May 13-22
The Pondi team would like to invite you to a very experimental event, in Stolzenhagen, Germany - home of the Ponderosa TanzLand Festival. This is a ten day open score for viewing our work and processes. We are inviting professional artists, performers, improvisers and musicians to come with a prepared proposal, or letter of interest, for this exchange. Please feel free to have a wide spectrum to answer this proposal from absolutely goal-orientated to preperation-free, to a vacation, to an intense rehearsal period, to making a performance, to naming a process, to playing in public spaces, or to finding the culmination of a work.
We are a group of people who will organize ourselves daily by taking a share of practical work - cooking, shopping, cleaning, and making a time schedule for our proposed working methods. We will have three studio spaces available to share and other small working spaces to occupy, some private spaces, some in-public space. We will pay one cook and one house manager to help us orient ourselves with our basic living and studio needs.
We can imagine some people will come with ideas that involve or need the support of participants, performers and an audience. We hope people will have a strong and mature sense of how to manage their time and what they can offer to others. We intend this time to be inspirational, ground breaking, focused, pleasurable and self motivated.
Why?
This is a response to our past Ponderosa TanzLand Festival experiences where some people thought they would like to work deeper with their colleagues and some would like absolutely less program, less workshop teacher-student dynamic. Where some thought they would like more time to take boat, bike, or donkey tours of the surrounding areas. Where some are focusing politically/ economically and asking: why do we come here? What is the true nature of the Ponderosa Tanz/Land Festival? What should and do we really provide?
What do we know...
We are a minimmum of 20 people and a maximum of 45 people. It is not meant as a community processing event.
Rules? Structures?
The Organizers of the event will not pre-conceive themes or concepts for the 10 day retreat. Everyone is willing to take the time and use it as they see fit. We do not preach togetherness or the absolute indivdual.
We will meet daily to converse and co-ordinate space and time.
There will be no professional facilitator or organizer. The Pondi team will give a guided hand to this event, but are not leading it. We are all paying the same basic costs to run this event. There are no preformed hierachies/ workshops but you are welcome to offer any kind of classes or teachings.
We ask all to come for the whole 10 days
Money
we have arrived at a price that is the minimum we can ask for the basic costs of running the guests house and studios and paying the cook and house manager. The pondi team will pay 180 € (a small discount for the work they have done by helping run the festival and by creating the studios, and guest house structures over the years) our invited guests 250 euro. This money provides us with all facilities and a cook. In our beautiful guest house and the studios. We are opening our doors... we will share our materials and tools. We will give prioritity for people with children for private sleeping rooms so we can all get a good nights rest. We will provide 3 scholarships for people from eastern europe who cannot afford this price and are accepting any added donations.
Meetings? Process?
We would like to commit to as little big time group meetings as possible. We will need to meet frequently the first 2 days to orientate and co-ordinate our living/ cleaning of the house and studios and the buying, cooking of our food. We hope we will find together the most efficient structures for the rest of the 10 days to function smoothly. The letter of interests will be collected to have an overview of possible studio conflicts and needs that can be discussed immmediately. The Pondi team members can be fantastic guides for new comers but ask not to be seen in the role of leaders or organizers for the event. We hope people will be flexible and notice their various expectations of preconcieved notions that we may have about rules, structures and organizations.