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COVID-19 UPDATE for all upcoming events
We carefully design our current program along the pandemic developments. We adhere to all german and Brandenburg governmental travel and accommodation rules, as well as to the up to date physical social distancing rules during our gatherings. We are also following all the necessary Covid-19 hygiene precautions and protocols to accommodate and feed you comfortably and safe here. Ponderosa e.V. and the Stolzenhagen Seminarhaus GmbH are officially obliged to return a full refund if any Corona laws should create a cancellation for your registered event. We are happy to receive any donations towards our non profit-administration work if this should occur. Please consider that cancellations refund are not accepted in case of any personal or emotional restrictions.
We encourage you to take a step towards our right to group gatherings and we look forward to seeing you here for your workshop or residency event. For any further questions regarding your stay please contact info@ponderosa-dance.de or consult the official German page here www.zusammengegencorona.de.
Overview: upcoming events
WORKSHOPS
Ponderosa workshops — including those both in and outside the dates of the Tanzland Festival
FESTIVAL
Events that are part of the Ponderosa Tanzland Festival 2020.
P.O.R.C.H.
Everything to do with the P.O.R.C.H. programme.
RESIDENCY
Residencies at Ponderosa. 
GARDEN CLUB
Events related to Garden Club, and aspects of land, permaculture, and environmental sustainability.
COLOR BLOCK
Events that are part of the Color Block series of events in 2020.
AIR CAMP
Events that are part of the Air Camp series.
SOMATICS
Events that are part of Ponderosa’s ongoing somatics, yoga, and contact improvisation work.
TIPPING UTOPIA
Events occurring under the curatorial direction of the Tipping Utopia initiative.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Special events. This includes one-off concerts, installations, performances, lectures, and lots more.
June–July 2020
12–14. June, 2020: 
Bored Out Artist Garden Weekend I: Forest Gardening
SOMATICS · WORKSHOPS
GARDEN CLUB · TIPPING UTOPIA
160 Euro All inclusive (130 € Workshop, plus food/accomodation 30 €)
Welcome back to the occasional series of weekend events at Ponderosa, which are for all of the movers, thinkers, artists, and other curious onlookers who can make it out of the city for a full exhale: We‘re offering a weekend lightly packed with permaculture garden workshop with Leonardo Cocucci, Kundalini yoga with Stephanie Maher, dips and dinners, camp fire and spontaneous performative events with the Ponderosa team.

This first summer weekend workshop offers you a great introduction to the concept of Forest Gardening, with both theory and practice in the field. What are the possible solutions for the main contradictions of modern agriculture? And how can we understand forest gardening as a possible remedy to the general agricultural trend? The workshop gives an introduction into soil fertility, modern agriculture and the main contradictions of this practice, an introduction to forest gardening, followed by practical experience of creating a balanced polyculture patch and designing a food forest.



Weekend schedule:
Friday, 12th
4-6:30pm Workshop Permaculture
Dinner and Camp Fire
Saturday, 13th
7am Silent river dip
8-10 Meditation and Kundalini Yoga with Stephanie Maher
10 Breakfast
11-13 Workshop Permaculture
​Lunch
4:30-6:30 Workshop Permaculture
7 Dinner
9 Saturday Night (Concert, showings, presentation)
Sunday 14th
8-10 Meditation and Kundalini Yoga with Stephanie Maher
10 Breakfast
11-13:30 Workshop Permaculture
2:30 Lunch and Closing Circle

This weekend workshop is the first one in an ongoing series and exploration of permaculture and garden events. To get an overview about all of the events happening, you can check our monthly events of the Garden Club, please contact Leonardo!  
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19–22 June, 2020: 
Bored Out Artist Garden Midsummer Weekend 
SOMATICS · WORKSHOPS
GARDEN CLUB · TIPPING UTOPIA
230 Euro All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
A long weekend for all of the movers, thinkers, artists, and other curious onlookers who can make it out of the city for a full exhale. 
We‘re offering a special Midsummer weekend lightly packed with permaculture garden workshop, Kundalini yoga, dips and dinners,  really deep solstice witch arts& crafts and spontaneous performative events. And of course a fire to celebrate the longest night of the year!
We talk and laugh together. We experiment together. The spaces here are open for you and your tired burnt-out and bored-out friends. Come and bring ideas, performances, DIY notions, whatever else. 🌺
This summer weekend workshop offers will focus on the concept of Forest Gardening, principles of Permaculture and answering all of your questions regarding the garden, with both theory and practice in the field, cumulating in a harvesting session for our communal dinner. 


