what would happen when dancers, choreographers, cognitive and neuroscientists came together to talk about movement?-Task 2d

Like birds, who are motivated by the first rays of sunshine to sing their song in the morning, us humans need something to inspire us and help us get out of bed...be it even at 6am in the middle of Winter.
Personally I am really enthusiastic about life and the happiness I am able to find inside myself. Not wanting to sound ridiculous here I am still curious about the challenges that lie ahead and like to remind myself of the wonders our lives have to offer. Sometimes, when you have had an eventful day at work (and believe me, being in the performing arts sector can be very emotionally charged), putting things back into perspective really helps. Sometimes seeing the world through the eyes of a two-year-old, who is just discovering the world around him works wonders on a tired, adult mind!
I personally am really affected by music. As John Powell states in his book "How Music Works"
http://www.amazon.de/How-Music-Works-listeners-harmony/dp/1846143152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321280902&sr=8-1
we all are. I feel whichever track I first listen to at the start of the day, sets the course for what kind of mood I am steering into. Of course music is an integral part of my current daily practice and the fact, that Stephan Thoss, the choreographer I am working with at the moment is so incredibly musical, really really helps and has, over the last three and a half years not only given me wings of inspiration, but also taught me to listen to music in another way. I sometimes feel, as if I am dancing on the instrument in the orchestra (literally) or as if you can see the music in the room- a bit like with synaesthesia.
Here is his web-site....it has just been taken on-line, so some pages are still not complete, but there are some excerpts to demonstrate, what I mean!
http://www.stephan-thoss.de/


What really gets to me is the political situation of dance and the arts in general. Especially here in Germany (again, I work and live here, so I know most about this particular subject matter and am confronted with it on a day to day basis) where the dance departments of many houses have been shut down (dance, our primal, universal language tends to always be the first to go!!!) and many more are on the table to follow.
As I am writing this, my thoughts take me back to the first round of auditions I did in 2003, when a teacher at English National Ballet school told us all to go to Germany to audition, as the country is swamped by dance companies. Now, not even 10 years later, the situation has alarmingly changed.
Germany is a country with a long standing theatre tradition. It has some of the most beautiful theaters with headers such as "Dem Wahren Schönen Guten" (for the true beautiful and good) (Alte Oper Frankfurt am Main) or "Der Menschheit Würde ist in Eure Hand gegeben. Bewahret sie!" (Dignity of man has been handed to you. Conserve it!) (Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden) and my thoughts course around the necessity of preserving and developing this tradition.
This is something I would like to do more research on.
Someone, who has really touched me concerning the necessity of theater and of play is the austrian/hungarian writer Ödön von Horvadt, or the founder of the epic theatre Bertholt Brecht. Again a subject I would like to elaborate more on and see, if their thoughts can be brought into the 21. century.


What I really love is the paradox of it all. That life actually makes no sense, if you think about it, but you can find so much sense in it. That art seems so dispensable, but that us humans are lost without it. That dance is the most primal version of human communication and the most natural thing for us to do, yet it has become something so unaccessible, nicely tucked away in theaters. The people that inspire me the most in continuing to do what I love, are the people that keep on doing, what they believe in even if they seem to be fighting against windmills. Such as street artists, who are hated by many. To name one would be Banksy.
http://www.banksy.co.uk/
Not everyone likes nor understands graffiti, but many people love his work and even consider it art, without even questioning, what it is about.


What I really do not understand are the seemingly panicked and short-sighted decisions that are made in politics concerning art. At the end of the day more pressure is put on individual houses to bring in a certain amount of money within a year. This again leads to short-term decisions in the direction of the individual theatre, who often make fatal mistakes in management, yet again putting an awful lot of weight on each individual employees shoulder. Although there is not really one person of whom I can say that they answer my question in this case, but I am inspired by people such as the late Christoph Schlingensief
http://www.schlingensief.com/start.php
who make their own theatre- against all odds.

I think I´ve been toying with these thoughts and ideas for a long time, as I am also personally affected by them and I would really like to comb through my thoughts and elaborate some more on the necessity of art in general and in particular dance.
Art is like a large bird (I´m thinking Pelican like here). If you give it the freedom to spread it´s wings and fly you will become witness of something truly amazing!