2014 - Mathew Lutz-Kinoy, Susan Gibb and the 11 student participants in Appropriation and Dedication are in Berlin's New Theater for an extensive 5-day workshop developing material around Jean Genet's play The Balcony (1957).

May 5-11

Aarti Sunder, Bryony Gillard, Coco Duivenvoorde, Celia Shomal, Bonbon Juan, Constanza Puente, Jan Adriaanse, Kaste Seskeviciute, Maria Barlasov, Monique Hendriksen and Laila Torres Mendieta are spending the week at the New Theater in Berlin with their tutor Matthew Lutz-Kinoy and If I Can't Dance associate curator Susan Gibb, for an extensive workshop developing material around Jean Genet's play The Balcony (1957). Genet's play is the point of departure for a presentation that will be shown in Arnhem in June.

In the weeklong development of their presentation, the students will meet with artists living and working in Berlin who engage in a variety of performance mediums. This will include sessions on scriptwriting with Calla Henkel, Max Pitegoff (New Theater) and Pablo Larios (Freize d/e); sound with artist Hannah Weinburger, Carsten Jost (Dial Records) and music scholar Bianca Hauser; movement with performers Susan Poltz and Adam Linder; and a meeting with artist Yorgos Sapountzis. The group will also attend exhibitions and performances happening in Berlin during the week, including a visit to the Hamburger Bahnhof.

The workshop is hosted at New Theater, an artist-run performance space that produces plays and performances by and with artists. It was founded by Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff in 2013 and is based in Kreuzberg, Berlin.

The past months the group has been introduced to different methodologies of performance practice in workshops led by If I Can't Dance's Commissioned Artists Sara van der Heide, Snejanka Mihaylova, Emily Roysdon and Gerry Bibby.

Read more about Appropriation and Dedication

Read more about the New Theater

Read more about the COOP Academy and the partnership If I Can't Dance & DAI