Weekend schedule ( adapting to weather and artist conditions)
Friday, 19th
4-6:00pm Arrival
6 Opening Circle
8 Dinner and Camp Fire
Saturday, 20th
6:30am Silent river dip
8-10 Meditation and Kundalini Yoga with Stephanie Maher
10:15-11:30  Brunch
12-15 Workshop Permaculture
7:30 Dinner
9 Saturday Night (Concert, showings, presentation)
Sunday 21st
6:30am Silent river dip
8-10 Meditation and Kundalini Yoga with Stephanie Maher
10:15-11:30  Brunch
3-6 Workshop Permaculture
7:30 Dinner
9 Very serious Midsummer witchcraft program (magic involved. No details)

Monday 22nd
8-10 Meditation and Kundalini Yoga with Stephanie Maher
10:15-11:30  Brunch
Rest and enjoy and recover
​
This weekend workshop is the first one in an ongoing series and exploration of permaculture and garden events. To get an overview about all of the events happening, you can check our monthly events of the Garden Club, please contact Leonardo!  

If you have further interest in our permaculture gardening program please contact Leonardo!  
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10–13 July, 2020: 
Bored Out Artist Garden Cake Weekend 
Healing Plants of Ponderosa and Anna Halprins Birthday Celebration
SOMATICS · WORKSHOPS
GARDEN CLUB · TIPPING UTOPIA
230 Euro All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
We talk and laugh together. We experiment together. The spaces here are open for you and your tired burnt-out and bored-out friends. Come and bring ideas, performances, DIY notions, whatever else. 🌺
A long weekend for all of the movers, thinkers, artists, and other curious onlookers who can make it out of the city for a full exhale. 
We‘re offering a special weekend lightly packed with permaculture garden workshop, Kundalini yoga, dips and dinners, and spontaneous performative events. 
This summer weekend workshop offers will focus on the healing plants of Ponderosa, answering all of your questions regarding the garden, with both theory and practice in the field, cumulating in a harvesting session to make our own tinctures and ointments. 
And on Monday we will celebrate together the 100th Birthday of the great Anna Halprin, honoring her incredible work with lots of cake and an outdoor dance session!
Stay updated for all of the program details following soon!

This weekend workshop is the first one in an ongoing series and exploration of permaculture and garden events. To get an overview about all of the events happening, you can check our monthly events of the Garden Club, please contact Leonardo!  
Back to overview
July, 2020: 
Air Camp Summer Artist Exchange
RESIDENCY · ​AIR CAMP
Admission: by application
The Air Camp Summer Artist Exchange is a series of individual and collaborative residencies and retreats, hosted by Ponderosa’s visiting artists — and you. Take some breathing space, weave an individual structure, and find refuge in weird times of uncertainty. 
 
The summer month of July is opened up again for visitors for retreats and residencies to create your work around our gardens and our studios. During this time, there will also be communal classes and events, instigating new possibilities to use our infrastructure and by inviting collective processes for inclusion and embodied dialogue. With contributions from Stephanie Maher, Caitlin Fisher, Teo Vlad, Yoav Admoni, Asaf Aharonson, Peter Pleyer, and Alicia Grant.

​Further informations and sign up can be found here: 
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26. July–23. August, 2020: 
Color Block series events · With Joy Mariama Smith, Reza Mirabi, Zwoisy Mears-Clarke, Sumi Jang, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Verónica Mota, Ima Iduozee
WORKSHOPS · SOMATICS · COLOR BLOCK
Admission: by application
As all of our planning is on hold right now due to COVID-19, we are still waiting and hoping the best for our COLOR BLOCK program in July and August. We are going to adjust our plans due to the instructions and rules by the (international) authorities in time. Please check back on our website for updates, and email with questions. The application form is online now and can be found here!

