Fokus Tanz I Tanz und Schule e. V. is one of the four cooperation partners of explore dance – Netzwerk Tanz für junges Publikum (Dance for Young Audiences Network), alongside fabrik moves Potsdam, K3 | Tanzplan Hamburg and HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden. For five years, the project, which is funded by TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund, has enabled children and young people to experience contemporary dance art on stage as spectators and to actively participate in the art form of dance themselves.
Fokus Tanz I Tanz und Schule e. V. will be 18 years old in 2023. And just in time for their coming of age, the team around Simone Schulte-Aladağ and Anja Brixle can look forward to the Schwabing Art Prize, which they will receive on 13 November 2023. The jury‘s statement reads:
Since 2006, Tanz und Schule e. V. has been making artistic contemporary dance an area of cultural participation for children and young people. Every year, the association realises more than 80 artistic projects in 30 educational institutions in Munich. Dancing, according to the makers‘ credo, has been proven to promote creativity, social competence and intellectual development - and offers space for intercultural encounters. Supporting children and young people in school and out-of-school contexts always means further development for the teaching artists at the same time. Their teaching work is part of the ACCESS TO DANCE – Tanzplan München initiative, which contributes to the promotion and strengthening of contemporary dance in Munich and Bavaria. Fokus Tanz designs further training courses for dancers and dance teachers and realises participatory art projects in collaboration with museums, orchestras and theatres. In 2011, Fokus Tanz founded the THINK BIG! Festival for contemporary dance, performance and music theatre for young audiences. The biennial festival communicates performing arts with a focus on dance to a diverse audience and creates venues for international networking. The aesthetic and structural development of dance art for young audiences sets standards from Schwabing. Here, everything becomes a stage: meadow hills, gymnasiums, teachers‘ desks, foyers and occasionally stage spaces. In workshops and productions, the experts also bring Munich makers together with international colleagues. The powerhouse for dance in Kaiserstraße radiates far beyond Schwabing and strengthens and challenges dancers and audiences alike. Young and experienced dance fans alike can only hope that Fokus Tanz never runs out of steam.
Since 2018, Fokus Tanz has also been networked nationwide: Together with colleagues in Hamburg, Potsdam and Dresden, the jointly initiated project explore dance has been developing the production of dance pieces for young audiences for five years. This strengthens the continuity of the work of dance practitioners, which is urgently needed: dance is still structurally and financially much weaker than other art forms. Above all, offers in cultural education, for which continuity would be particularly important, are usually only designed for the short term.