I remember some years ago I got a phone call that a new project was growing which was connected to dance teaching and especially dealing with the perspective how we documented it by ourselves. I was curious to join the Hungarian research group that time though I was not aware of those diverse and numerous other groups as well, who came together in Stolzenhagen (D) and later in Vienna (AT) for the 1st so called symposium working sessions.
The Hungarian team is not together anymore but here and there some of them are continuing thinking about documentation of dance education. In the past years my activity was mainly about promoting the web-site and inviting dance teachers who I thought would be interested in it.
As I didn’t feel deeply routed into the research and community of dance teaching (even if I have been teaching in the past almost 25 years) I realized just some years later that the core members (either because of the well supported EU grants or ‘cause they were interested in to continue this international networking/research process) arrived to the 5th and this year to the 6th annual symposium. Last year I took part as a hard core typist (as I chose the format of documenting by laptop two full days and made some pics as well) and this year I decided to participate as well as a mover and thinker wherever I felt the call to experience the documentation like this.
I didn’t make any further plan as I sensed a kind of easy going mood which might have been also the given time to experience.

What could we expect this year?
pavleheidler wrote at the web-site’s editorial
“This year's symposium, entitled YOU ARE HERE!, is looking at knowledge at its frailest, at its most delicate; knowledge at the time of articulation, knowledge in the act of articulation itself. This is also knowledge before it's been institutionally approved of, knowledge before it's been celebrated by authority, knowledge that is knowledge because you get to recognize it as such, celebrate it as such.
In order to study knowledge at its most delicate, we've invited more than thirty fellow dance practitioners/teachers who answered our call to generate the content of the symposium as a part of a collaborative effort during a residency week preceding the symposium. This is done in an attempt to put together a symposium, the content of which is to the largest degree invented, articulated, discovered in-real-time.”

Well, I missed again a deadline for an open call. I have seen it but my mind was blowing in other things than writing a proposal.
This reminds me on the fact that being here (in general I mean the fact that I am dedicated to something and I am there) is the most important thing. It is so easy to be away and to listen to something from a distance; but so hard to dedicate time and interest to be close to something and experience.

This event was unique already last year from that perspective that somewhere else the participants would never had the chance to hang out, lie on the floor, give massage to each other while talking about deep experiences and analyzing the process of dance teaching. You enter this symposium and you leave your shoes out, move your bodies and mind at the same time. You somehow got here – and you really catch yourselves that “You are here” for real…

Before joining the symposium I again made a research on the web-site of idocde/mind the dance and I got to Friederike Lampert’s editorial from March 2018.
“After all, simply ‘being there’, students and teachers sharing topics and questions in a common time-space may be everything a Master Degree Program can offer. ‘I am here’  and the 6th IDOCDE Symposium – titled ‘You are here!’ – can be the ground for more than words can transmit.”

Day 0 – July 27 Friday was an informal opening which started the two day long symposium. As I was not so much interested in the performance that night and the hot summer day took my attention away I skipped this program. To be able to be at the symposium with full attention in the next days.

Day 1 – July 28 Saturday
I AM HERE!
Early start – for me it is even too early to do anything beside washing my teeth, face and having a nice breakfast as starter of the day. Now here in Arsenal I planned to join the “Food for the day” led by Liisa Pentti (FI).
The brochure said:
“Tuning exploration for the dance
In this morning session we will be tuning into the space – the multiple space of our bodies and the space around us. This gentle exploration will hopefully wake us up and enable an attentive body –mind-spirit for the rest of the day.”
Okay, that sounded not so much pushing. Let’s get into this early start…
I entered the main building but as there were reconstructions first I had to find the registration then back to the main building. Unfortunately I was waiting at the wrong studio (in the last moment I guess people realized that the Studio 2 was not available as it was a set studio for Meg and Mark, guess they didn’t want people to work in that space which they also used).
After sitting in Studio 1 where technicians were preparing stage for the Orientation and the Opening Keynote I slowly realized that the organizers totally changed the venues. Though “I am here” I felt after 30 minutes that (who were together in the space of “Food for the day”) “You were (t)here”. So my “food” was the space and technical preparation, sitting on the floor and waiting silently.