From late July to mid August 2020, the Color Block series will hopefully present four weeks of People-of-Color-centered divergent programming at Ponderosa: A space held by and created for people of color to work, play, and experiment around performance, improvisation and activism, hosted by Joy Mariama Smith. We aim to collectively and collaboratively focus on perseverance, resistance, freedom and healing.
The programming that forms the Color Block series will provide opportunities for various explorations of radical kinship, will highlight intersectional politics, and will create spaces for those of us on the periphery.
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27. July–31. July, 2020: 
COLOR BLOCK WEEK 1
Body-Keying with Adam Patterson 
Untitled with Ima Iduozee (virtual event)
WORKSHOPS · SOMATICS · COLOR BLOCK
Admission: by application
190 Euro All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
Body-Keying
How may we change our bodies and realities by means of post-production? How can we edit the world to accommodate us more comfortably? What images of ourselves do we want to bring to surface?
​Using paper-cutting, mask-making and costuming as a means of shape-generation alongside green-screen and keying effects to conjure magical portals across surfaces and horizons, this workshop treats digital keying as a tool that defies boundaries and limits, while accommodating more unfixed, migratory, fugitive and itinerant ways of living and working. The Workshop includes mask-making, costuming, filming and editing, live keying, freeform movement exercises with accompanying readings and videos.

More about the workshop with Ima Iduozee coming soon!
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03. –07. August, 2020: 
COLOR BLOCK WEEK 2
Collective Consent & Care Lab & Queer Cardio 
​with Joy Mariama Smith
WORKSHOPS · SOMATICS · COLOR BLOCK
Admission: by application
190 Euro All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
Beginning with an intention of care, we move into notions of consent and looking at its relationship to power and privilege. We will use this time together as people of color to support, empower and build. We will move into practice-based research in the following areas: Embodied consent, implicit consent, and explicit consent. The research goal is to work collectively to bolster the practice based framework around consent, agency and accountability in a more accessible way by using information and language from our own individual knowledge base(s) to arrive at collectivity.
The aim is to provide an opportunity to raise awareness around consent and agency by using art, care and action.
As we are moving from a place of care- there will be space to rest, relax and adapt depending on the needs of the group.
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10.–14. August, 2020: 
COLOR BLOCK WEEK 3 POC Radical Kinship Ruckus  
​with Be Heintzman Hope (v), Jaamil Olawale Kosoko (v), Reza Mirabi (v), Mawue Pereyra (p), Adrian Marie Blount (p), Veronica Mota (p) 
WORKSHOPS · SOMATICS · COLOR BLOCK
Admission: by application
56 Euro a day All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
The Ruckus is a week focused on radical kinship, where participants can take part in a multitude of workshops that are inspired by this year’s theme. Radical kinship is a jumping off point for what the facilitators decide to offer, so the subjective and personal perspective of each facilitator allows for different access points to this topic. The space that we share in this week will be PoC-centered and a stimulating collection of people, their emotions, their presence, and everything else they bring with them.
The Ruckus will investigate shifting our focus and sharing practices around PoC centered notions of Radical Kinship, skin folk and kinfolk. There will be time for yelling and time for radical resting. There will be time for communal eating and partying. How can we inhabit uncertainty in a way that is generative?
The Ruckus offers a variety of opportunities for you to engage. There will be different options each day. You can choose to partake in everything offered or decide to have a more open schedule. We are working with the notions of abundance, so you can choose what level of engagement is right for you! The Ruckus will happen between the studio, nature, and the kitchen. Everyone will take turns cooking together for the group during the week.
The Ruckus is curated by Joy Mariama Smith and  Zwoisy Mears-Clarke.
​
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15. August–18. August, 2020: 
COLOR BLOCK WEEK 4 RLX relax rest
WORKSHOPS · SOMATICS · COLOR BLOCK
Admission: by application
30 Euro a day/ All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
A weekend that is only dedicated to resting and relaxation. Come and enjoy!
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20. August–23. August, 2020: 
COLOR BLOCK WEEK 4: Radical Kinship Un-Conference  
WORKSHOPS · SOMATICS · COLOR BLOCK
Admission: by application
150 Euro All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
The un-conference takes place is physical space but a virtual space may emerge…
An un-conference is any event where the agenda is set by those who attend. The rules of an un-conference are simple: ditch expectation and don’t try to control the experience.
The Radical Kinship Un-conference is hosted by Zwoisy Mears-Clarke and Joy Mariama Smith, catalyzed by Ahmed El Gendy, Melmuun Bajarchuu, Maria Scaroni,  and Season Butler .
Radical Kinship' un-conference- is a WILD CARD carefully curated, but not rigidly planned un-conference with lovely people that will catalyze conversations actions, talks, workshops, walks, rest, and more around the many shapes and sizes and notions around the concept of ‘radical kinship’ with a strong focus on self love/self-care. Meaning, how we work, play, eat, live, together… or separate. Autonomy vs collectivity. Equity vs equality. Intersectionality? confusion, love, desire, hierarchy, power, money…commodification, politics, sustainability … all the juicy stuff. Bring whatever you bring. We work from our collective knowledge together. ALL WELCOME
Read more about how to run an un-conference here
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27–31 July, 2020: 
Blue Vortex with Franziska Dieterich
 WORKSHOPS
 
