Magazine #1: Six Adventures – The View from the Cockpit
The festival director Nina Hümpel in an interview with Arnd Wesemann
When Dieter Buroch, as the founder of Mousonturm, and you, as the founder of tanznetz, took over the DANCE festival in 2012, there was a cookbook with the favorite recipes of the directors and artists of the festival. How did you want to convey dance from a culinary viewpoint?
Why not present dance from a culinary viewpoint? With the idea of the cookbook we started something that was still not common at that time: mediation. In addition, the audience could book young dance scholars and talk with them about everything without having the feeling one doesn't know enough about contemporary dance. That worked especially well during the meal, because we not only did a cookbook, but the restaurant at Müller'schen Volksbad, where our festival center was located, cooked all of the dishes according to the recipes. You really could order blueberry quark à la Marie Chouinard. Or potato soup by Hans-Georg Küppers, the recipe of our director of the Department of Arts and Culture at that time. Or office gnocci à la Nina Hümpel.
Why didn't you continue with this?
We did, with continuously new ideas, for example, Rent an Expert with dance and political themes, a dance series for male youths as gender mainstreaming – just the other way around – and in recent years with the DANCE History Tour. And also with the hospitality aspect we started back then: every company will be invited to an extremely fine meal, so they can get to know the other companies, and exchange ideas and views with the festival team at the dinner, and also with the audience. We have kept this tradition.
The festival was founded by Bettina Wagner in 1987. Through her husband, Martin Bergelt, she continued to have a close connection to the festival until 1995, and she took over again in 2008. How difficult was it to assume the inheritance of the former head dramaturge of the Bayerisches Staatsballett?
It wasn't easy. Also, because it was the first time we were two directors as a team, Dieter Buroch and I. We wanted to do many things differently, have a stronger influence on the planning of the festival, and see ourselves as artistic directors. That was more than what was expected of us. We wanted to have access to the budget, the organization, the advertising. We tried to free ourselves from the sections of structures that had already been developed. Which not always functioned right away.
You already started following the festival with the era Hortensia Völckers and Martin Bergelt, when you were a student, then as a lecturer, before you founded the portal tanznetz in 1996. How did you experience the thematic lines of the festival back then?
Everything was always very new, very close to the pulse of that time. It had to do with social subjects or certain countries, such as Israel or Canada. I thought that was very enriching, attending a festival every two years that each time became a highlight of my visual experiences.
Not so much has changed since DANCE 2012 started with the theme Flanders. Just not change anything?
Actually, we have changed a lot. And with the theme Flanders it not only had to do with showing as many productions as possible. We also conducted a cultural, political, and scientific discussion in collaboration with LMU, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. We asked ourselves: What can we learn from the Flemings? In Belgium there is a fantastic independent scene with their own management, such as Alain Platel's Les Ballets C. de la B., and a giant pool of creative choreographers and dancers. In Germany there was none of that. It didn't have to do with blindly portraying some countries, even if you cannot deny that there are certain regions that have an incredibly strong presence in the dance scene: Canada, Flanders, and Israel are just the pinnacle.
DANCE was especially, even before you started to curate the festival, a festival of "big names": Meg Stuart, Saburo Teshigawara, Jan Fabre, Susanne Linke … Does that exist still today in the same sense: the avant-garde in dance?
Good question. All of the "big names" mentioned belong to a certain generation, they became prominent at a certain time. In my era then the big names were also Lia Rodrigues, William Forsythe, Marie Chouinard, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Sharon Eyal, Emanuel Gat, and more current names such as Trajal Harrell and Giselle Vienne. But there is a new generation, for example, in the approaching edition of DANCE - it's Lithuania, up-and-coming artists in their early 20s. They need time to earn a "big name." Back then, several years ago very young choreographers such as Yang Zhen and Daina Ashbee had their first performance in Europe at DANCE, and today they are already rather big names in the global dance scene.
What was it like – after 16 years working as a journalist at tanznetz, and receiving the German Dance Award for this – to become the director of this festival in 2012?
It was incredibly enriching, because I didn't know how such an undertaking works on the inside. I had in Dieter Buroch an extremely experienced organizer at my side. He knew everything about stage technology, seating plans, ticket prices. I jumped right in, as a career changer, with the know-how I had, I could communicate with companies and create concepts. Today I am happy I did something that was new to me and could see dance also from another side. Everything is much more passionate on the festival side, but also more sensitive. You stand on the side of those who are doers, who rehearse, present themselves naked on the stage, and experience critique. All at once criticism is not harmless at all.
Being co-director with Dieter Buroch was very brief, he became an artistic advisor after the festival in 2012. Was there a moment when he said: Now do it on your own, you can manage easily without me?
That was immediately after the first festival. Both of us experienced a lot of pushback. On the last day of the first festival, he said to me: "Count me out." We fought demands on the organizational structure. Several members of the press had apparently imagined there would be a different type of director. In addition, there were the co-workers who expected many things would continue as before. There were problems on many fronts. At that time. The only ones who stood 100% behind Buroch and me was was the Department of Arts and Culture and its director, Mr. Küppers would have wanted the two of us to continue as a team. Which, in a certain sense, also is what happened, only with a very different emphasis as previously.
