Dance Gathering

For many years, Chauchat has been developing choreographic research on the ethics of intimacy across radical difference.
The choreographer Alice Chauchat sees dance as a form of collaboration and togetherness despite of differences. She stages dancing gatherings and tangential encounters, inviting people to activate a series of choreographic scores. This “Dance Gathering” proposes dancing as a telepathic communication, a social activity, a collective process and an unrehearsed encounter. Participants are offered a set of scores that activate paradoxical relationships: distant intimacy, attentive autonomy, impersonal commitment, enjoyment, and unknown play.

For many years, Alice Chauchat has been conducting choreographic research on the ethics of intimacy amidst radical differences. Her dances take place in dance studios, exhibition spaces, on stage, as printed matter, and recently more and more in public spaces, on different squares and corners across Berlin. The artist sees dance as a way of offering something to someone, as a form of productive confusion, as a structure of unverified trust. She believes that movement, speech, dance, action, belong to nobody and to all, and are activated by each of us.

You are more than invited to join the three “Dance Gatherings” at Radical Playgrounds. No prior knowledge is needed, no ideal synchronization, no high expectations. There will be some tenderness, some awkwardness, a joy of dancing as listening or tuning in. We will be befriending each other, dancing together to a music landscape by Manuela Schininà, and distance and intimacy will function as our coordinates. “Dance Gathering” is a social event, a practice of being with oneself and with each other in the constant fluctuation between alterity and togetherness.

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Open Call:

We are looking for dance lovers who would enjoy learning new dances and join choreographer Alice Chauchat and sound designer Manuela Schininà for a public Dance Gathering at the finissage on July 14 at the exhibition site of Radical Playgrounds.

The dances are simple and do not require any previous experience. They are like stories that will be played out while dancing: We might hand over gifts, communicate through telepathy or meet our doubles in a parallel universe.

The dances do not require physical contact and do not prescribe any specific steps. They are usually danced in pairs. The dances are suggestions for relationships and can be understood as social dances (perhaps for a future society that we can already imagine and practice now).
In preparation for the public Dance Gathering on July 14, we will spend three sessions to get to know each other, to dance together and to make sure that everyone feels comfortable with the dances so that we can invite other people to dance with us.

This is a swap: We share dances with you, you give us your time. And we all share the joy of dancing together.