Chili and Myself

Happy April, Dance Fans!

I hope this finds You fabulous! Greetings from Nuremberg, where i just finished up a set of shows at Tafelhalle, performing (in a top hat and tails, oddly) for the Tanztheater-riffic Susanna Curtis, in her production Alice-ecilA (Trailer here).

Here’s what else is happening this month:

April 14-16: Teaching two workshops at the wonderful STRETCH Festival in Berlin: DILFs, Leather Daddies, & Tranpa – Queering Father*hood on the Saturday (see picture with Chili above), and The Choreography of a Play Party on the Sunday. I will also be part of what looks to be a really interesting panel on Community Building on the Saturday evening. This festival for men of all identities is currently sold out but there’s an option of getting on the waiting list.

Some screenings i won’t make it to personally, but friends who are in town, please go!

SONATA, Part Two of the Sex & Space Trilogy, will be screened during the first edition of Rome’s new Hacker Porn Film Festival, which looks like a great program overall. Big auguroni to Tigrotto, Nita, and the team for making it happen! SONATA will screen three times:
April 24 as part of the opening ritual at Alibi Club
April 26, 19:00 and April 28, 18:00 as part of the shorts program at Cineclub Il Kino
Romans, have a look!

SHAPESHIFTERS, Part Three of the Trilogy, will be screened at the Athens Video Dance Project on April 27 at 22:30 as part of their Exploring Otherness.II program. If You happen to be in town for Documenta, check it out!

April 29/30, i will be teaching a Sex & Space workshop on Dance, Desire, & Performing the Erotic Body at a beautiful location in County Cork, Ireland. I believe there are still some places available so contact Andre for details and to register! Facebook event page here.

Finally, as of this week, i will be starting a new piano job playing for ballet classes once a week at HZT Berlin – many of You probably know that i was a pianist long before i ever took a dance class, and i’m very happy to be returning to my roots. The HZT class is only for the university students, but i also play for Matthew Thomas’ Monday evening class at Tanzfabrik, and have been every week for the past 10 years (!). So if You ever feel like a little classical ballet to start your week, stop on by – i love seeing familiar faces!

Much love to You all and see You soon!
xxx,
David B.

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Very happy to be presenting a short workshop on Group Dynamics of Desire as part of tutgut Berlin’s ongoing series Senses, Pleasure, Intimacy, on the evening of Wednesday April 26 at 7pm. Facebook event here. Email Federica to register! Places extremely limited.

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A Workshop on Performing Desire and Desirability

Sexuality and Desire are omnipresent in advertising, entertainment, and corporate capitalism in general, but the image presented of what is desired and desirable is often fairly far removed from most people’s authentic interests.

This workshop is an attempt to bring into focus the gap between how we perform our sexual being in the digital age, and our actual connections to those around us.

Drawing on my experience from years of practicing Conscious Sexuality such as Tantra & BDSM, as well as performance and choreography, we will be breathing, working somatically, and diving into improvisational scores based on desire as well as our projections. We will also have discussions on how presentation, identity, desire, and erotic energy all intersect and inform each other, as well as how we can use authentic uncensored desire as a tool to create artistic work.

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FRIENDS! ROMANS! COUNTRYPEOPLE! The folks from the Hacker Porn Film Festival, happening tomorrow until Sunday, have put together a massive and beautiful program. I feel very lucky to have my film Sonata included, screening on Wednesday and Friday as part of the Short Session 1 program – check out their site for details. Would love to be there! Check it out and let me know how it went!
https://www.hackerpornfest.com/

Sonata

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Next week @The Hole: For actually the FIRST TIME EVAH, the whole Sex & Space Trilogy is being screened in one place at the same time (that is, sequentially, of course), my artistic output of the past few years, mashing up choreography & pornography. QUINTET, SONATA, & SHAPESHIFTERS finally united on the big screen. If You’re in Berlin, come on over!
Facebook Event Link here!
Starring Jadzia Daxxx, Caritia, Jorgos Periklis, Liz Pierrot, Eva Marino, Jiz Lee, Jasko Fide, Bishop Black, KAy Garnellen, & Gala Vanting. Stunning camera work by Johan Planefeldt & Roberto Duarte. Everything else done by Keith Lim.

