welcome to the 2020 IDOCDE symposium entitled MAKING PLACE TAKING SPACE.

it is a great honour to be here with you today. i would like to greet all of the attending members who are currently asleep, may your dreams be kind to you tonight and your rest rewarding.

a couple of reminders:

IDOCDE is a community driven project. the members of Team IDOCDE, Kerstin Kussmaul (project leader and founder), Defne Erdur (IDOCDE ambassador and founding member), Dilek Üstünalan (our tech support), Deirdre Amirault Morris (symposium coordinator) and myself (the editor of the IDOCDE website and social media coordinator), are firstly and fore-mostly freelance dance artists and pedagogues. the work we do only makes sense if it creates conditions for you to come together in experience and exchange of knowledge. we are also, it is important to say, here to learn.

we are conscious of the fact that we've taken a big risk this year, meeting online as we are, with members of the community coming in, for the first time, from all the corners of the world. a couple of reminders we'd like to voice here.

please remember, for many (most) of us the English language is learned. this comes with its set of challenges. please invite each other to ask questions, and help each other with translations whenever translation is needed.

please remember that many of us will be currently sensitive to and (in different ways) involved with the black lives matter movement and the global movement towards social justice. if at all possible, when facing a conflict, remember that learning is in all of our interest. please have heart and patience for each other. if at all possible, when facing a conflict, refrain yourself from jumping to conclusions. remember that we'll all be fighting in different contexts, against similar but different histories, with access to extremely different resources.

we, members of the Team IDOCDE, are working on an online etiquette guidelines that we hope to share with you in the coming days. developing the guidelines for such a diverse group ofpeople is proving to be a real challenge. your feedback will be welcome. thank you.

another serious note: if you can, please donate to the 2020 IDOCDE symposium. all the proceedings of the donations will go to compensate the lecturers and hosts for their time and the effort they put into this. we are specifically looking for donations to support those lecturers and hosts with lower or no regular income and members of the BIPOC community. we are conscious of the risk all the lecturers and hosts took when approaching the symposium, knowing that our budget this year was in your capable hands. thank you for your understanding and your generosity.

lastly,
we recommend all attendees update their IDOCDE profiles (which is why you will not find biographies embedded in the symposium program). The IDOCDE profile can function as your business card during the time of the symposium. Uploading a biography and work samples to your IDOCDE profiles is advisable.

we would like to thank you all for coming together this year under such challenging circumstances. we thank you for your patience and understanding as we figure how to do this: this is our first time hosting an online symposium during the threat of the global pandemic, after all.

we would like to thank the ImPulsTanz dance festival for the encouragement, technical support, and the support they offered over the years.

thank you for your time and...

may the games begin!

2020 07 21
pavleheidler for Team IDOCDE