Orientation became a short and informal introduction of Kerstin Kussmaul (DE/AT/NZ) who talked about TRUST as we came here hoping we would be not alone; wishing to focus our attention to something we want to leave this event with. This year there was a new open call for the lectures which was more open for groups and research processes. The chosen groups could spend like a week (hosted by Vienna based idocde friends) to get deeper into their research and than shared it with the symposium participants. This was the third year of Reflex event (in the frame of Mind The Dance) and it also meant to the working group an ending and a kind of new beginning. Their main interest was to expand their knowledge which was an invitation for us to go further.

Carol Brown (NZ) was continuing with the Opening Keynote entitled “Political Breathing” which was a research of her. Started with a song working with the air. This was a classical lecture in a dance studio where some people were lying on the floor, but now more were sitting on chairs and listened to the texts. Carol was always getting back to the symposium’s subtitle “You are here” while she drove our attention on air as “we are all sharing the same air”.
"What I breath out you will breath in."
On this point I opened my laptop as I felt this was the quickest way to document (the brochure didn’t have empty pages for writing).
The lecture was about language, breathing, native Hawaiians/Maoris, dance history in NZ.
“How you are in your breath/atmosphere?”
“This talk is a philosophy of breath” – as Carol stated at the very beginning.
“Mother’s body who breath first for us.”
Scientist research (The Keeling Curve)
“Breathing is an opening of the 3D which was a key point of the (American) modern dance developments.”

[Last video we watched a bit was Lungsong (Kasina Campbell was performing).]

“We are here but whom is the door open? Who is missing?”
This opening became my “Food of the Brain”…

Space between the question and the answer was the next I stayed with (though I was hesitating how I should choose a process to get to know better when they also didn’t know exactly what and how would happen). So I simply just stayed in Studio 1. We stood in a bigger circle like gathering where first the 5 artists who worked 5 day long Defne Erdur, Patrick Faurot, Viktorija Ilioska, Deirdre Morris, Melina Seldes introduced themselves shortly and this proposal they would share now with us (in a wider circle).
I felt myself until now pretty unsecure, so Kerstin’s introduction with trust was echoing in me a lot. Kept calm, kept being open and trustful…
As a tuning in they proposed to work in couples with some “rocking the other” exercises (very shortly) which was the moment to escape for me. I started to walk out from the space but suddenly a tiny, short girl asked me if I could be with her. Okay, so let’s do it.
She was Lotte and me Marta spending a short time together. Short. First I experienced, than we switched roles.
Gentle touches – if you would be touching yourselves where you would have liked to be touched…
We dived into this tuning in and seemed we wished to continue but had to stop. Lotte was smiling as she was touching me on the chest first and I started with the shoulders of her and rocking from that point.
“It was a real full body experience and now I know where you would have liked to be touched.”