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Dear AMSTERDAM! Just to let You know, a small excerpt from my film Sonata – Part Two of the Sex & Space Trilogy will be spontaneously shown this Saturday at EYE Filmmuseum, as part of a lecture on pornography and art by prime feminist porn filmmaker Jennifer Lyon Bell. I will sadly not be there, as back in Berlin! But please go and tell me about it!

https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/film/afgrunden-porn-art-0?program_id=11816116

Facebook event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/234047913759129/

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Happy Spring, Dance Fans!

Hope this finds You fabulous! A few items for this year’s special edition of PRIMAVERA:

– This week, Thursday (May 25 at 8pm), for the first time ever, the three dance films that make up the Sex & Space Trilogy will be screened together in their entirety by Fecunda Lab at The Hole in Berlin.

– Next week, i will be in Amsterdam (unbelievably ALSO for the first time), teaching the workshop “The Conscious Tinder Experience”, on the performance of our sexual being in the digital age, and how it relates to authentic desire, whatever that may be. This is happening June 2 & 3 in the framework of the fabulous FLAM Festival. Email FLAM to register!

– The same weekend, June 2-4, Shapeshifters, part three of the Sex & Space Trilogy, will be screened at the PopPorn Festival 7 in São Paulo, Brazil!

– June 23/24, i will be heading down to Nuremberg to teach a workshop on Sex & Space to the students of the professional training program at Mind and Dance (the former Ballettförderzentrum).

– June 26-30, i will be giving the morning classes (not only) for professionals at Berlin’s classic Dock11 Studios, Monday-Friday at 10:00. Come and join me while we spiral, honor the memory of Trisha Brown, and try to help me find the at times elusive connection between pleasure, embodiment, and dance “technique”. Full class description here!

July Preview (catch the early sign-up):
In July, i am looking forward lots to be co-teaching at Evolove – an explorative residency on creating conscious futures through embodied practices and conceptual cross-pollination – in a former Franciscan monastery in the Czech Republic. The residency will happen July 8-16 and was initiated by visionary artists Moss Beynon Juckes & Javier Cura. It features a whole bunch of interesting teachers and looks at how community and also art, of all things, can support societal revolution. Really excited about this one! Check out the website for the full program here. And join us! :)

Much love and hope to see You soon at one of these or others!
xxx,
David B.

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Desire emerges between bodies, and between bodies and the space. There is no such thing as desire in a vacuum, or at least none that we have access to. The Universe Project looks at desire not from the perspective of the individual but as arising intersubjectively.

It also emerged from my experience of a sound bath with large silver gongs played by yoga and gong master Kay Karl. I’m curious to expand the effect of the gongs’ vibrations on the cells and fluids of the body into the surrounding environment through movement. Could an immersive space be created, in which a non-dualistic reality could be physically experienced, and boundaries between bodies, between bodies and space, between performers and audience members, and boundaries between different ways of reading a movement, could be dissolved?

I am also interested in extending the question of interconnectedness to the emergence of “meaning”. That is, the associations that images, constellations, relationships of bodies in space evoke in an observer – and whether they can ever exist independently of the observer’s cultural background.

In this way, I am interested in researching the idea of non-dualism on both a physical level, as well as a kind of collective consciousness which is becoming, by physical and technological means, more and more global, somewhere between the idea of a “hive mind” facilitated by the internet, and archaic rituals such as gong baths that create a collective state.

Photo by Renae Shadler

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What does it mean to do something with our bodies together? And how can community not undermine the individual’s desires, but empower them, and vice versa? Borrowing from somatic work, clubbing, magickal group processes, and everyday life, we will reflect on the question whether “dancing around” can actually affect societal change, or whether that’s something we just tell ourselves to justify all our navel-gazing Berlin bullshit.

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Sexuality and Desire are omnipresent in advertising, entertainment, and corporate capitalism in general, but the image presented of what is desired and desirable is often fairly far removed from most people’s authentic interests.

This seminar is an attempt to bring into focus the gap between how we perform our sexual being in the digital age, and our actual connections to those around us.

