Dance from the beginning – TU Dresden’s children’s and youth dance studio kicks off the new year
Publication in the DNN of 21.01.2010
The very youngest don’t even go to school yet, but they are already keeping up with the choreographies for the group of first graders in the TU Dresden dance studio. The lightness, above all the cheerfulness with which they present themselves to Hermann van Veen’s “Ich tanz” or in a funny trio in which the little cavalier prefers to flee at the end, as a colorful clown troupe or as very small witches, seems to disprove the saying that all beginnings are difficult. Trio “Dresden dances into the new year” was the motto under which the TU Dresden dance studio, together with guests from the folklore dance ensemble Thea Maas, invited guests to a varied and entertaining show at the Congress Center Dresden. There was a passion for dance on the stage and soon in the hall, because the very youngest, who had come with proud parents, siblings and grandparents, were not kept in their laps or seats, they danced wherever there was space, populated the large stage during the interval and made it clear in the most beautiful way what this is, dance and theater for everyone and from the very beginning.
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Guests in this program were the “really” greats, teenagers and young adults of the folklore ensemble, whose involvement with historical, folk dance traditions is as astonishing as it is commendable. There are also men here who obviously enjoy stepping vigorously into the plump fruit in a vintner’s dance, then getting intoxicated or astounding the audience with their circus skills in twirling and throwing the sticks as bouncy herding boys.
In between are the middle-aged groups, ten and eleven years old, and the older groups with female dancers aged 13 to 18. Here the men make themselves scarce, but when the dance moves towards hip-hop, street and breakdance, young dancers also dare to take to the boards and win more than their fair share of applause. The female dancers in these large groups, on the other hand, are quite confident in many styles.
They celebrate courtly style in a gavotte, as was customary at the court of Augustus the Strong, they move in a choreography to music by Mozart in classical lines at half-pace, make excursions into folklore or turn out to be fans of Michael Jackson in disco sound. Some of the contributions are of a comedic nature, such as the fitness training of a gluttonous flock of ducks under the direction of a sporty frog or the spooky ghosts.
Some use modern dance techniques, such as the great scene of an invasion of spiders against a beetle, which is ultimately victorious.
On the whole, despite a high degree of unusual lines, it is not a performance show, no squinting for superlatives and certainly no superstars. This presentation documents the ongoing work of an area of extracurricular education for children and young people whose success cannot be measured by Pisa points. And the applause for all the dancers at the brilliant finale naturally also goes to the directors of the studio, Bärbel Hölzel and Maud Butter with the dance teachers Gerd Hölzel, Sabine Kotzsch and Katja Nieland as well as the voluntary commitment of the members of the support association, not forgetting the support of the Technical University of Dresden.
Boris Michael Gruhl
