Montag Modus * archives of the future III // Tanzfabrik Berlin ( 2023 )

PERFORMATIVE DINNER 
by Kasia Wolinska, Léna Szirmay-Kalos, Petre Mogoș & Laura Naum


The third edition of 2023 Montag Modus’ «archive of futures» project departs from the intersection of Eastern Europe’s many pasts and futures. The possibilities of this interlaced narrative space are examined through the means of sharing food and stories: a journey into possible Eastern Europe’s futures unfolds through a three-course dinner based on regional cuisine and family recipes, and paired with food, spirits, games, and an artistic program. In a curated artistic environment this opens up new paths and opportunities for exchange. The condition of Easternfuturism is approached through second-hand memories but newly born hopes, identities in-flux and postcommunist diasporas, with the purpose of reclaiming Eastern Europe as a space whose future is yet to be articulated.  

Montag Modus is an interdisciplinary event series organized by the MMpraxis curatorial platform. The series centers around performance art, choreography and time-based media. Based in Berlin, the Montag Modus  program involves  artists and cultural workers both from the city and from the regions of Central and Eastern Europe.

Hosts: Lena Szirmay-Kalos, Kasia Wolińska, Petre Mogoș and Laura Naum (Kajet Journal)
Paintings: Mark Fridvalszki
​Songs and toasts: Otucha Collective
Emcee: Ben Mohai
Production: Magda Garlinska
Assistance: Beatrice Zanesco
Technical management: Bátor Tóth

Occasional publication and more info 

Photos by Dieter Hartwig

 AG Work Culture / How to (make) dance in Berlin  / Tanztage Berlin (2023)

​MODERATION Rike Flämig, Olympia Bukkakis, Kasia Wolińska

Is dance about competition, excellence and individual success only? What are the conditions – actual and desired – for dance to be happening for the benefit of our society and the workers within the dance field? How can we recognize and transform both conscious and unconscious beliefs about the role and meaning of work in our lives? AG Work Culture invites to a discussion and a collective writing session around their digital booklet “how to (make) dance in berlin – a toolbox for a better work culture in the independent dance scene”. The booklet is available in German and English.
​
The publication results from a collaborative process of the AG Work Culture – a working group and a bottom-up initiative operating within the contemporary dance association Zeitgenössischer Tanz Berlin e.V. Since the 1st of March 2021, a group of more than twenty cultural workers – representing freelancers and employees of art institutions connected to the local independent dance scene – has been meeting on a regular and voluntary basis online and offline to map the challenges of Berlin’s work life and to share strategies that could make workplaces in Berlin closer to what they believe in and want be a part of. The process consisted of critical self-reflection, discussions about interdependencies within the scene (while agreeing that the power is not distributed equally), and aimed at inspecting and softening the relational gaps between artists and institutions and imagining new ways of collaboration between the different actors in the dance field.

photos Mayra Wallraff

​ZTB e.V. Zukunftswerkstatt / #3 Power / Tanztage Berlin (2022)

MODERATION Kasia Wolińska GUESTS Fatima Çalışkan, Frances Chiaverini/Robyn Doty, Sonya Lindfors

After we took a closer look at questions of work culture and (mental) health in 2021, this year’s episode of “Future Workshop” encourages you to reflect, discuss and examine the underlying structures of our lives at work. POWER takes on different shapes and forms within the dance scene of Berlin and we are yet to underpin the problems so they could, ultimately be resolved. The third edition of the discursive format, facilitated and organised by ZTB e.V. and Tanztage Berlin, is an invitation to imagine working environments founded in equality – through an embrace of all identities and needs. It promotes organising for the sake of strengthening that plurality while learning from it. 

We propose to start from the recognition of the multiple power holders and gatekeepers that determine our dance making – from myths, traditions, histories, economies, institutions and politics that, more often than not, render the working people in the field powerless or silenced within their working environments. With invited guests we will talk about the existing initiatives, projects and strategies that can inspire our future attempts in standing up to power or seeking empowerment in organizing with others at our workplaces in Berlin, and beyond.

ZTB e.V. Zukunftswerkstatt / #1 Work Culture / Tanztage Berlin (2021)

MODERATION Kasia Wolińska GUESTS Angela Alves, Joana Tischkau, Frosina Dimovska + Dunja Crnjanski

What is the work of and for the future? How do we need to transform and redefine our strategies, environments and relations within the realms of work and life, so they can bring us toward a future community that we desire and identify with? For the 30th edition of Tanztage Berlin together with the association ZTB Berlin (celebrating its 20th anniversary), we are reviving a format envisioning alternatives to what the system of art production offers us and maybe even solutions to problems it creates. Its first part, moderated by Kasia Wolińska, will be dedicated to questions of work culture and the future of labour. Its second part moderated by Simo Vassinen will be dealing with the topic of mental health among Berlin’s dancing communities.
​
Do you feel overworked, overstimulated, underrated and underrepresented? Time has come to step up and step in - into the field of possible futures! With the first part of the Future Workshop, we want to engage with a discussion that will eventually transform how we work, and for the sake of what. And while theorizing about it we attempt to do it. We propose three statements from invited guests: Angela Alvez, Joana Tischkau, Frosina Dimovska and Dunja Crnjanski, that will be followed by a conversation. To our guest, we direct an invitation to depart from a personal story to further reflect on it in a shared struggle. And, as ensuring a future is what we want, we propose tools and strategies tested and developed by our fellows, so together we can think of what has to be done to improve our work lives, our work culture and our future perspectives.

​Incite! Dance! / ZTB e.V. & Guests / Tanztage Berlin (2020)

​MODERATION Kasia Wolińska GUESTS Marinella Senatore, Martha Hincapie Charry, Sandra Noeth, Ivor Stodolsky

Departing from the experiences and struggles around the Dance for Millions of Reasons campaign, ZTB opens an interactive space in which strategies of protest, resistance and dissent will be tested. Together with our guests, we search the vast archive of artistic gestures that become political movements and expand our collective imagination. We will test choreographic representations as instruments with regard to their political objectives.