b12 Berlin Festival for Contemporary Dance: Week 4 Diary
b12 Festival for Contemporary Dance and Performance Art (officially stylized in all lowercase) is an annual dance festival every July in Berlin, Germany. A training ground for professional-level dancers, the Festival offers more than 70+ research workshops, along with somatic, yoga, and outreach classes; free improv sessions; performance projects; and more. Their slogan is, “Research or die.”
I attended b12 from July 1 - 28, 2024.
Dancers come from all over the world to attend b12. It’s one of the most comprehensive dance festivals in the world. But what is it actually like? From the head and experience of an extroverted-introvert dance artist from Canada, solo in Berlin, here’s my story:
Past Weeks:
Week 1: b12 Berlin Festival for Contemporary Dance: Week 1 Diary
Week 2: b12 Berlin Festival for Contemporary Dance: Week 2 Diary
Week 3: b12 Berlin Festival for Contemporary Dance: Week 3 Diary
Week 4: July 21-28, 2024.
July 21 — Every performance series comes with a day when all hell breaks loose, and today was that day.
It’s the last day of our performance project, with another 2 shows (matinee and evening).
The morning started out with a visit to the RAW-Gelände Flea Market with a fellow dancer before we were due to arrive at Dock11 for notes. My friend left first, and I got a bit carried away at the market. I was 10 minutes late because I stopped to buy a beautiful butterfly ring I’d been eyeing from one of the hawkers (it only cost 8 EUR).
One of our dancers showed up with an awful cut on their calf from last night’s hurdle off a scooter. They showed us the photos, and (be warned) the flesh was coming out. In absolute dancer style, they opted to still go ahead with the matinee.
Despite my personal good feelings about our matinee performance, I discovered once we ran out of the theatre that chaos ensued for some of the others. One girl hit her head twice during the show (once as a collision with another dancer and once on the wall), the girl she collided with possibly fractured her nose, and our already injured dancer finally admitted to needing to go to the hospital.