350 Euro/ 330 (Members price) All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
This workshop offers an introduction into the autonomic nervous system and the Polyvagal theory of Stephen Porges. As group we dive into the knowledge, understanding and experience of this usually unknown part of our nature.  We will learn about the reptilian brain and practice a language to make contact and find words for that archaic part of our existence. In the safe space of the group and balanced nature  We will work on the necessity of setting up boundaries, meeting  each other at the individual borders, being in stable, safe connection, being contain and certain. We will establish routines – out of the toolbox of Qigong, Shiatsu and other– creating safe and stable structures within uncertainty, as what life is, to experience in a conscious and awake state.

* Blue vortex: Part of the termini of somatic experience by Peter Levine, the counterbalance and ressource to the red vortex.
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August–September 2020
August–September, 2020: 
Garden Club
SOMATICS · WORKSHOPS
GARDEN CLUB · TIPPING UTOPIA
Level: beginners welcome
There will be a series of Garden Club events in August and September. Garden Club is an ongoing series of research-based, low-key, and mostly easy-going events at Ponderosa, based around the garden — exploring the ongoing interplay of ecology, food, somatics, and landscape that spins around the garden.

These events are a relaxed and emergent ongoing process, and they have their own newsletter — sign up if you’re interested in staying up-to-date about it all. They are overseen by Shelley Etkin, Leo Kay, Stephanie Maher, and Leonardo Cocucci.
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3–7 August, 2020: 
Balance the Globe with Peter Pleyer
 WORKSHOPS
 
350 Euro/ 330 (Members price) All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
With this workshop we‘re going together on an outside parkour, finding places to stand, balance and move, alone and together. The Small Dance, standing without holding, balancing, will tune and increase our listening to our bodies and its perception to the environment surrounding us, opening up for sound, smell and sight. Movement will start from that balance „causing it only a little“, falling and catching, sensitizing our body to grounding and ever changing surfaces. Energy is accumulated and moved by different chi-practices (spinal qui gong, the swimming dragon, 8 brocades), bounches, skipping and bonding with the earth through roll-downs, curling and rolling close to the floor. The constructive rest position in nature will feed us with width, depth and length, space for sensation. The harvest will be done by writing and/or drawing and sharing.
This score will be honoring Nancy Stark Smith.
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10–14 August, 2020: 
Adventure Gazing with Jorge de Hoyos
 WORKSHOPS
 
