To mark the departure of Prof. Dr Wanda Golonka from her teaching position in the Master’s degree programme in Choreography at the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT), students and staff of the HZT are collaborating with the German Dance Film Institute Bremen.

The focus is on Wanda Golonka’s film collection, which she has donated to the institute’s archive for digitisation and long-term preservation. The viewing and processing of this film material serves to create a contribution that honours Wanda Golonka’s artistic and pedagogical work at the HZT.

The German Dance Film Institute is pleased to support this collaboration with its archive and expertise.

The choreographer, dancer and author Judith Kuckart has donated her personal film collection to the German Dance Film Institute Bremen for digitisation and long-term archiving.

The collection includes video recordings of performances, choreographies and rehearsals from various creative phases and provides an insight into over four decades of artistic work. Judith Kuckart has been one of the most influential figures in contemporary dance in Germany since the 1980s.

With the acquisition of this material, the Tanzfilminstitut is expanding its collection with important documents of German dance history. The films will be professionally digitised, archived and made accessible for research, teaching and the interested public in the long term.

‘We are delighted about the trust that Judith Kuckart has placed in the archive with this handover,’ says Heidemarie Härtel, founder and director of the institute. ‘Collections like this are of great value for the cultural memory of dance.’

Since its premiere in 2016, step ensemble piece ZWEI GIRAFFEN TANZEN TANGO – BREMER SCHRITTE, a Tanzfonds Erbe project, has already wowed audiences in many places. Now two adapted versions of Helge Letonja’s take on dance theatre pioneer Gerhard Bohner’s 1980 choreography can be experienced away from home.

As part of the TANZLAND WINSEN cooperation, Letonja has combined sequences from the production with the ensemble to create a new multi-layered cosmos: With GEGENPOLE UND ZWISCHENWELTEN the audience can expect contemporary dance art on 12 September in the Stadthalle Winsen, which weaves everyday gestures, subconscious and humorous into impressive moving images.

At 7:30 pm, expert Heide-Marie Härtel, director of the German Dance Film Institute Bremen, will introduce the piece and its background.

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The Kulturverein Winsen and steptext dance project see their cooperation as an opportunity to bring contemporary dance art closer to different sections of the population and age groups and to create sustainable structures for dance guest performances, dance reflection and dance practice. Steptext, with its productions that address social discourses in terms of dance aesthetics, as well as its networking and mediation skills, meets a committed partner in Winsen that interacts with the city on many levels and is open to new impulses. Dance as an art form that appeals to its audience across all linguistic and age differences increases Winsen’s attractiveness as a new and first-time element in the city’s cultural programme and helps to raise the profile of its cultural programme beyond the city limits.

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