As next step the co-workers offered to have a look on their notes they did in the past 5 days. We could read them, rearrange them and kind of work with them. We spent 10’ with it, at the end slowly people disappeared from the space and sat down.
After this part the researchers wanted to share some processes they made but now they asked us to first watch it and to join after. They spent 5 days between 5 pair of eyes and now they did the same but they became kind of performers and we audience.
1st task: What do we mean on encounter?
After the set time was over we were closer to their discussion/sharing moments. Seemed to be we still were listening but not participating. Did we? Did we participate while listening to the others and especially here did we document while listening?
“Instant where information – stimuli, sensations, comprehension, meaning making – meet our flesh and bone. We are ‘here’: hunting, gathering, cultivating, excavating, dancing — the body, bodies, networks of bodies, collection and collectivity, sites of learning and unlearning… Now.”
Thinking – reflecting
It seemed that after the discussion the audience members were still not clear what was the structure so they asked for explanation before moving on the 2nd task, where Viktorija was introducing the process she offered for the research. She was gathering the participants (who became more like listeners) in a small group and was telling them what happened with the researchers in the past days (like a grandmother to the grandchildren). The structure proposed by her was building groups of four people, in which two were asking each others questions, while the third ones were listening. It lasted 20’ and then the third ones put on paper what they learnt from the original discussion partners and it was written as if they would have been one of them. This lasted also like 10’ and then the fourth ones (who were outside) came in and used the written material to make a dance from what they read.
Listening to the stories and making images about what this idea was about made the listeners a bit awkward (as they told), especially as we (the listeners) became THEM and they (the presenters) became US which was asked by a listener not to be used or simply to make it differently. Another listener added that usually she likes to be confused also in such a situation and that this was a lecture of a different kind (normally there is one lecturer and the audience is listening, now we had 5 of them). But how could this be solved?
Let’s involve them and us and play the 3rd task which became a Q&Q of a certain way (setting the small group-members in a shape of a W). The groups spent around 30 minutes with not really discussions but putting questions to each other as a way of discussing things.
Who are here and why am I here?
Again words and language became very important to exchange and experience…
This session was finished with a “silent circle” for 1’ but was I really in silence? My brain was constantly working, looking how to nail down things.

Left-overs: Articulating the ephemeral, the dance between language, movement and the unspoken (a pretty long entitled Reflex Event) was the research of the group of/with Colleen Bartley, Joana Chicau, Eszter Gál, Johanna Nielson, Agnes Schneidewind, Martin Streit.
“Moving and reading through the chaos, constantly changing and adapting to the environment and structures that regulate our bodies and movements provide a smorgasbord of potentials of co-creation, re-creation, articulations, and cross-referencing.”
I was visiting this session just at the end. As I entered the space (Studio 4) people were in action, observing something on the floor and using a Java Script word-mixer which created crazy and funny sentences projected on the wall–floor–ceiling–bodies. The strangely composed sentences were read aloud by Martin and Eszter, some people were relaxing on the floor, some were following the beamer’s light and the scrolling text.

Dancing together with-out learning the same was an event, which immediately started with interaction. We were sent out from the Studio 4 to give the space time for re-setting it up. This research group was maybe the biggest of all. Gina Battistich, Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki, Friederike Lampert, Anouk Llaurens, Claudia Lomoschitz, Charlotta Ruth, Sara de Santis, Joana da Silva, Alina Tretinjak, Laura Unger, Katherina Zakrav were hosting the event. The roles of being a witness (audience) and being a creator/participant of this presentation were fading away in the moment we entered the space. You could set up a question, put it on the paper, ask it aloud, we had to follow some rules – like when the music was on, you moved in the space.

“Do I need to write down everything I hear?” – was asked aloud by a participant. People were stepping in and out of the circle while listening to the live music of the accordion.
As the music stopped slowly a group of people gathered in the middle of the space and started to write, wrapped the papers, put it here and there; we (others who were sitting around the space – mainly closer to the wall) just watched the happenings, were trying to find out what exactly was going on here.
While I tried to understand the system or structure from outside (as now I didn’t enter the space) Balázs (videographer) arrived with his camera and asked us “What is happening and who is the leader?” Well these were good questions as I actually didn’t even know myself. I just knew Lotte, who was also mentioned in the team. I was happy to be touched and rocked by her and vice versa (in the other tuning in exercise). So she for sure was one of the leaders.
“What is happening here it is still much better than creating bombs…”
Balázs pretty soon melted into the active group, playing and dancing around.
At the end the accordion was the sign to arrive to the center and people got into a discussion, sharing section.
Charlotta (Lotte) said that they met a while ago as each of them were living in Vienna. This was great to see, as this group of people happened to be the most group-like until now.
Katherina joined the group mainly with speech which happened to be funny and critical as well. She was adding some thoughts in the closing 15’ where she and Charlotta were talking about the process they did (having a political layer as well). In the topic of “How do we learn?” they told Vienna didn’t have a well funded, respected school for dance on a contemporary level. ImpulsTanz and TQW are existing but no post-gradual option.
The topic of learning was for someone the topic of power.
A woman pointed out that in the presentation she felt Austrian culture and folk art (accordion, steps, movement).
People (I guess mainly those who took part in this residency group) were circling around the meaning of learning, expressing some needs also for structures.
A question raised up which political wing owns the folk art? “Let’s take back our folk dance because it is not theirs.”
Awkward as a word and as a feeling came up again several times. While listening mainly to those who were involved in this group a woman mentioned that she was participating in the active part but did not at all want to dance folk. Though now she felt the researchers had a frame what they wanted to explore (especially as they were even talking about it).