Drawing on my experience from years of studying and facilitating Conscious Sexuality practices such as Tantra & BDSM, as well as performance and choreography, we will be breathing, working somatically, and diving into improvisational scores based on desire as well as our projections. We will also have discussions on how presentation, identity, desire, intersubjectivity, and erotic energy all intersect and inform each other, as well as how we can use authentic uncensored desire (and not just the erotic kind) as a tool to create artistic work.

It is also a research into transparency around relationships of power, gender, desire, attraction, and repulsion within the structure of artistic projects. It questions the myth of the “project” as a parallel universe in which nothing that happens as any real-world consequences – and hence, the boundaries of those involved are different from those in “real life”. It proposes a holistic approach to making art that both draws from and affects our personal, social, and political realities.

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This beautiful residency on Embodying Conscious Futures is happening in the Czech Republic next month! Czech it out! If You’re wondering how the work we do fits into the current political landscape (i do) and how art can actually affect societal change, i feel this one has a pretty interesting combination of questions raised:

https://evolove2017.wordpress.com/ for more info and to register.

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Photo by Renae Shadler

Dear Dance Fans,

Before taking a bit of a Summer break for some much-needed family time, there will be a first work-in-progress showing in Berlin (following a residency at Tanzfabrik) of my new piece The Universe Project at Uferstudios (Studio 4), in the framework of Tanzfabrik’s Open Spaces/Sommer Tanz 2017:

THIS COMING THURSDAY, JULY 20, AT 7:00pm.

I will be sharing the evening with the tremendous Renae Shadler, showing her piece “And She saw that it was good”. Both pieces are part of the Naming It research project that Renae and i began last year. After several years of film work, i’m really looking forward to sharing some live moments with my collaborators, the beautiful performers Laura Eva Meuris and Paweł Dudus, and the majestic musician Kay Karl of Gong Sound Healing Arts. Cranio-Sacral Dramaturgy was provided by Nica Berndt-Caccivio, and we’ll be dancing desire, intersubjectivity, nonduality, and magick, besides everything else in the Universe. It’s free and no need to register. See You there!

At the end of the month, i will be heading to Vienna for the IDOCDE Symposium, July 28-30, in the framework of the ImPulsTanz Festival – this year’s symposium theme is “why compromise? mind the dance.” I will be giving the warmup on one of the symposium days, with a class called “The Antidote to Capitalism is Community”.

Finally, August 17-20, it is my pleasure to teach two workshops, “Group Dynamics of Desire” and “The Choreography of a Play Party”, as well as screen the Sex & Space Film Trilogy at The Summer House Weekend, at a top-secret location in the countryside outside of London, which i hear is an experience! Come join us!

Wishing You all blissful and blessed moments, and would love to reconnect with You at one of the above, or otherwise soon!

xxx,
David B.

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Photo by Roberto Duarte

Dear Dance Fans!

I hope this finds You all fabulous! A few short notes to let You know what’s going on in my world in the coming months.

TOMORROW, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28! – DO forgive the short notice, and then DO join me for a screening of Sonata – part two of the Sex & Space Trilogy, as part of Lick & Listen#7, at 8pm at IPA Bar Berlin. Fecunda Lab hosts this series of “ethical porn” films combined with Live Music – Sonata is being scored for the evening by musician Marcello S. Busato. Curious to see (and hear) this one.

October 18, 8:30pm, at Somatische Akademie Berlin: a showing of The Universe Project, the new dance piece i’ve been working on (last seen at the end of a Tanzfabrik Open Spaces Residency at Uferstudios in July) with dancers Paweł Dudus & Laura Eva Meuris, sound by Kay Karl and cranio-sacral dramaturgy by Nica Berndt-Caccivio. The showing is part of SINCE – Somatics in Creation, curated by Ingo Reulecke, a series featuring artists working with somatic approaches.

October 28/29, at The Village Berlin: Teaching two workshops on The Choreography of a Play Party at STRETCH IMAGINE, a festival for men*, exploring sensuality, spirituality, and community.

