SuSy – Sonja Augart in Berlin

Report by Sonja Augart:

“Between November 2015 and June 2016 I took part in the “SuSy – Support System #3” program in Uferstudios Berlin in the frame of Life Long Burning. 

My main focus was on the ‘Feedback Lab #3’, which took place in January 2016 during the Tanztage at the Sophiensäle in Berlin. Organizing the Lab included to be involved in the preparation of the Lab. My principle tasks were to make schedules, to coordinate and to manage the organizations and artists who were invited to the Lab. This experience increased my knowledge of how different institutions in the Berlin context are working together. And also which strategies the Tanztage, Uferstudios GmbH, HZT and the Tanzbüro Berlin are using to develop this Laboratory and how they manage to stay in a communicative exchange during these processes.

Regarding to my background  -I worked and lived for more than twenty years in the Netherlands- working on this project provided me an important expertise. The ‘SuSy – Support System #3’ gave me the opportunity to understand the structure and the system of the Berlin dance field from inside. Now I’m able to combine my present knowledge with the new abilities I have acquired. It will enable me to work in one of these organizations or to establish my own format in cooperation with them.

My second task was, to assist the general manager of the Uferstudios. I learned the basics of administration. The tasks of the Uferstudios have a wide ranged complexity, because the Uferstudios are one of the main organizations of the (g)local independent contemporary dance scene. It is a place for production, for education and an intersection of the activities inside and the environment outside.

By following this institution and its people on a long-term engagement, I achieved a deeper understanding of how things are developing in the contemporary dance scene. And of how I could support the evolution of this field and what kind of organization we will need in the future.

In the last period I assisted in the LLB coproduction and accompanied the rehearsals of Anna Aristarkhova who premiered a double bill (Obnimashki and Zweites Stück) in June 2016. The experience included to work on texts with the choreographer for the presswork and audience information.

The ‘SuSy-Support System’ is a relevant project, from which benefit the participants and also the institutions involved in it. For me personally, it increased my professional knowledge, and I hope for the future that I can make a contribution to the contemporary dance scene in the EU.”