Editorial
Welcome to the third issue of our eZine Moving Interventions entitled „Involving oneself with an open heart – contemporary dance and (critical) whiteness“!
We are happy to be able to continue our work on anti-racist, post-migrant and decolonizing approaches, to exchange ideas with colleagues, artists and associates of the contemporary dance scene, and to continually establish CHAKKARs as a platform for moving interventions and multiple perspectives.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors, the Bayerischen Landesverband für Zeitgenössischen Tanz and the Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München.
Last year, we worked together with the academic Sabine Sörgel and the dancer and activist Hannah Ma in a “cooperation residency” on contemporary dance and whiteness and explored the White Gaze, funded by BLZT’s Kooperationsförderung.
What does it mean to deal with “White” gazes on Black/POC dancing bodies and to think about their effects on the dancers’ work in the rehearsal room, on stage, their self-perception and, above all, perception of their bodies?
The ‘white gaze’ often remains unmarked and, for those looking, remains a “white perspective [that] unconsciously [sees] itself as an objective, authoritative norm that observes, categorizes and names”. This ‘white gaze’ was already critically named and explained by Toni Morrison in the 1990s. This “white gaze” also often involves a non-inclusion of all senses beyond sight and a holistic dimension of the ability to perceive (the other) instead of ” just” seeing.
So who are we dancing for on stage? For which audience do we produce as dancers/curators of color in Germany? Who receives our critical, anti-racist, decolonizing work? Who sees our non-white bodies on stage? What kind of gaze will we encounter on stage – and how can we prepare / arm ourselves for a gaze implicit in racist structures and viewing habits?
From our discussions and sharing the following “20 Questions | 20 Fragen” emerged, which we wish to circulate as impulses for further reflection on the White Gaze.
For this edition of the eZine, we passed on these impulse questions to the authors we invited and asked them for their positions, reflections, and or questions regarding the “White Gaze” and “Critical Whiteness” in relation to dance.
As a result, this issue of the eZine brings together three positions by BIPOC artists from Germany and England, as well as three positions by white artists and dramaturges, who all critically reflect on seeing and being seen, and also on not being seen. We also conducted an interview with Sabine Sörgel.
The process of engaging with the texts was intense and shows once again the revolutionary dimensions into which decolonizing storytelling penetrates, and how much the decoding of white-critical body observations/observations on bodies on stage challenges us.
Our sincere thanks go to ZOE, Shivaangee Agrawal, Sabine Sörgel, Sarah Israel, Susanne Traub, Monika Lilleike and Tümay Kılınçel for going through this process with us and contributing to the eZine.
Your contributions encourage us to continue our interventions for contemporary dance (in Germany). Social negotiation processes to overcome structural inequality- also (but not exclusively) in dance – are increasingly supported by “superdiverse” perspectives.
We are happy to be surrounded by multeities that challenge us to be able to name “whiteness”, but above all encourage us in our desire to continue to overcome this less than holistic concept, because there is no one view, there never has been and it is long past time to let white mainstream pass …
Feel free to write to us if you read the articles, allow them to affect and then feel the need to reach out!
Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Sandra Chatterjee & Sarah Bergh, with Ariadne Jakoby
Impressum
Moving Interventions – eZine
Edited by / Herausgegeben von: Sarah Bergh and Sandra Chatterjee, with Ariadne Jacoby (CHAKKARs – moving interventions)
Translated by: Anja Tracksdorf (English to German), Sandra Chatterjee (German to English)
Design: Manoj Kurian Kallupurackal
Published by / Veröffentlicht von CHAKKARs – moving interventions.
Ausgabe 3: Marz 2024 // 3rd issue: March 2024
AUSGABE 3 // ISSUE 3: Involving oneself with an open heart – contemporary dance and (critical) whiteness.
Dieses Projekt wird ermöglicht durch den Bayerischen Landesverband für zeitgenössischen Tanz (BLZT) aus Mitteln des Bayerischen Staatsministeriums für Wissenschaft und Kunst. Gefördert vom Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München.