Dance

"Passing Through"

Movement composition created by David Zambrano
with dancers and musicians from the Center for Contemporary Dance at the HfMT Cologne

Friday May 9th, 2025, 6.30 - 7.30 pm
Studiotheater ZZT, Turmstraße 3-5 Cologne

In the making of movement compositions, David Zambrano focuses on creating and developing the dynamics for complex systems to present leadership in the form of a group web. In science, cells do not need a protein leader to create life. Neither does the brain need one protein leader to create a thought. With this in mind, Zambrano thinks that movement needs no leader in creation.

In Passing Through, the performers create a flexible, complex dynamic that tightly connects the group while always leaving room for the unexpected. The group is in constant motion, continuously transforming the dance. Through leading and being led, the performers use their bodies to exchange roles in an ongoing flow of movement.

The piece invites the audience to experience space as a network of pathways—visible and invisible routes that run through walls, floors, and even through bodies. These paths twist and spiral, sometimes large and clear, sometimes subtle and unseen. The group moves through this web of trajectories, intertwining their bodies and remaining attuned to their surroundings. There is no single guiding principle in this process; everyone follows. When the group becomes one, it cannot lose its way.

With: Maria Arenas Romero, Deliah Amadea Barkow, Matthieu Bech, Maj Matilda Behrends, Clara Böhm, Claudia Braubach, Paulina Brunner, Constantin Busch, Breno Caetano, Paula Castelli, Mika Cichon, Klara Sophie Denzer, Philip Esch, Aaron Findus Fischer, Evelyn Veronika Fortmeier, Selen Güler, Nina Patricia Hänel, Kora Isis Rebecca Hamm, Kojiro Imada, Juri Jaworsky, Yosep Jeon, Knuth Jerxsen, Wencke Kriemer de Matos, Nadine Kribbe, Natalia Kozakiewicz, Brian Alexander Liu, Luisa Maya Menges, Renis Mendoza, Sergio Monferrer, Darya Myasnikova, Lilli Nocon, Lucia Nordhoff, Narendra Patil, Iulia Patil, Elli Pieper, Kevin Claudio Ponge Kassoma, Philip Rösler, Lena Luisa Röthlisberger, Marta Ruiz Munoz, Filu Sampé, Vera Sander, Jona Schlotbohm, Stina Lisa Schnickmann, Marret Ahn Schlette-Kissling, Viktoria Veselovska, Thomas Wansing, Thalia Werner, Was Kin Wong, Elodie Zermatten, Lilly Antonia Zintl

Movement composition created by David Zambrano
Artistic direction: Narendra Patil
Narendra Patil studied "Passing Through" with David Zambrano for over 17 years and continues to be actively involved in his work.

Free admission. Limited capacity – registration required.

Register here

Additional performance: HfMT Cologne Festival Week, 27 June 2024, 4.00–5.00 pm
Location: Marktebene, Unter Krahnenbäumen 87, Cologne

Looking Back: "What's the Big Deal About Access?"

From April 14–17, the public theme week at ZZT was dedicated to exploring what "access" and "accessibility" mean in the context of dance. Under the title "What’s the Big Deal About Access?", we examined structural barriers, ableist logics, and the potential for more inclusive forms of learning, teaching, and performing—together with students and international guests.

The starting point was the ongoing discussion within our department on how professional dance education can be made more accessible to diverse bodies and perspectives—and what institutional challenges this entails. Thanks to funding from the "Inclusive University" program, we were able to expand on these reflections in a multi-day public format.

Our heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who shaped this week—with tune-ins, workshops, lecture performances, discussions, artistic interventions, and the creation of collective resting areas. You filled the space with experiences, perspectives, and questions. Special thanks to our guests Marc Brew, Tanja Erhart, Raina Hofer, Luke Pell, Mathias Posch, Juli Reinartz, and Steven Solbrig, as well as to all participating ZZT members: Philip Esch, Aaron Findus Fischer, Vanessa Melde, Mona Nellessen, Elisabeth Pieper, Friedrike Reif, Sebastian Ritter Choquehuanca, Filu Sampé, Kathrin Schilbach, Stella Schirra, and Charlotte Spahn.

Last but not least, we thank the many visitors from outside the university - your response and interest show us how urgent and pressing these questions are.

At ZZT, we continue to work on concrete steps to broaden access and create new spaces of possibility through the Diversity Working Group - a collective of students and faculty. We’ll keep you posted.

Time for gossip history! Modern Dance and Its Queer Archaeologies

In April, Claire Lefèvre - performer, choreographer, and writer - visited ZZT as part of the seminar Embodied Archives. Together with the students, she explored the linearity of dance history from both a theoretical and practical perspective, challenging it through queer and decolonial lenses.
Loïe Fuller was a lesbian- an aspect of her biography that is rarely foregrounded. Claire Lefèvre brought materials related to the development of her solo LOIE (is a fire that cannot be extinguished). Together, the students read and discussed texts on the queer and colonial history of modern dance. Through somatic practices, they explored their own bodies as archives—carriers of the legacy of modern dance.
In the end, the students created poetry collages from their thoughts and the texts - what a beautiful way to bring the legacy of modern dance into the present!

Carlotta Ortinger

Following a successful launch last year, the second season of the Bewegungsmelder project is now underway. A collaboration between the nrw landesbuero tanz and the online dance journalism platform tanznetz, the project invites MA Dance Studies students to attend dance premieres across North Rhine-Westphalia and explore their individual approaches to critical and journalistic writing.
We’re excited to welcome four new contributors to Bewegungsmelder: Charlotte Spahn, Mareike Lyssy, Nico Hartwig, and Vanessa Melde.
You can find their texts (in German) via the link here, in the newsletter from the landesbuero, and of course on tanznetz.de.