Though the discussion became very intensive concerning the topic of participatory actions and its preparation unfortunately almost no time was given to digest.

Katherina was closing with “Not every single minute was joyful and fun during this week of creation but this 1,5 hours was and this counted for sure.”

The Afternoon at the symposium was dedicated mainly such programs which were dealing with meeting and further thinking on the political issues.
“Saturday afternoon is imagined as The Time for The Community. The time will be spent engaging with a number of different formats, meant to host and hopefully encourage an ongoing conversation.”
Meet the project team
We listened to music while participants and project team members were slowly getting into the space. The white dance floor was covered by dark green dance floor which smelled like plastic.
The music was going something like: “I am lying in the rain/wind, but never say bye-bye” which reminded me on David Bowie’s classic Modern Love. ["covered by Lea DeLaria" – added note by Pavle] As the music faded out the team members (who lined up in the space) started to move out from the line. It seemed we became audience members of a performative action done by the team members. Oops, someone was arriving just now, smiled and walked in silently.
“Are we performing?” – sounded the question from inside and people just asked each other about how did they met and how they remember the story of idocde. We got to know that Pavle just liked to move things around which he did also here and now.
A bell was ringing but Pavle told us that this was the only plan they had which seemed was not working. He shut down the light and each of them were moving around in the dark, while Thriller by Michael Jackson appeared and people started to dance. Pavle gave the sign to move around the chairs, so the viewers danced into the space with chairs and the space turned into a dark installation. Was it the time of “you are here” dance?
The team members directed us immediately to
Politically right (?), physically wrong (!) a session  of “moderated conversation regarding the notions of community, diversity, and practice. With Defne Erdur, pavleheidler, Kerstin Kussmaul.”
“I like the darkness, but if you want to switch the light on you can do.” – Pavle continued as the music died. – “I found myself on a place where I don’t really understand how the internet is being used by people like social media and idocde.net…” and the clock was ringing again (though it was not by purpose). Defne took over and stayed in the dark, while talking she was walking first to the window, than back to the spot she started from. She was explaining the situation where she did feel herself more comfortable. Being in the comfort zone could stop us from meeting with others. “Still I am here being lost. Difficult to speak. Let alone is an action.” Kerstin walked in and sat on an empty chair. Some people re-arranged themselves and were listening to her. (On the other side of the wall someone started to rehearse playing on drums.) Kerstin’s voice became weaker and more quiet, she was crying and there were more silent parts in her speech than words and sentences. She shared her very personal, intimate story which was leading to a “Me too” statement. As she was very quiet (and the drums over there were very loud) some people gathered around her, getting more and more close to her.
What is politically correct…
A girl who obviously was touched by the situation being in darkness and listening to such stories was shocked how people still didn’t know what happened a year ago here at ImpulsTanz…
[I had the feeling that after last year’s happenings and especially as Crisis? What Crisis? conference couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with it at all maybe this was the time to open up this box and react. Something started here on the “West” which seemed to be far from expectations. So not just the ex-socialist countries are awkward in such situation… Who can tell us the true story? What is the true story; whose true story is it and/or do we need to be true and how? So back again at language and possibilities to shape things with using language.]
Before starting The kitchen table Pavle offered time to team up in groups or even alone to think aloud about the mentioned topics. Shortly smaller and bigger groups were getting into discussions each followed their interest of talking and sharing time with each other, listening to each other.

