The Forgotten Ones – Celebrating Dance Heritage
and understanding Body Archives
Workshop withJoseph Tebandeke
Joseph Tebandeke invites disabled and non-disabled dance artists and (future) dance educators to the one-day Teacher Training “The Forgotten Ones – Celebrating Dance Heritage and understanding Body Archives”. Born and raised in Uganda, Joseph’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in the heritage, traditions, languages, and tribes of Uganda, focusing on the philosophical way in which his ancestors documented history across many generations. With his work he aims to foster a better awareness and appreciation of who we are as individuals and as collective identities.
The workshop “The Forgotten Ones” sheds light on the significance of dance within the cultural context and explores the reasons behind the deprivation of younger generations in the dance scene today – be it disabled (and non-disabled) talents in Africa or anywhere else in the world. Led by a disabled artist, this workshop goes beyond movement, embracing bodies in space as a deeper expression of one’s physicality and cultural identity. Through this transformative experience, Joseph invites you to celebrate the uniqueness of each body and its archival history, exploring individual expression, and the beauty of spiritual essence rooted in personal heritage and culture. The workshop offers a platform to understand how different bodies, both disabled and non-disabled, resonate with movement and relate to the experience of movement in various spaces.
“The Forgotten Ones” is a powerful call to appreciate body archives and their alignment with community and belonging. It is an invitation to cultural celebration, to embracing our past and shaping our future.
The workshop is aimed at disabled and non-disabled dance artists to empower them as prospective dance educators.
Details and Registration
When?
January 21st, 2024
11 am – 5 pm
1pm – 2.30 pm: Lunch break
Further breaks can be taken individually
Where?
Uferstudios (Berlin-Wedding), Studio 11
Badstraße 41a / Uferstraße 23
13357 Berlin
Language?
Spoken English
Accessibility
- Studio 11 is accessible without steps, but has a raised floor area, which is accessible via a 1.5% sloping feeder ramp. It has a dance floor (swinging wooden floor).
- There is an accessible toilet on the premises (in the foyer of studios 3, 4 and 5).
- Please let us know if you have any accessibility requirements.
Limited Participants
The maximum number of participants is limited to 20. To ensure a balanced ratio, we assign at least 50% of the places to disabled participants. Please notify us of your positioning when registering.
The workshop is part of the education program for TanzZeit e.V. dance educators. Registrations from disabled persons as well as from participants in the TanzZeit education program will be prioritized.
Registration?
To register, please contact Janna Vakili from TanzZeit e.V. at vakili@tanzzeit-berlin.de or call 030 247 49 791. When registering, please inform us about your positioning as disabled or non-disabled and about your accessibility requirements.
Contact for questions?
The contact person for questions is also Janna Vakili. She can be contacted at vakili@tanzzeit-berlin.de or 030 247 49 791.
About Joseph Tebandeke
Joseph is a contemporary dance artist from Uganda. With an interest in physical intervention in common spaces, Joseph explores different bodies, daily objects and space with an emphasis on the intersection where the concept of disabled and non-disabled meet. In addition to his artistic work, he regularly teaches workshops for children, young people and adults.
Dance plays a fundamental role in African culture, extending far beyond entertainment, and serves as a powerful medium to preserve generational history and storytelling. It is a way of life, a transfer of emotions, a celebration of rites of passage and of unification of communities. Dance in Africa is an essential component of social legacy, representing the rich philosophy and diverse cultures that have shaped existences and celebrations that have resonated across generations.
Despite the importance of dance in African culture, Joseph questions the absence of qualified dance schools teaching both traditional and western dance, and the subsequent impact on the future of dance in Uganda and Africa. According to Joseph, without a strong foundation in embracing our cultures, traditions and languages, aspiring artists are frequently discouraged and getting lost with their professional career. Therefore, it is Joseph’s aim that Africa’s younger generations receive proper dance education and understand their lineage when dancing and creating dance.
The workshop is organised in cooperation by TanzZeit e.V. and Making a Difference. The network Making a Difference is funded by TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund with funds of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, co-financing fund.