Home » Our program » Ponderosa Tanzland Festival 2019
Oh yes, people, that’s right — the Ponderosa Tanzland Festival is hoving into view, from July 5. to 18.! Like a new colour in the spectrum, melting minds, throwing off sparks of performative possibility, bending light in strange new ways, altering consciousnesses throughout the universe — and hurtling our way, like the rosy-fingered Stolzenhagen dawn on a summer morning.

So if you want to come out here during festival time, there are two ways to do it: you can either sign up to one of the three workshops happening during the festival, or else you can come along to one of the festival special events. Both are outlined below...
Workshops
Come out for a week — or the other week — or just a weekend — or the whole time! The festival time in July will shimmer in the heat, and and it will be bunched together in four main events — three workshops and one mystery extra. You can attend any one of these, or you can sign up for a special combo and luxuriate in them all...
  • 5.–7. July: 
    Open Classes Weekend · With FAKE Company​ and Kathleen Hermesdorf
    Featuring a plethora of classes facilitated by members of FAKE Company, as well as evening performances and spontaneous festive happenings.
    ​Further details · Sign up
  • 8.–13. July: 
    Open Classes Week · With P.O.R.C.H. Alumni​
    Featuring an array of one-off performative experiments, unique undertakings, a rare and exclusive full FAKE Company performance, courageous and captivating classes, events every night, and — of course! — the legendary Ponderosa Performance Marathon.
    ​​Further details · Sign up
  • 14.–18. July: 
    The Spiral of Fortune (7 of Birds) · With Keith Hennessy and Michael J. Morris​
    Featuring Keith and Michael’s workshop, a lecture-discussion and performance from Keith Hennessy, a special demonstration-participatory-jam-event with Karen Nelson, and other festival performances 🌺 
    ​​Further details · Sign up
  • And for the entire duration of the festival:
    ​Tipping Utopia Conversations
    ​Further details · No sign-up
    You cannot sign up! You just have to be here! You ONLY get 70 seconds. Rant for love! Rant about the politics!
And if you’d like a sense of what might be happening, take a look at our blog post about last year’s Tanzland Festival here. 💥
Special events
The Tanzland Festival will have numerous special events throughout — and you can come along to any of them. So if you’re thinking of a last-minute dash to the countryside, here are all the specials that we have on the menu. 
10. July: Performance with Tove Sahlin and guests
  • Details: Tove Sahlin will present new work with special guests as a Tanzland Festival exclusive.
  • Practicalities: Attendance costs 10 € for members, and 25 € for non-members. Arrive on 10. July in time for dinner at 7pm. Departure is the following day, 11. July, after breakfast, with the 12:22 public bus.
11. July: FAKE Company performance
  • Details: Come see the Fakers in a rare large-ensemble performance, their first since a year ago in Berlin, and part of the Ponderosa Tanzland Festival.
  • Practicalities: Attendance costs 10 € for members, and 25 € for non-members. Arrive on 11. July in time for dinner at 7pm. Departure is the following day, 12. July, after a leisurely brunch, with the 12:22 public bus.
12. July: Ponderosa Performance Marathon, featuring the Tipping Utopia 70 seconds of LOVE and RAGE sessions
  • Details: Come out to Ponderosa for the legendary Performance Marathon, which will be the peak of our festival season and the culmination of the expressive urges of all in attendance. This year featuring the 70 seconds of LOVE and RAGE sessions — an initiative of Tipping Utopia for all to contribute to.​
  • Practicalities: Attendance costs 10 € for members, and 25 € for non-members. Arrive on 12. July in time for dinner at 7pm; departure is the following day, 13. July, with a Rufbus at noon.
16. July: Contact Improvisation Interrogates its History and Currency — A demonstration-participatory-jam-event with Karen Nelson
  • Details: Karen Nelson will be visiting us for this special one-off event, Contact Improvisation Interrogates its History and Currency, which will inquire into the evolution of contact improvisation as a living, breathing, changing dance form. This platform— part ritual, part performance, and part social club— calls on experienced practitioners of contact improvisation to share embodied stories centering on intersectionality, passion, identity, and one’s own history in the form.
  • Practicalities: This will be a two-night special. Attendance costs 15 € for members, and 45 € for non-members. Arrive on 15. July in time for dinner at 7pm; the event will be at some point (yet to be determined!) on 16. July, and departure is on 17. July, with the 12:22 bus.
18. July: Performance with Keith Hennessy and Micheal J. Morris
  • Details: This unique performance will be the final culmination of the Tanzland Festival, and of Keith and Michael’s workshop, and is not to be missed!
  • Practicalities: Attendance costs 10 € for members, and 25 € for non-members. Arrive on 18. July in time for dinner at 7pm. Departure is the following day, 19. July, after a leisurely breakfast, with the 12:22 public bus.