Elbers/Zhukov: „Democratic Playground – Exploring the room“
Wenn alle gleichzeitig reden, wem hören wir zu? Jugendliche erkunden auf dem Spielplatz Bühne Sichtweisen auf demokratische Prozesse. By Charlotte Spahn

Aalto Ballett Essen & Jean-Christophe Maillot: „Cinderella“
Darf man noch Handlungsballett? Maillot dekonstruiert das Märchen – und klebt dann Glitzer auf die alten Stereotypen. By Nico Hartwig

Theater Krefeld und Mönchengladbach & Robert North: „Überraschung“
Kurz.Geschichten. Das Ende einer langjährigen Zusammenarbeit wird zur Einladung zu gemeinsamem Erinnern, für Ballettdirektor und Publikum. By Mareike Lyssy

Aalto Ballett Essen & Saar Magal: „Sakrileg“
Den Mythos entblößt. Satire trifft auf Katharsis. Dabei wird auch noch die Gewaltbereitschaft der Gesellschaft hinterfragt. Ein ganz schöner Brocken. By Vanessa Melde

Sanfte Arbeit/Elsa Artmann: „Langes Wochenende“
Kollegiale Zärtlichkeit der freelance lover. Ein Blick auf künstlerische Selbstständigkeit mit dem Gedanken kollegialer Zärtlichkeit und das Versprechen auf Schönheit und Selbstverwirklichung. Belastbarkeit und Versagen? Ein Abend der Verhandlung zerfließender Grenzen zwischen beruflichen und persönlichen Beziehungen. By Swantje Kawecki

Lucia Oiro & Reinaldo Ribeiro: „ON MY WAY HOME“
Geschichte(n) umschichten. Die Ziegelsteine werden zu handgreiflichen Metaphern für ein System, das sich als nicht so stabil und unverrückbar erweist, wie es scheint – wenn alle zusammenarbeiten. By Charlotte Spahn

We are happy to share one of the key outcomes of the artistic research project "RELAY - Thinking Artistic Material in Music and Dance" with you: the RELAY ARTicle on Research Catalogue!

RELAY is a three year is a three-year artistic research project made possible by the ERASMUS+ program "Cooperation Partnerships". It focuses on artistic-pedagogical developments in the fields of choreography, dance, music and composition. You'll find more information about the project here.

The RELAY ARTicle shares artistic practices, pedagogical activities, documents and documentations of the process, writings, scores, methods, practical tools as well as  recollections by and about the practitioners involved in the project.

Throughout the project, we developed insights, practices, and tools around five key topics: relaying, multitude of perspectives, transformational practices, sustainability and  learning. Our findings and reflections on the principles and methods of RELAY can be explored on the page. The non-linear structure invites you to explore the material in various ways and discover multi-dimensional connections.

The ToolCloud provides access to tools, scores, and practices and invites you to use and adapt them in your own work.

Dive right in and explore!

New Publication "Virtual Ecologies - Digitalitäten und Ökologien im Feld des Tanzes"

We are excited to announce the release of the new publication „Virtual Ecologies – Digitalitäten und Ökologien im Feld des Tanzes“! 
New technologies and digital formats are significantly transforming the practice of dance. How are dancers, dance scholars, and activists around the world responding to these new challenges? How can we understand ourselves as interconnected under these planetary conditions and collaboratively generate knowledge? Edited by Yvonne Hardt, Marisa Berg, Anna Chwialkowska, and Ulrike Nestler, this publication explores phenomena such as mixed reality, artificial intelligence, and dance trends on social media, situating them within more-than-human ecologies.
The book gathers current contributions from the international conference of the same name held last fall at ZZT. It is now available from transcript Verlag.

From conference to yearbook – we’d love to celebrate with you! The book launch will take place on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, at 2 pm in the ZZT building (4th floor). You are warmly invited to join us and raise a glass in celebration!
 

New Publication "Szenarien des Übergangs"

We warmly congratulate Miriam Althammer on the publication of her dissertation, "Szenarien des Übergangs. Zeitgenössischer Tanz in Südosteuropa zwischen Institution und künstlerischer Praxis", which she completed at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. In this work, she addresses a topic that has received little attention in dance studies so far: the impact of the Eastern expansion of Europe on contemporary dance. Using the example of East/West exchange at Tanzquartier Vienna, she explores artistic-institutional practices of Southeast European dancer-choreographers through oral histories. Her focus is on the modes of transmitting embodied knowledge within the interview situation as a performative act, as well as on expanding the concept of the archive within the framework of a critical culture of remembrance.

The book has been published in the Scenae series by Verlag Rombach Wissenschaft / Nomos.

Paulina Brunner, Friederike Reif, and Renato Sbardelotto receive the Deutschlandstipendium

We warmly congratulate Paulina Brunner from the BA Dance program, Friederike Reif from the MA Dance Studies program, and Renato Sbardelotto from the MA Mediation in Dance program on being awarded the Deutschlandstipendium!
The scholarship for Friederike Reif is sponsored by the Cologne Lyceum Club, an organization dedicated to promoting artistic and cultural exchange among women. It supports her theoretical-practical research on breaking down rigid gender roles in partner dance as "dancing in twos."

Would you like to support the next generation of dancers, dance educators, and dance scholars? Become a supporter of the Deutschlandstipendium!
The Deutschlandstipendium is funded equally by private and public contributions. The private contribution of €150 per month for one year of student support is doubled by the state, allowing for a scholarship of €300 to be granted. The private portion can also be shared by multiple contributors.
For more information, click here or feel free to contact us at deutschlandstipendium@hfmt-koeln.de.