The kitchen table was a composed discussion with several rules, where they were continuing the conversation started previously, in a different format; was hosted by Deirdre Morris.
You could be inside the table-circle and whoever was outside, they were asked not to talk with each other but if they wanted to participate they should join the table.
It started with the question “Have you been apart of creation of the new community?”
“How can we build feminist (also queer) interfaces?”
“I am also now part of a new community.”
Someone was asked to speak louder or to use the mic and someone was asked to speak slower (obviously a native English speaking one). We talked rather than danced; verbal became so strongly part of the learning and getting to know processes. Did dance become less important in this?
Sharing our ideas in different circles: one of whoever was sitting at the table; another one of who was drawing on the paper while listening; a wider circle (or more) of those who were listening to what was happening at the table, each of them was following the discussion.
“English is the dominant language (again).”
A choreographer started to share a kind of tool for saying no-s. Though she was scary as she had to be the leader of a project, she gave permission to her dancers to take back their materials any time (even a day before the premier) if they didn’t feel comfortable with it anymore. Generosity became the norm in her group. Sasha Kleinplatz (this choreographer) was taking a vaccine here at ImpulsTanz so many times that she became comfortable to say no.
“The notion of the dominant narrative.”
“When you don’t ask a certain question you create an own narrative.”
How often and convinced do you have to say “that’s Jupiter, not Mars” to make your peers believe you (even thinking on you as the most wise person).
A Finnish speech shook up a bit the listening then a sudden hug around the table-participants raised up a question by Defne – “Is it a disability if you don’t know your borders and don’t know how to say no? What if someone didn’t have the chance at all to learn how to say no?”
The kitchen table became a very special way of talking about so many things you hardly could imagine if you didn’t take part in it.
One is for sure true “you were touched even ‘just’ by listening to”.
The Communal dinner was designed to be an open format of being together, eat and chat at the end of the day.
But as my “community” was waiting for me not here but somewhere else I left this one which I didn’t feel I could be part of. And it was not their fault.

Day 2 – July 29 Sunday
The previous one became a long and intensive day. I wished to have more time for myself and less “lectures” though as I was curious I wanted to be part of as many as it was possible. How should I choose and select without feeling I was missing something?
This day’s Food for the day started with Plasma – a movement game by Curio Kitheca.
The brochure said: “A kinesthetic-physical intelligence training game, which takes the question ‘What do I need?’ as a starting point. The training will explore and use different movement states to enable a fine tuning of our movement’s boundaries, possibilities and preferences as well as observe phenomena of repetition in our practice. There will be plenty of food to digest the whole day long, created by our own ways of moving, together for and with others.”
We entered Studio 2 (finally after yesterday’s studio changes) and the format we used was very much open for individual needs which led us to community needs. Curio asked me also to join and who ever entered the space not just to sit outside but be in the space with the others. I constantly had the attention on having space around me; not to be too close; walking around or just standing still and of course the huge open door was also inviting me to step out and just leave into the nature (which of course I didn’t do as the next outside area was the parking place with hot asphalt). The 45’ passed by kind of quickly. We met close to each other without physical touch several times which became a melting spot of our energies in the space. Claire (who was responsible for organizational things) left and came back at the end and concluded/closed this tuning in session with “I am here to say that everything is under control.”

