dancehouses in Europe have been created over preexisting buildings: convents, factories, industrial sites, brick houses, distilleries, to name some examples. This Atelier at CSC Bassano del Grappa took place in a series of meetings aimed at considering and tracing the European, as well as the international, dancehouses history.
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At the beginning of March 2020 EDN and AND + worked together to implement the path started in Yokohama and to prepare a public talk, as part of the in-depth events open to the public, organized by the Tanzplattform Deutchland in Munich (Germany).
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This activity aimed to open new forms of dialogue with artists, organisations and dance professionals based in the African continent, investigating new forms of relationship and collaboration based on ethical values, respect and sustainability.
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