Remaining Versatile

Text: Christine Matschke
Dance Journalist

The organizers of this year’s edition of the Potsdamer Tanztage are demonstrating their flexibility by adapting a whole festival to the pandemic circumstances. Originally planned as a big 30th anniversary in May, they are now enticing the public to the Havel in August with a more intimate version of the Potsdamer Tanz­tage. What exactly defines dance and democracy today? asks Michiel Vandevelde in “The Goldberg Variations”, with a glance to the dance solo of the same name by improvisation talent Steve Paxton. From Bach’s famous harpsichord work, here played on the accordion, three dancers with different bodies will be drawing a very contemporary meaning. The artist duo deufert & plischke are initiating a regional homage to dance with their participatory serial project “Lieber Tanz / Briefe an den Tanz” (“Dear Dance / Letters to Dance”) in Potsdam and Brandenburg. In the poetic circus dance performance “Fugue/Trampoline” by Yoann Bourgeois, a dancer gets back on his feet as a matter of course after each fall. Further highlights in the programming: “Harleking” by Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi, in which identities are demonically and grotesquely cast on and off. Anna Konjetzky presents a dancer creating a whole palette of sonic self-designs. Konjetzky’s “Move More Morph It!” is, like the first children’s production by Lee Méir and André Lewski on the subject of saying goodbye, part of explore dance – Netzwerk Tanz für junges Publikum (explore dance – network dance for a young audience). Also on offer: a workshop program adapted to the current conditions.