In 2000 Micha Purucker was the very first artist from Munich to perform at DANCE. Then in 2008 Theater am Gärtnerplatz and Bayerisches Staatsballett could also be part of the festival. The Munich scene was given a permanent spot at the festival already at the first festival you were responsible for. Why was that?
I am proud that in every edition of the festival I had at least one Munich choreographer. I am of the opinion Munich can also present itself in an international context – not only in an accompanying program, but rather in the same representative position as international companies. Such as now with the world premiere of Moritz Ostruschnjak's piece, which will open the festival. He comes from Munich. I also include Richard Siegal here, who made a name for himself in Munich and is frequently at DANCE in a collaboration with Cologne.
There is the transmission of Karl Alfred Schreiner's series Minutemade from Gärtnerplatztheater at DANCE, and there is the continuation of the close connection to Brygida Ochaim, who from the very beginning has curated the festival's film program. Together with Thomas Betz she has been presenting the DANCE History Tour since 2019. So, who wanted the festival to become more and more a local affair?
Quality plays a decisive role here. The city remembers how much it once was very much the center of contemporary dance. The research on this has been sensational. Today's independent dance art scene really started for the most part in Munich, at Künstlerhaus and at Odeon. I am thinking of, for example, Alexander Sacharow and Clothilde von Derp, who collaborated with artists here in 1910, or Madeleine G., who danced in 1904 while hypnotized at the venue that is today the Münchner Kammerspiele. In Munich at that time wild experiments were taking place at many venues. We are showing that now in very different formats.
Which role did Katja Schneider play, who also is from Munich?
Katja Schneider has been the festival dramaturge for many years now, although currently she is not so strongly involved in this position as in the beginning, as she is now a dance professor in Frankfurt. She is responsible in particular for the symposiums with prestigious scientists and artists, for example in 2021 on the subject of activism in dance, together with Sigrid Gareis, Gabriele Brandstetter, and other great speakers.
Happenings in parks and in the city are also an invention of recent times: Was that a foreboding of 2021 – the Corona year of DANCE?
To be completely honest, not at all. Especially the happenings by Ceren Oran and the dance marathon by Stefan Dreher, which both took place every day during the entire festival and lasted for hours, responded more or less to the question: How do we get a lot of people to become interested in contemporary dance? How do we get people who are walking past and previously never came into contact with dance to stop, watch, maybe also dance along or ask themselves, what is this actually: contemporary dance? This includes Box Tape by Peter Trosztmer, who had a tape construction built during a period of eleven days, which became larger and larger, like it was spun by a large spider, and you could walk into it and climb into it. That brought together families with children, youths, with and without migration backgrounds, very different kinds of people, who got to know one another and exchanged ideas and opinions, and perhaps also attended an event in the evening.
Other festivals either cancelled or postponed everything during the lockdown, but DANCE dared in 2021 to take place, despite the Corona regulations. What was the worst moment, and what was the happiest when this actually turned out to be a success?
The worst moment was, I think, when we learned that in Bavaria there was the so-called Corona emergency stop. First, they said you could still go to public spaces, and then they said: no, you can't do anything. Not even one dancer in the fresh air with a mask was allowed, also no contact with a second person who is also wearing a mask. That moment, when the members of Jody Oberfelder's company from New York more or less stood at the airport with their luggage and we had to say, please stay at home, that was the most unpleasant and saddest moment. And naturally losing Colleen Scott and Raimund Hoghe, who were at DANCE and passed away during the scheduled time period of the festival.
One of the most joyous moments, I would say, was the realization of how beautifully the digital formats worked, how entertaining they are when they are recorded, how well the questions from the audiences can be integrated, even how excellent the live transmissions from a theater function, such as in Bruges when Jan Martens performed for us his world premiere of Any Attempt will End in Crushed Bodies and Shattered Bones. This production really became successful afterwards, it received diverse awards and invitations to give guest performances. The same was true for Richard Siegel, who produced his work Two for the Show explicitly for the internet.
It sounds as if one could organize virtual festivals more frequently.
I thought that too and I even said at a podium that we must keep using digital formats, streams you can watch beyond your borders on your computer. I have to confess I didn't continue to pursue that, because everyone is so happy to be able to dance in a live performance again. Dance is, after all, one of the few types of events that has large audiences. And naturally I want to take this energy with me.
Was there a personal highlight in the past twelve years?
For me it was the invitation of a very young company, who were still students, from Beijing. The choreographer Yang Zhen was 24 years old, the dancers between 19 and 21 years old. It was the production Just Go Forward. No one spoke English or German. They didn't have a management team, zero technology and zero experience. We had to come up with a relatively large amount of money and make an incredible effort, we had problems with the visas, we translated all night long, and we still tried to contextualize things during rehearsals that couldn't be conveyed to a Western audience. But I am extremely proud, because after two following co-productions at DANCE, the company led by Yang Zhen now has an international agent and a global career. One of the dancers, Gao Tian, received her master's degree in dance from Folkwang University of the Arts, she worked with Sasha Waltz, and in the meantime has become a choreographer herself. What I want to say is, in retrospect the worst festival moments appear to be the happiest when you see how the seemingly impossible makes an advancement actually possible in the first place, whether it is Corona or a guest performance from China.