350 Euro/ 330 (Members price) All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
An adventure is something to go out and see if it happens. Something needs to be discovered. To experience something not known yet: what? how? where? At the end, if we survive, we return home, changed. We'll come back dirty. A new person, a new world, poised for new adventures.  
In this workshop we will be outside, sometimes near and more times far. The tools used are Authentic Movement going inside to go out and vice versa, gazing through different perspectives and the two principles from Permaculture, Observe and Interact & Use Edges and Value the Marginal will be our guide. The aim is less about developing performance skills or new aesthetics, but rather, to explore, both individually and as a group, the “self” always emerging in relation to multiple, synchronous adventures.     
The Workshop is inclusive, regardless your physical abilities. Please consider that we’ll be outside traveling across bumpy, unpaved, and perhaps long paths. We can use the support of the group when needed. Experience in focusing and grounding your body might be helpful.   
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17–21 August, 2020: 
WITCHTITS get serious about dancing/ Get gooey 
with Zinzi Buchanan and Alicia Grant
 WORKSHOPS
 
350 Euro/ 330 (Members price) All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
In this workshop, WITCHTITS offer you a space to get serious about dancing. We find it more important than ever to tune into the potential of being full-flesh star-gazers. We will dance together to feel grounded in our bodies, and expand into the power of something greater than ourselves. 
Each day will begin with activities to tone the vagus nerve, a large cranial nerve responsible for helping your whole system find equilibrium. For us, toning the vagus nerve means beginning each day with movement and singing! Small geek-lessons surrounding our research in neurophysiology, chronic pain, fluidic forces, and rocks will supplement our workshop facilitation.
On the final day, we will have the opportunity to do a full group performance as an energetic gift to the rest of the community. As WITCHTITS traverse through the spiritual wilderness with you, we will continue to be inspired by simplicity, friendship, songs of grief and love, and “our unlimited potential.”
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10 -14 August, 2020: 
Eye Sea with Anna Nowicka
 WORKSHOPS
 
350 Euro/ 330 (Members price) All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
Every night – without exception – you plunge into a dreaming reality. You are carried away by a flood of seemingly unrelated images, dramatic events, unforeseen meetings, incoherent developments and unconventional resolutions. You wake up deeply moved, often wishing to erase this night’s journey. “It was just a dream”, you say.
What if these nighttime adventures are not only an assemblage of coincidental pictures, but they weave a precise, clear and deeply embodied analysis of the everyday life? What if they reveal to you a personalized, inner map depicting numerous choices you face, and possible responses to your reality? Dreams are showing you where you are. They are "the news from the body”. 
During the week-long workshop we will learn to read and respond to our inner maps. We will dive into the inner landscapes, orientate in their topography, read the clues and discover their sensed-felt, embodied meanings. We will learn to apply these understandings to movement. Through a physical exploration of night and waking dreams, we will discover how images move us, how they shift our presence and shape our decisions. We will playfully move between real and imagined, between doing and observing, expanding an awareness of the endless flow of impulses, able to choose which one to follow, form and embody. 

The work is rooted in the “Dream Opening®” practice of Dr Catherine Shainberg from “The School of Images”, where Anna Nowicka is a practitioner and a teacher. For the past 10 years, she has been researching the realm of imagination, and applying the imagery and dreaming tools to her extensive choreographic work, creative coaching and pedagogical practice. 
Picture by Real Cosmic Stories
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24–28 August, 2020: 
Nymphs and Nettles with Asaf Aharonson and Zinzi Buchanan
 WORKSHOPS
 
