Hallo Vorname, 

We are very happy to have our alumnus Michael Tucker (MADT) to enhance this year’s DAAD project and the corresponding alumni newsletter as our expert in the topic of choreographic work.

The Alumni Network is shaped by your involvement as well. Currently, we are looking for additional graduates who would like to give those interested, insights into the entry into a professional career or into the ins and outs of creating new projects. These tips will be presented on our alumni Facebook and Instagram channels in short videos (50-second reels).

Our focus is one the following topics:

• Starting into a professional career after studying
• Further development after studying
• Personal experience with one’s own projects

Could you imagine participating in our Alumni Network on non-payment basis by making a self-recorded video (upright on end) in which you tell us a little about your daily routines or your personal experiences?

The public presentation of the graduating Bachelor class’s dance projects is coming up. For our alumni, there is a discount for the performance on 18 May 2024 at 2:00 pm. Further information can soon be found on our homepage. Please remember to bring your alumni membership card for this event. The discount is only available for the 2:00 pm performance.

I am looking forward to your feedback.

Minh Huyen Pietruske

Department of Strategic Development/Communication
Student Marketing & Alumni Coordinator
alumni@paluccca.eu | +49 351 25906-45

100 Years Palucca (University) - send us your Palucca stories!

Founded in 1925 as a private school, the Palucca School exists up to this very day. This has been achieved by very few schools of modern dance. Furthermore, the Palucca School has developed into a university: it is the only independent University of Dance in Germany. This means that next year we will celebrate this unique story of success. However, a dance education centre is nothing abstract. People disagree, demands and expectations may contrast. To learn with and from each other can be fun and exhilarating, but also exhausting or even frustrating. And end early. Many things have been published about Palucca and the Palucca School. Some stories are good fiction such as the exaggeration that when Palucca auditioned for Mary Wigman in her hotel room, Palucca jumped so high that that the candelabra got broken.

For 2025, we would like to learn more about you as former pupils and students of the Palucca School or the University. What was and is “typical” and “special” for this learning institution? What does the Palucca School or University mean to you? What could and can only happen here?

Please send us your stories, anecdotes, interviews, thoughts, drawings, poems, visions, photographs, songs, and mini performances in whatever format you like the most. It can be completely subjective and doesn’t need to be pretty or attractive. We would like to put together and publish a Palucca story “by many.” It is about the perspectives, thoughts, feeling and opinions of those people who themselves experienced the school through dance. Maybe the result will be a website someday, maybe a book - it depends on you, your ideas, and your courage.

Please submit your contributions by 30 June, 2024 to:

Angela Rannow, Academic staff member
Palucca University of Dance Dresden
Basteiplatz 4, 01277 Dresden or  to a.rannow@palucca.eu

Many thanks in advance!

Angela Rannow

THE LIBRARY’S NEW ACQUISITIONS

„John Cranko: Tanzvisionär“ /The Stuttgart Ballet (Editor), by Julia Lutzeyer, Petra Olschowski, Angela Reinhardt. - Leipzig: Henschel, 2023 - 284 pages with numerous illustrations. - € 49.00

The newly published large-format illustrated book is dedicated to the choreographer John Cranko on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death. In numerous interviews, twenty colleagues describe their encounters with the ballet director of the Stuttgart Ballet, who in just thirteen years, from 1960 until his early death in 1973, created ballet pieces that continue to exert their influence today.

The interviews were given at varying times between 2006 and 2023 for the purpose of this illustrated book or recorded during the lifetime of the interviewee. Interviewees include Cranko’s interpreters Marcia Haydée, Reid Anderson and Dieter Graefe as well as Birgit Keil, Richard Cragun, Egon Madsen, Jirì Kylian, John Neumeier, or the choreologist Georgette Tsinguindis, the stage designer Jürgen Rose, and the Photographer Gundel Kilian.

In addition, the book comprises an interestingly written biography and a comprehensive catalogue of John Cranko’s works and many impressive black and white photos.

ALUMNI NEWS & MORE

Call for project funding | Miller de Nobili Team 
Labyrinth - Dance Theatre about Dreams

MdN combines breaking, urban, and contemporary dance with acting techniques while dealing with current socio-cultural topics in an assessable manner.

"Labyrinth" by Miller de Nobili is an innovative dance theatre piece that interprets dreams with a fusion of breaking, urban dance, contemporary dance and acting.

With six dancers from different backgrounds, it combines different dance styles and social themes.  The piece is notable for its innovative choreography and the integration of current socio-cultural issues. 

