What Becomes Treasure

Our last two days to work in Schwedt were crammed with various meetings but unfortunately no more dancing. We managed to visit the town of Angermunde and see the little old church where my Mom's family belonged. It's dogma was apparently the forerunner of the Missouri Synod Lutheran persuasion. The town was not bombed during the 2nd World War and retains a lot of the old style buildings. Very interesting to compare with Schwedt where very little remains from pre-war.... In the evening we visited a project in the village of Oderberg where a dance artist (originally from the States) and her partner are re-purposing a huge structure built by the Nazis as a retreat center and later expanded by the German army to repair artillery tanks. This couple is now hosting a dozen or so Ukrainian refugees. The dancer (Liz Erber) is also working with immigrant youth to create a theater piece with them. Check them out at www.KuNaKu.org . . .Tuesday morning in Schwedt we met with two wonderful w...

Thursday and Friday in Schwedt turned out to be very productive. On Thursday I got to see Thomas at work with his students using interesting concepts about twisting/wringing (think gut wrenching). Elizabeth did very interesting work with that idea also with the older women. On Friday afternoon we made a really good version of one piece involving arrivals on a bench and the waiting that follows. We had 10 people, young and old - male and female. I also got my old friend from Paris to perform. He came to visit in Berlin while I am on this side of the pond since we haven't seen each other in person since 2015. Then back to Berlin for the weekend. Yesterday I was able to meet up with David Haas, the grandson of Bedrich Fritta who made the portrait of my grandmother in Theresienstadt. The story of the two friends, Leo Haas and Bedrich Tausich (sp?) aka Fritta, how they came to Thersienstadt (Terezin in Czech) and how Leo and his wife came to adopt little Thomas Fritta (David's fathe...

Yesterday was pretty successful from my point of view. First I was met by a group of level 9 students at the Gymnasium (high school) and Herr Rall filmed the conversation which was mostly me talking about Mom's family experience. The students had a few questions (am I related to Robert Oppenheimer, of course. Sorry, no). Then we went back to the Kuntstchule and I watched Thomas working with his small group of 12 year olds. Nice ideas about different ways to treat people you meet. Then worked with his two older girls on the idea of memory and also What would make you leave your home. Off again now to work today and tomorrow. But probably no internet for a couple of days.