Ein Brief aus Athen

Singapore 2002: an international convention bore witness to South-East Asian dance people’s preoccupation with identity. Islamic countries of the region (i.e. Malaysia), countries which had come out of authoritarian regimes (i.e. the brutal Red Khmer regime in Cambodia), countries which had been subjected to colonization (i.e. virtually all), were discovering modern/contemporary dance and enthusing about the freedom and expressive tools it provided them with.

Previously confined within the barriers of traditional dance and their strong theatrical tradition, (both used as tools of propaganda and oppression), the artists were faced with two problems: how to use western dance and discard the old-fashioned without losing their artistic and ethnic identity, and thus avoid being culturally re-colonized, re-conquered.  Judging from what I saw at the 4th Balkan Dance Platform in Athens, Asians seem to be fighting more effectively for their artistic freedom than Central Europeans. I had seen what the Balkans were producing in various small events in Thessaloniki almost ten years ago. The material was raw; history had not yet made space for change. Artists were fighting with the “unknown,” ...