October 23 to November 10, at the Inter-University Center for Dance Berlin: Teaching a three-week seminar On Intimacy in Process and Performance in the B.A. “Dance, Context, Choreography” program. This is my first extended venture into university teaching, and i’m really curious and excited to see how the work goes over in that environment…

November Preview:
November 17-19, teaching the workshop The Antidote to Capitalism is Community at the Body IQ Festival, taking place at Somatische Akademie Berlin. Last year’s festival was an amazing experience, and this year’s theme is Body Democracy/Democratic Body, which speaks to my current interest in the effect that artistic work, and specifically somatics, can have on social and political realities.

Hope to see You at ALL of these things – or for a matcha latte around town… Lots of LOVE

xxx, David B.
Pronouns: he/him/his

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Happy Scorpio Season, Dance Fans!

A couple of items happening over the next few months:

First off, this coming weekend, it’s time for the Body IQ Festival again, at Somatische Akademie Berlin, November 17-19. This year’s theme is Body Democacy // Democratic Body, and my contribution will be a workshop titled The Antidote to Capitalism is Community, on the Sunday at 4pm. Last year’s festival was amazing, so really looking forward to this one!

Two screenings:

Shapeshifters, Part Three of the Sex & Space Trilogy, will be screening at the fabulous PornyDays Festival in Zurich as part of the Short Film Competition on Friday, November 24 at 8:40pm, and Saturday, November 25 at 11pm.

Sonata, Part Two of the Trilogy, will be screening at La Boca Erótica Festival in Madrid, December 1 & 2. Check the festival page for exact screening times.

I’m also super happy to report that Sonata won the Best Short Film Award at the Seattle Erotic Cinema Society’s SECS Fest in September! My first award ever!

And finally, before heading into Berlin hibernation mode for real, i’ll be performing my one-on-one show Sexual Fortune Telling at Altes Finanzamt in Berlin on December 20, from 7pm on. Come and get in touch with your sexual past, present, and especially FUTURE. See You there!

Lots of love and warm wishes in the cold season,

xxx,
David B.

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What does it mean to do something with our bodies communally? What can you get from taking a dance class together that you can’t get from any other experience? And what is contemporary dance “technique” in a world where anything goes?

For the past couple of years, i’ve been intensely involved with somatic approaches to movement, and this class is an attempt to bring together that self-exploratory and potentially healing process with the more external structure of a contemporary technique class. I believe it is possible to remain aware and embodied even while enacting set exercises and sequences, and that this combination can give the performer a wide variety of options. Dance & choreography can become not just action, but equally non-action: receiving, observing, and listening. Pleasure can become a path to truly embodying given “steps”.
The class begins from sensing the body itself somatically, and then brings awareness to the spacetime we are moving through, using a combination of improvisation proposals, technical “exercises”, and set movement sequences.
I’m also very interested in the idea of “taking class” itself, what it means to do so and what intentions people bring to the space. We will use the energy of the group present on that particular day, at that particular time, to create a unique experience and a joyful practice. What you practice regularly is always what you become good at, and if you practice the joy of dance, the joy will grow.

Photo by David Bergé

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Next week Wednesday, practicing predictive magicks at Altes Finanzamt Berlin before the big hibernation – some other great performances by Dessa Ganda and Laura Pacheco Catinho, too! Take a break from consumer culture and join us!

Sexual Fortune Telling

Photo by Alexis Courtney

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The washing of feet is considered the ultimate act of service in many contexts. Feet are not only mentioned as a euphemism for genitals in the Old Testament, but are in fact also located next to them on the brain’s somatosensory cortex.
In the workshop, we will step into a somatic exploration of the foot’s anatomy, a short reflection on the history of feet, and a foot washing ritual, allowing us to experience a millenia-old practice of giving and receiving.

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The mouth is the first station of the digestive system, and it makes some of our earliest pre-verbal decisions. To taste or not, to swallow or not, to digest – or perhaps to spit up again what we have swallowed.
In the workshop, we will somatically explore the digestive system first as a way of supporting our movement in general, but also its role in making decisions, in playfully connecting with others, as well as in setting boundaries.

Photo by Anne-Mareike Hess

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Foot Washing Ritual

Happy New Gregorian, Dance Fans!

