Dancing for Trust
In September 2022, Battery Dance proudly launched Dancing for Trust in Bremen and Bremerhaven, Germany. Dancing for Trust is the newest iteration of the Company’s Transatlantic projects in Germany. Since 2016, the Company has supported the integration of newly arrived refugees and unaccompanied minors into their new communities through creative dance workshops that went virtual during the pandemic.
Battery Dance partnered with the education department in Bremen in 2022, and will partner with the education departments of Sachsen-Anhalt in 2023 and Brandenburg in 2024. Through this initiative, Battery Dance’s teaching artists train local teachers in its signature Dancing to Connect methodology. Following their training sessions, the German teachers acquire hands-on experience by shadowing and partnering with Battery Dance’s teaching artists to implement the dance workshops with students in their schools.
Building on the success of Dancing to Connect for Refugee Integration, Dancing for Trust aims to foster creativity and engender mutual understanding among young people from different backgrounds while, at the same time, developing the capacity of local teachers to implement the project in future years. Having originally launched its programs for youth in Freiburg and Breisach in 2006, Battery Dance enters its 15th year of collaborative projects in Germany with the 2023 Dancing for Trust program in Sachsen-Anhalt.
2022 Project Details
Location: Bremen & Bremerhaven, Bremen
Dates: Sept. 19 – Oct. 12
# of local teacher trainees: 24
# of youth workshop participants: 240
# of new dance works: 12
Final Performances:
Location: Metropol Theater, Bremen
Dates & Time: Tuesday, Oct. 11 and Wednesday, Oct. 12, 6:30pm nightly
Program each night: 6 new youth created works, Battery Dance’s “Wind in the Olive Grove” by Syrian-German choreographer Saeed Hani, and a solo by Syrian-German choreographer and teaching assistant Amr Karkout.
Tickets: 5 Euros, available at the Box Office on the evening of the performance only. Free for participating youth and their families.
Local Partner: Ministry of Education of the Federal State of Bremen
Sponsored By
Dancing for Trust is funded by the Transatlantic Program of the Federal Republic of Germany with funds from the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protections (BMWK)
The Renate, Hans, and Maria Hofmann Trust
For more information on the program, sponsorship, and partnership opportunities please contact Jonathan Hollander and Emad Salem.