(In German. Videos with English subtitles)
We walk down the street. Every day. It’s our neighborhood. And somehow, it’s also not. It’s our path to school, to study, to work; and somehow, also not. To put it differently: How do we feel – on a scale of one to five, from „friendly“ to „threatening“ – about the neighborhood and its people we pass through every day?
We walk down the street and start to dance. Because if we want to walk our own path, then let’s do it dancing. The energy that hits us from the environment has to go somewhere after all. All the repeated violent questions, disciplining, norms, and expectations have to be somehow transformed. And contemporary dance is the method.
For Kraftwandler*innen (Power Shifters), participants of the akademie der autodidakten came together under the guidance of choreographer and dancer Raphael Moussa Hillebrand. Because the question in everyday life as well as in art, is how we, as young People of Colour and Black individuals, gain sovereignty over our bodies. Hip-hop is one of the methods to turn the world upside down and counteract the gravity of norms. Because in self-determined movement and in playing with our own limits, the thermal energy we need is created.
Over five months, experiences were exchanged, insights into Black Dance Culture were provided, moves were tried and created, texts were conceived, written, discarded, danced, and rewritten: So that Kraftwandler*innen now stand on stage!