The big news is that as of shabbos two weeks ago, i’m now OFF SOCIAL MEDIA. I’m officially declaring the social media experiment FAILED and celebrated last week by going to a Tarkovsky film festival that i learned about from a POSTER IN THE SUBWAY. I’m experiencing a certain amount of FOMO (Mom & Dad, click here), but also a great deal of energy and enlightenment.Please don’t hesitate to keep me in the loop about all your goings-on, subscribe me to your mailing list, let me know about anything happening You think i might be interested in. CALL ME!

This is also happening this month and next:

TOMORROW, Wednesday February 6: Substituting for Johanne Castille Bro’s Contemporary Dance Class at Tanzfabrik Berlin at 4:45pm. Feeling spontaneous? Come over! I promise some spirals and some of my usual witty repartee.

Sonata, part two of the Sex & Space Trilogy, will be screening at the festival La Boca Erótica in Madrid on Saturday February 10 at 7pm. It will also screen at the Vienna Porn Film Festival on March 3 at 7:30pm

Odd Jobs Dept.: This coming Sunday, February 11 at 3pm, i will be giving a tour of the exhibition Archaeomusica in Brandenburg an der Havel, about an hour outside of Berlin. Don’t ask how i became an expert on musical instruments from the Stone Age through the early Middle Ages, but if You want to know the difference between a carnyx and a bird-bone flute, You should definitely join this one!

Shapeshifters, part three of Sex & Space, will be screening at the Cinekink Festival in New York City, running from March 14-18. As i will be visiting Mom, who actually lives within walking distance of the Film Anthology Archives, i will be there live and in person!

The last week of March, i will be teaching Pleasure (a contemporary technique class) at Marameo Berlin, March 24/25 at 1pm, and March 26/28/30 at 2pm.

Also from March 30-April 1 in Berlin, i will be presenting two workshops – a Foot Washing Ritual (see photo above) and Gut Feelings – at the fabulous STRETCH Festival (for men*).

April Preview: From April 3-12, i will be teaching two weeks of Pleasure (a contemporary technique class) at Tanzquartier in Vienna, with the short workshop Desire (on Intimacy in Process and Performance) interspersed on Saturday April 7. Super happy to be making my debut at this fabulous institution.

That’s it for now – i will most likely send out another missive towards the end of March and then return to my usual rhythm of sending something out every two months.

Sending lots of love out there your way, into the void. See You soon IN REAL LIFE.

xxx,
David B.

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Happy Spring from New York, Dance Fans!

Hope this all finds You staying warm. Just a quick message to let You know about some goings-on in the next two months.

First up NEXT WEEK (including this weekend), teaching Pleasure (a contemporary technique class) at Marameo Berlin. Come join me and help me prove that it’s still possible to get folks to dance with you even if you’re off social media!
Class times are Saturday March 24 & Sunday March 25 at 13:00, and Monday March 26, Wednesday March 28, & Friday March 30 at 14:00 – all at Marameo.

Other happenings in Berlin and elsewhere:

Teaching two workshops at the beyond-fabulous STRETCH Festival (photo above from last year by Jean-Baptiste Huong), Foot Washing Ritual, Friday March 30 at 11:00, and Gut Feelings, Sunday April 1 at 11:00.

Teaching Pleasure (a contemporary technique class) at Tanzquartier in Vienna, April 3-6 & 9-12, 10:45-12:30 daily, with the workshop Desire – on Intimacy in Process and Performance – on Saturday April 7, 13:00-18:00. Contact Tanzquartier for details. Thrilled to be making my debut at this fine institution.

Shapeshifters, part three of the Sex & Space Trilogy, will be screening at the London Porn Film Festival, Friday April 13 at 22:30, and Sunday April 15 at 15:00.

Teaching The Choreography of a Play Party, Saturday April 28 & Sunday April 29, 11:00 to 15:00 both days, at Hacker Porn Film Festival in Rome. On the Saturday evening, i will also be presenting my predictive one-on-one performance Sexual Fortune Telling at the festival.

Looking forward to running into You here or there –

Sending Love,
David B.

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