As the next programs were overlapping each other I had to decide which one I should be part of. Deciding in such a symposium situation was always hard for me as I liked to listen to everything and to find my own way of connection to what I hear and see. Now I decided to stay in Studio 2 which was occupied yesterday and was a “forbidden zone” for idocde participants…
Ground infinity – an on-going transformable practice which according to the brochure was planned to be “an experience with multitude of possibilities proposed by the collaboration of three artists working together for the first time, coming from different contexts, cultivating related principles and ideas. Analyzing, commenting, re/defining reality and creating alternatives to it, by affirming dance as a social, political and ethical practice. Practicing autonomy and responsibility as a balance between giving and receiving in the context of teaching and sharing.” The three artists Gosia Gajdemska, Sasha Kleinplatz, Silvia Marchig accompanied by Andrea Keiz were setting the stage (chairs around the dance floor and some light music from the speakers) and they also gave each of us (who stayed for the presentation) a kind of personal invitation letter with our names on them.
“Welcome ______ thank you for coming. The following is a score we developed during the week of Mind the Dance Research as preparation for this IDOCDE symposium. We invite you to feel that you have all the same rights you had outside of the room. Please know we respect you and respect that you will take responsibility for your needs, including, stopping, snacking, drinking, leaving, re-entering, asking for help or anything else. Your needs are yours to take care of and we support you taking care of them.”
This invitation was kind of an answer on Saturday’s emerged discussions. The space was open as long as you (the participant) knew what you needed and how you wished to full fill your needs. The “Walking & Questioning score” started and the alarm was set for the duration of the exercise.
“If someone ask a question do we have to answer the question?” raised more questions which were actually a way of discussion about the score/structure. After a deep discussion about the directions the group also played with stop and reset possibilities.
“Is the intention stronger than the word?”
“Understanding, misunderstanding and not understanding…”
“Is talking a way of walking?”
After like 30’ a silent participant started to give noises with his heals on the floor while walking around, which opened up a next chapter in this walking/questioning discovery. Sasha sat to the piano and played some melody. Suddenly the questions disappeared and the exercise turned into a performative action. As silence arrived back to the space it was not the same silence anymore.
What happened? Did you feel it inside? Half of the group lied on the floor and the rest was moving randomly and much slower than earlier.
The question “How many people are on therapy?” gave a fresh breeze to the walking, as most of the participants raised their hands up in the air, this even gave a new attention to look around.
Walking and thinking was an old format of sharing/exchanging information and to learn.
Did these participants learn something from each other and with the help of the others’ questions? How does movement inspire setting up questions and thinking? Do we need movement to be able to think? Is thinking a way of walking?
Pavle was playing the piano softly. A personal reaction from the viewers. Almost all the participants gathered around this one person. A kind of emotional thoughts about being outside and in the relation of teaching stopped the score and a discussion took over. Some people left the studio and were walking outside in the parking lot, smoking or just hanging around. Some participants felt the desire to simply just dance and use the mood of the piano melody. A communal performance, listening to what ever they wanted to. Music, rhythm, fading score, nature, human speech melting into music as well. Andrea was almost the only who kept walking around keeping the score from the beginning until now. An hour passed by.

Silvia was whispering Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing compares to you and Sasha looked up the song and directed it into the speakers. This soft song gave the chance for the participants to dance further or to get in a discussion with others to share the experiences they had in the past session.
As I like more the original version of the song here I share you the link to Prince’s version.

Sharing while moving or moving while sharing. Whatever you do, do it with attention to the others and enjoy being at the playground…

