SuSy exchange Juan Gabriel Harcha at Tala Dance Center

Uferstudios sent its trainee, dancer and choreographer Juan Gabriel Harcha to Tala Dance Center in Zagreb for a 4 weeks administrative training program during which he got insight into the working procedures of the production house and the Platform.hr and Prix JDE Lab.
Before that, he was 4 months between August 2013 and April 2014 at Uferstudios Berlin.

„SuSy –Support System“

Report by Juan Gabriel Harcha 

For a timeframe of four months between August 2013 and April 2014 I took part in the “SuSy – Support System” program in the frame of Life Long Burning. The first three months consisted in an internship in Uferstudios GmbH in Berlin, Germany. The fourth month consisted in an internship at Tala Dance Center in the City of Zagreb, Croatia.

Being a dancer and choreographer myself, the series of experiences gathered during this time have become an invaluable resource for me for understanding the structures involved in the production and mediation of contemporary dance and choreography on a European stage.

During my previous years in Berlin, I could witness how Uferstudios gained increasing acknowledgment as a (g)local agent for the production, sharing and further development of independent contemporary dance. Notoriously not only as a place for production, but also as a cross-point for the variety of actors involved in this artistic field (teachers, curators, audiences, production & press offices, dance artists, etc.)

The tasks executed during the time of my internship at Uferstudios consisted basically in offering assistance in the of activities involved in the running of the spaces, including public relations and technical setting of the studios, assisting the artists currently working in the spaces, helping to manage the space rental, with an special focus on the realization of AUSUFERN dance festival in August 2013.

This last experience allowed me to gain an insight into the networking structures for Dance that already exist within Europe, and on how to mediate and communicate to audiences a major dance event –as well as to logistically produce and professionally assist a big amount of artistic productions simultaneously. Furthermore, by being able to witness a big number of productions during their various processes of development during my time in Uferstudios, I was able to gain an additional insight into the particularities and certain structural similarities among different artists.

Similar was the case in Zagreb, as there I could execute – for a timeframe of one months – similar tasks in assisting the realization of a consolidated local dance festival (PLATFORMA hr), exhibiting work by local and regional artists as well as from upcoming guests from the most well established European dance capitals: Stockholm, Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin.

The experience of helping in Zagreb for the realization of Platforma hr as well as just being there on the city and spending time with local artists and agents involved in dance, had a great value for me. By assisting on the multiple tasks involved on its production, I could witness similarities and also certain specificities between both dance institutions and dance cultures.

A further and more detailed reflection on these first impressions exceeds the frame of this report. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that for me, further initiatives in this direction of stimulating an exchange between different dance institutions and dance cultures are fundamental in order to contribute to a general development of this artistic form nowadays.

I will be happy to contribute in the future to this development by helping in the conception and realization of projects that may profit from my collected experiences.

Berlin, July 2014