Flashback
Flashback
Moritz Ostruschnjak is known in Munich as a contemporary choreographer. But the origins of his career lie somewhere entirely different. A journey back to Ostruschnjak’s youth as a breakdancer, which leads to his new project „Cardboard Sessions“ at the Pinakotek der Moderne.
Simone Lutz: In Cardboard Sessions, Moritz, you work with urban dancers. This ties back to your own past, since as a teenager, you were part of the breaking scene.
Moritz Ostruschnjak: In the 1990s and early 2000s, that’s basically all I did, training every day and living that life. I’d travel with friends to jams or battles. Most of the time, we missed the last train and ended up sleeping in the station. I made money through street performances, fashion shows, or TV gigs. We rehearsed outdoors, in youth centers, or in my first tiny apartment. It had laminate flooring, and I set up a mirrored wardrobe and cleared everything else away so we could break. Sometimes there were ten of us in 20 square meters packed like sardines. But it was cool, it was honestly a great time for me. Compared to today, though, the Munich scene was small and not nearly as creative, we just didn’t know much. There was hardly any internet; we had VHS tapes of battles from LA that we bought for a lot of money. We’d play them so many times they’d start to break down. Today it’s different, there are millions of battle videos and tutorials online to choose from.
SL: But then you left the scene and studied dance at Iwanson and with Maurice Béjart. How did that come about?
MO: Actually, it was through a dancer I met while breaking. He was older than me, but we got along well. He was studying at Iwanson, doing contemporary, ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and was a backup dancer for DJ Bobo. He showed me ballet videos, Nureyev and so on. I was totally fascinated. I thought, “Those pirouettes, they’re like headspins!” I also felt that I wasn’t getting anywhere with urban dance in Munich, and the commercial side of it, doing shows for S. Oliver or Mercedes-Benz didn’t interest me. Today I see all these amazing, talented young dancers and think, „Wow, I want to work with them!“ I wish the scene had looked like this 20 years ago. And of course, what’s also interesting to me now is: how do I look at this art form with fresh eyes, from a distance? It’s also a way of revisiting my own past.
SL: But you’re not just revisiting, you’re really diving back in. As preparation for Cardboard Sessions, you’ve been going to trainings, battles, and jams again in Munich.
MO: Yeah, it’s definitely a flashback. Some of the training still takes place in the exact same spaces as back then when I was active. Recently I’ve started training again, taking house dance classes to get a feel for it. The difference is that now I’ve got constant muscle soreness I’m definitely not 20 anymore but the live research is super exciting. In my other projects, I usually work a lot through social media, we sample movements from there. But this time it’s totally different. The artwork is the dancers themselves and the moves they bring. There’s going to be a lot of freestyle, because that’s how urban dance works. A super controlled, staged approach just wouldn’t work, it would kill the freedom, the vibe, the groove. What interests me in Cardboard Sessions is also portraying that sense of community, the lifestyle that comes with it. That’s the beautiful thing, you dance, you’re part of your crew. I remembered again what that feels like: dancing together, hanging out, going to clubs, doing other stuff. Your crew, they’re your friends, your family.
SL: In Cardboard Sessions, you’re bringing urban dance into Pinakothek der Moderne, and you describe it as a kind of “taking possession” of the space.
MO: What intrigued me from the start was showing urban dance in a different context, putting it into a high-art space where it usually doesn’t happen. That friction is fascinating to me. And also: to give this art form the respect it deserves through this specific setting.
Pinakothek der Moderne makes sense on multiple levels, including architecturally. There’s the circular rotunda, and the circle is such a central element in urban dance. It all originally happens in the cypher, that informal dance circle where dancers improvise together. But I don’t just want to do some kind of experimental battle. Cardboard Sessions should be a hybrid, a performance that flows into a jam. The stairways, corridors, walls, everywhere there’ll be little sequences by the dancers as the audience moves through the museum. That creates different perspectives on the dance, from above, below, from the side. Maybe the dancers will even take on a sculptural quality, we’ll see.
SL: But you’re not just working with breakers for this project, you’re blending different urban styles.
MO: Absolutely. The idea is to work with outstanding dancers from a mix of styles and backgrounds. Different generations, cultural heritages, men, women, it reflects reality. It’s a very diverse scene, with much more variety than what you often see in art contexts. Also, it’s not so academic, many of them are self-taught, but they’re operating at an incredible level. In terms of styles, we’ll have breaking, krumping, waving, electro, hip-hop, and house. The dancers come from Munich but also from Greece and France. In Cardboard Sessions I’m collaborating with breaker Serhat “Said” Perhat and hip-hop/house dancer Dhélé Agbetou. They’re the experts, they know the people, they know who’s good and who has the mindset for something like this. I’m just finding my way back into the scene myself.
SL: Is this kind of mix of styles common in the urban dance scene?
MO: They’re actually different bubbles that all fall under the umbrella of street or urban culture. The structure of the battle with the cypher and the freshest move is the same for all of them, but the styles are very different. In house, for instance, you almost never go to the floor, it’s super-fast footwork. With B-boying, on the other hand, you’re down on the ground doing tricks and floor combos. But of course, the scenes do meet, and there are now more and more mixed-style battles. I was recently at one where duos competed, one breakdancer and one house dancer per team and it worked really well. That mix is also what interests me: seeing different styles side by side. Figuring out how I can bring them together, where the common ground is. By the end of Cardboard Sessions, in the rotunda of the Pinakothek, everyone, dancers and audience alike ideally will come together in one big final cypher and will dance together.
Interview: Simone Lutz
Cardboard Sessions is presented by International DANCE Festival München in cooperation with Pinakothek der Moderne and Kunstareal-Fest.
MORITZ OSTRUSCHNJAK: Moritz Ostruschnjak discovered contemporary dance through breakdancing. After training at Iwanson and with Maurice Béjart, he has been working as a freelance choreographer in Munich since 2013. His pieces have been presented internationally. Ostruschnjak was named an Aerowaves Twenty21 Artist and received the City of Munich’s Dance Advancement Award in 2020.