The next session was held in Studio 1 which meant again a decision what to be part of, as simultaneously another lecture was held in Studio 2. Why I did choose Studio 1? Rock, Paper, Scissor was hosted by Eszter Gál, Fabiana Pastorini, Shelley Senter, Risa Steinberg. I was a devoted student of Risa as she was giving some classes many years ago in Budapest and I was very curious about her – especially in this different environment.
The teachers gathered a bit earlier and Eszter made a little introduction to them and later to the participants what this event was about. The symposium was offering a slot in its schedule for the 3rd time for ImpulsTanz teachers who were regular teachers in this one month long event.
Risa (with her dynamic way of living and teaching) started with focusing on some key points as she did while teaching teachers which was needed. “The dancers arrive to the studio and say ‘here is my body, do me!’ so we are responsible. Dancers do everything we say.”
“The teachers often ask me ‘How do I know if I am doing my job as teacher good?’.” Risa underlined that “It’s not what you teach but how you teach.” Her way of being with the participants (who – as it was a symposium situation – probably were teachers as well) was full of humor and clear information. Her questions were mainly to start thinking about possible answers rather than really answer them verbal.
They experienced in couples the support of working with a partner which led them to the right way of working by themselves.
In the “Rooted as the tree” experience Risa pointed out that position was not an action, she was not using the word position unless she described it beforehand.
“Before shift we root.” – so that is how we could travel in the space either as a professional dancer or as human being.
Fabiana took over the leading and she worked with touching and breathing. “As a teacher you have to be clear with the space.” The Argentinean but Vienna based teacher was working with sensations of the coccyx and weight shifting. For the last 4’ a soft piano music helped the quality and imagination of the improvised movements.
Shelley was the third one who shared her work in 20’ and was working with a miniature skeleton. She explained some key information as she were pointing on a map. “We all have a skeleton which is the same.” Through that she could create a vocabulary so all knew exactly what the words meant. “Get your torso up on the legs is not possible” – and she showed on the mini skeleton why. “If I’m asked to point on the shoulders usually I never think on the collarbone though it is part of the shoulder-bones.” She showed some examples with shortening and lengthening the muscles at the wrist. Lengthen could happen by doing it but it was much more visible and recognizable when the squeezing was simply released. Just releasing made successful lengthening. But not collapsing. Allowing became the keyword in the way she worked. After the short mini lecture and common vocabulary everybody stood up and walked in the space. First with a tensed feeling (not allowing the body to move while walking) and then with allowing the arms to swing and looking into each others’ eyes. As a closing everybody stood still with closed eyes.
The sharing was happening in a circle where participants took their notes and this additional 45’ gave the chance for more questions.
“Two directions are important in my teaching: Doing and non doing – means and end.” – Shelley  added which was underlined by Risa as well – “What process helps to reach the goal is the most important.”
Risa was answering a question concerning showing and not showing the movement: “But as we learn by repetition so showing is part of my work. But I let the teachers know that ‘You have to figure it out how you teach what you cannot do.’ ”
“Seeing is a huge subject!” – added Shelley.
Risa recalled a memory about her being 18. Her teacher wanted her to do something but Risa sadly told her teacher “I can’t do this.”. Her teacher said “Than I am done with you.” – which of course shocked Risa but she accepted it as the teacher can only work with someone who at least wants to give it a try. Risa told also another story from the close past which explained that if the student/dancer said “I can’t” this blocked the possibilities. But as the student started to believe on “I didn’t do it yet which meant ‘I might can’ ” changed the attitude of the student and their possibilities.
“I rarely see teachers who know what exactly they teach.”
“My goal is to make the students to learn, not just vomit on them the information. The person is really much who I am interested in so I have to know how can I help the single person’s learning process.” – was some of Risa’s final thoughts.

The one before last lecture brought together all the participants into one group and each of us had to wait outside on the other side of the building, while Carol Brown and Kasia Pol with her volunteer team prepared the space for the Participatory Choreography for Political Breaths. We heard Carol on the first day as she was giving an introduction on how to experience communal breathing. We entered the newly arranged space as one body and after some time of saying our names and countries of origin to the ones we met in the space we were teamed up into smaller groups. We sat down in front of the turning mirrors and we got the next task to create a sentence and write it down on the paper. The group had to find out their own need for the future while some singers were improvising through the microphones. I couldn’t stop thinking on to watch the others in the space, the mirroring pictures around and the quite loud singing. The only thing I could think of was the need of silence. As this need of mine arrived to my group (others were more creative immediately) we (with the leadership of Eszter) started to write a sentence which could be filled up with each of our needs. So we could write down our sentence like this: “More silence to hear/listen/care to our specific knowledge to be embodied towards action… and Love.”
From the comm/unity/on sentence we had to pic up three words and had to create a song for ourselves either with the words or just with some vowels of them. Though I didn’t feel the mood for such thing (I stopped being active already at the first task to create our common need for the future) I took part in it. As each group found their songs we sang it to each other separately, then sometimes overlapping each other, then got closer to each other (still in a circle). Suddenly 5 white flags arrived into the space and each group had a flag to carry on in the next step, where the groups with their songs made a march outside into the grass.
This was the point I quit and sat down to type in all these words which left my fingers in the past some minutes. Sorry group of mine that I skipped and sorry for not being with you while you were closing this session, but I didn’t feel the need to continue at all. I also learnt in the past lectures (today and yesterday) “you have to know where your boarders are”. I didn’t have fun, I didn’t know why do we do what we do, I didn’t even know my peers (maybe the names) so actually I didn’t at all arrive into the whole thing.
But found another way of participating by typing.