Funding period: 02 February 2024 – 15 March 2024

Realisation period: Premiere: 28 March - 30 March, 2024

NEW IN THE ARCHIVE - FINDINGS

Teaching Materials for Rhythm and Musical Training - Wolfgang Zeibig

A short while ago our Archive was given teaching materials for rhythm and musical training from the estate of Wolfgang Zeibig’s (*04. March 1929 - 21 December 2021).

Wolfgang Zeibig was a teacher for rhythm and musical training for almost 40 years here at the Palucca School Dresden. When he wasn’t teaching, one would find him in his office, room 34 (today a conference room), looking over his teaching materials. He occupied himself with, among others, the curriculum for the subject rhythm, notation, or with composers of the 18th and 19th century. To convey his teaching, he was always looking for new methods and ways for pupils and students to discover rhythm and be able to intentionally express this on their own.  He was cherished by colleagues and students alike for this commitment and his creativity.

Zeibig understood rhythm to be the

“...basis for a dancer’s musical training.  Music and dance are partners from the very beginning. [...] Because there are first and foremost three components that make up an ideal dancer: a mastered dance technique acquired through daily training, the development of dance expression and creativity, and the marked ability to grasp rhythmic and musical qualities and convey them through dance movement.”

In 1947, Wolfgang Zeibig studied the subjects singing, folk music education, and concert class at the State Academy for Music and Theater (as of 1952 University of Music Dresden). Already during his studies, he assumed the direction of the Nurses Choir at the Krankenpflegeschulen (nursing schools) Dresden-Friedrichstadt and Johannstadt.

After graduating in 1952, he became a teacher for rhythm and musical training at the Palucca School Dresden.  In addition to his area of expertise, he was also in charge of the school’s study planning for many years. During his career, he was awarded, among others, the GRD Medal of Merit and the Medal of Merit in national artistic creativity.

Zeibig retired in 1992 and passed away in Pulsnitz in 2021.

Our heartfelt gratitude for this gift goes to Karla Zeibig and Ingrid Borchert.

EXPERT ARTICLE
by Michael Tucker (MADT 2021)

Choreographic Metaphors on Inspiration: Jumble, Fishing and the “Aha” Moment.

I grew up playing “JUMBLE” with my family in the Sunday newspaper, a word game where one must unscramble letters to arrange a word. JUMBLE is a game for the dreamers and the ponderers of the world and the pursuit of the solution is a choreographic process in and of itself. With each imagined rearrangement of the letters, vowels and consonants dance around each other, patterns emerge and clues unfurl to reveal the elusive word. Playing Jumble is not unlike the choreographic process. Despite the two belonging to two distinct artistic and recreational domains, they share unique parallels in terms of creative synthesis, pattern-recognition and especially the infamous “aha” moment.

This "aha" moment, which I would consider the moment of inspiration, is often a combination of various influences, a convergence of internal reflections and external stimuli. It is in this magical instant that a concept takes shape, a narrative emerges, or a unique movement vocabulary reveals itself. This instant of clarity, where inspiration strikes, is a transcendent experience. It might occur during a solitary reflection, in the midst of daily life, or even in the hush of a quiet moment before sleep.

When the “aha” moment strikes, I generally experience a surge of creative energy, compelling me to render this new found inspiration into tangible movement and form.

Each choreographer has a unique way of guiding the animation of their work from inspiration to idea, idea to form, and form to fruition. When I first began choreographing as a student in school, my main inspiration came purely from the music.

The music inspired me, dictated the steps and the steps, in turn, created the unique mood, character and form of the piece. Although a part of me still both cherishes and implements this rather simplistic approach, creation over the years has taught me that my “aha” moments are often sparked from sources other than just the music.

Choreography goes beyond mere steps and sequences, delving into the realms of emotion, storytelling, and aesthetics. Over the years, I have developed a passion for storytelling. I consider my pieces to be like poems and it is not unlikely that a scenario, a conversation, or even an object, costume, or prop has the ability to fire up my choreographic imagination.

The most difficult factor of this initial process is the interminable waiting. Inspiration is an elusive figure, that plays by its own watch. Waiting for it is not unlike fishing; a test of patience and unpredictability. Even with the best surroundings, equipment and knowledge, there's an element of uncertainty in whether fish will be present, and if they are, whether they will bite. If I am lucky and inspirations bites, I can begin slowly reeling it in, watching as each tug and turn of the reel, reveals glimpses of an idea until at last the entirety of its form is brought to light.

contact: mic.j.tucker@gmail.com

„Es Reicht!“ Choreography by Michael Tucker