An essay by dramaturge Theresa Selter
How to dance a rose garden?
Poetry & Dance - The Great Slam Battle
‘Should I go dancing or chill in the deep valley of thought?’
This sentence from the text an r Poet in, presented at the event Poetry & Dance – Das grosse Slam Battle on 13.12.204 on the stage of the Theater Strahl, remains in my memory. Is it really possible to do both? How separate are these two worlds? Dance – expression through the body – emotionality that does not require concepts. Words – expression by language – comprehension that does not involve physical sensations.
Poetry & Dance Slam Battle © René Löffler
A little retrospective
In art, despite a tendency to open up, we are still accustomed to separating by ‘species’ or ‘directions of art’. This is also due to historical reasons, as each cultural practice has shaped its own tradition throughout history:
Documentations of ritual dances can already be found, for example, in Indian cave paintings, which were created sometime between 5000 and 2000 BC. The format of the dance battle, i.e. competitions between dancers in front of a jury, comes from the breakdance scene of the 1970s in New York and is now practiced worldwide.
Early records of poetry can be found, for example, in the Sumerian poets of ancient Babylon (c. 2000-1600 BC), who preferred to write ridiculous verses. The Poetry Slam was established in Chicago in 1986 and spread all over the world. In the "Poet Battle", self-written texts are presented within a certain time and the winner is determined by the audience. By the way: The German-language poetry slam scene is considered one of the largest in the world.
Dare to experiment!
As far as ‘tradition’ is concerned. But what happens when these two worlds mix? When poetry and dance meet in a single competition? How can they enrich each other, challenge each other and lure them out of the comfort zone? It is precisely this experiment that Offensive Tanz, together with Theater Strahl, dared to perform on 13.12.24 in a completely new format: Poetry & Dance – the great Slam Battle!
Spontaneity and courage
For the participants, an event that required a lot of spontaneity and courage. This did not deter sixteen experimental dancers inside and poets inside from engaging in the venture. In four rounds, they competed against each other in raffled poetry-dance duos with constantly new tasks – accompanied by a beatboxer who provided them with tailor-made sounds, an expert inside jury, a moderator inside team and above all: An enthusiastic audience that filled the hall to the last corner.
What came out of it were unexpected, comic, absurd, poetic, touching, serious and powerful performances born of mutual inspiration, spontaneity and great empathy.
After all, how do you react dancerically to a text about aging and the memory of the father in the rose garden? And how about the story of a beetle in a disposable glass and the passing of time? How do you spontaneously close to a dance performance with large, furious movements reaching into the room? How can the rhythm of Krumping be captured in words?
Finding an Echo in the Other
In essence, it can be said that all the performances of the poetry dance duos were about finding an echo in the other. To understand the other person beyond different expressions and languages. It is about thoughts, experiences and emotions that can be expressed both in movement and in words.
The following is an (incomplete) collection of impressions:
A man raises his arms, makes himself vulnerable, lets a storm blow through him. The cracking of branches in the forest is noticeable in words and sounds. Anger at the strange glances at one's own body becomes loud. A smile distorts into a grotesque show. Touches tell of longing for tenderness. The Amazon is losing its face. A wounded king crawls to the throne.
Now all that's left to do is dance this report.
A production of: Offensive dance for young audiences Berlin, funded by TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund from funds of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media and the State of Berlin from funds of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. In cooperation with Theater Strahl. With the kind support of Club Oval/Dance Complicities.