Other sentences:
Group 1 “love – zazakely – follow – trust – weaving – life”
Group 2 “a clear future with many happy children in peace & fluidity living & dying in dignity”
Group 3 “I breath; want to practice people; understand; birth; transform; dead understand that trust; compassion; acceptance as who I am makes a difference, no matter now small – standtranspassmaill”
Group 4 “A fictional future will be made of fearless time.”

As we got closer to the final session it turned out that the team members wanted to continue outside, on the grass. The last common session was connected pretty much to the philosophy of Nietzsche which Oguz Erdur (Defne’s older brother) was preparing a lecture about. Closing Lecture: ‘Life is no argument!’ reflections on meaning, art and experience which planned to be “based on anthropological observations of the symposium sessions, this lecture will reflect on the contemporary possibilities of an artistic orientation towards life itself.” Again I felt we got back to the format of the ancient Greek educational process while we used the chance to be in the nature and while we listened to the lecturer we still kept ourselves refreshed by the fresh air, nature and interaction with the soil.
How come that someone who was dedicated to one philosopher’s “friendship”, who studied him in the past 20 years didn’t get to the point to read his words on his original language. Nietzsche needs people to know German as well…
The question raised up “What was your intention as you prepared this lecture for us?” opened up the possibilities to add some needs into the circle what this lecture could be more about… a voice in the public desired some more cultural anthropological observations though some of the audience members were happy to listen to Nietzsche’s thoughts further like this. Another input was that someone thought this was the pathology of this symposium. “We come here to improvise.”
I was looking through the booklet of this year (from the back to the opening page) and I realized by watching the main image of the event that though I was here, exactly where the single red dot was marking “me” I didn’t find the way to really connect myself to the other red dots. So the image described the real situation, I was there but not among the others.

Though we didn’t get a clear answer if idocde will be developed in the next years, the web-site is open to register (if you are a dance teacher) and still free to be part of an online sharing process.

There was no final circle as this year that was announced as a closed session with the Reflex Research Group and the partners, so I got into a discussion with a Hungarian participant (who just arrived to Vienna after 10 years of staying in Copenhagen). We summarized/closed for ourselves the two day event. She was very new in this idocde work and would have liked to know about it even more. I knew about idocde from the very beginning and witnessed the starting point of it, tried to involve some dance teachers as well and last year joined again the work, just like this year. But how will this knowledge be distributed and blown further? It seemed to me that the core team of the symposium became very tired and maybe the main partners doesn’t even want to continue with it – after 7 years. But most of the time things have to run years long to start reaching those who would love to join and participate like this Hungarian participant…
I talked a bit with someone about the horrible situation which we had in dance but also in art education especially in the institutions. Why do we need institutional way of art education if we could develop ourselves and spread the knowledge with such lecture based, sometimes practical but with a lot of thinking practices?

Let us believe that in our closing down world
– we can keep our freedom to think and work on the way we find more fruitful;
– without judgements;
– with peace in ourselves and with others.
I guess, I could get a bit of silence and seemed to be able to find my needs for the future.

Thank you for giving the chance to witness, to participate, to listen to, to digest, to think and to create time for getting closer to the understanding why and how am I teaching; who are my partners in it and how do I want to develop my future to be a real teacher/tutor/mentor/partner.

(Experiences by/with Márta Ladjánszki; Proofreading by Zsolt Varga)