350 Euro/ 330 (Members price) All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
We are nymphs dancing in the garden. Shape-shifting creatures bridging the beautiful and monstrous, us nymphs are at one with our surroundings. We are not just IN nature, we ARE the air, woods, water and hills and everything is as it should be, moving, and then … we come into trouble. Disharmony! Pain! Paranoia! Our minds run into grooves made by Greek tragedies and we see only doom and our bodies recoil in attempt to keep us safe. 
This workshop is to get us moving in different ways on different days. Asaf and Zinzi share with you the ways in which they help each other move. We encourage you to see beyond yourselves and to hold space for others. “Would you like some bodywork?” “Can you help me express anger?” we ask each other. Foolery might be necessary to get us going again after a long period of being quarantined. Our aim is to dance again like nymphs who stand for a light-hearted way of living. At home, rolling in the local wildflowers and nettles alike. We will warm ourselves through somatic practises, write and share blockages and go on adventures each day with nymph-like being. 
Please bring books, poems, images that move you and a craft (drawing, sewing, origami etc.) – new or old - that can accompany you through the week.
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1- 20. September 2020
P.O.R.C.H:
​Art & PERM (Performance Environmental Resonance Module)
P.O.R.C.H.
Early-bird deadline: 1. July| More information coming soon!
Admission: by application · Level: aspiring professionals
The Art & PERM Module introduces the garden as an intimate theater- a source of renewal and longevity for all art makers.It is a time to deconstruct hindering preconceptions. Queering, renaming, revising, reimagining — all of this has a place in the conversation and amongst the environment that is ours to explore and invent. We address our current crisis as a possible reflection for resilience and the performative focus and the ways in which somatic practices can overlay with ecological & performance-making dynamics. It invites the creation of knowledge through felt experience: Participants will address the performative in practical, anatomical, political and imaginal elements of worlds — including worlds expanded beyond human.
P.O.R.C.H. Art & Perm Module provides access to a performative commitment, constructive feedback, and artistic exchange all in the stunning natural beauty of the Brandenburg countryside.​The module will be guided by Asaf Aharonson, Shelley Etkin, Stephanie Maher, Peter Pleyer, Angela Schubot, Robert Steijn, Libken e.V. and special guests. We establish group awareness and feedback tools, and decipher performance materials and their necessity. 
​
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07–11 September, 2020: 
Holotropic Breathwork™ for the artistic mind 
with Rachel Bongartz and Karin Bergmann
 SOMATICS ·WORKSHOPS
 
499€ All inclusive (Price is for sleeping a tent or dorm)
Holotropic Breathwork™ is a powerful technique for self-exploration in altered states of consciousness. This specific workshop is created for artistic minds to dive into expanded states of consciousness in a safe, respectful and therapeutic context. 
Authentic creativity is an act of confronting and embracing our internal experience, especially in the very moment of crisis. Whether you‘re seeking a more experiential approach to healing, releasing unresolved issues from the past, wanting to understand the emotional roots of a persistent condition or want to overcome the classical western pattern of artistic crisis to open up for radical new perspectives and modes of expression.
This intense 5 day workshop involves a combination of breathing, evocative music, focused energy release work and integration through artwork and sharing. Its transformative powers develop solely through one's connection with the breath diving deep into non-ordinary states of consciousness such as meditative and mystical experiences allowing deep healing and self-empowerment. 

For further questions about the Holotropic Breathwork process please contact Rachel Bongartz .
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October—November 2020
2.–29. November, 2020: 
P.O.R.C.H. Dramaturgy Module
P.O.R.C.H. · SOMATICS
Early-bird deadline: 1. August | Information coming soon!
Admission: by application · Level: aspiring professionals
As art-makers and supporters, we are in the field of professional pretending. We find ourselves navigating without blueprints or reliable maps. We embark on many journeys with self-built compasses and overheard rumours about the stars. Our accumulated, precarious piles of knowledge are composed through years of random encounters, web searches and gates opened by others. 

It is often the case that we stumble upon the dramaturgical role, a clearing located on the crossroad of many paths. We come from dance, theatre, theory, visual arts, literature, we bring our heritage into our practice as we craft our eyes, ears and mouths into working tools. ​The P.O.R.C.H. Dramaturgy Module is a space of reflection and experimentation around what dramaturgy is. We wish to foster individual approaches through a communal gathering of colleagues.

Facilitated by Yoav Admoni, Stephanie Maher, Peter Pleyer, Petra Poelzl, Annika Stadler, Sharon Zuckerman Weiser and guests. 
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