Dear ROAR community,
ROAR is taking a hiatus in 2022. The conditions for planning another year in an ever changing environment are making us consider carefully what is most important about ROAR and whether or not it is possible to achieve that now. We want to be moving with you again but all signs indicate that we should reserve our resources for a thoughtful evaluation and planning for a stronger future.
ROAR has existed as a unique opportunity for artists to explore their own embodied paths within a collective of international participants. With the inclusion of SMASH, the program pre-dating ROAR, this has happened for over 10 years and included more than 200 students forming a small army of artists that share a commitment to deeply researching their relationship to dance, performance, and the body.
All parts of ROAR’s program design are intentional:
Its duration - Three months. This allows for a meaningful educational experience within travel and visa limits making it more accessible than a longer program but more focused than a packed festival.
The number and make up of participants - Twenty people. Larger than a family but smaller than an audience. Participants build enduring relationships with each other that last beyond the program. Every year there is a mix of ages, genders, nationalities, and disciplines amongst the participants that creates an environment for growth and collaboration.
The journeys - We focus on going deep rather than broad. We program research modules so participants can stay in 2 to 3 week processes with an artist to embody research in a meaningful way.
We have been creatively adjusting to the changing conditions of the global pandemic since March of 2020. This included canceling a full three-month program, hosting our first two-month online program, and creating a hybrid program (online & in-person). However, after creating the 2021 program, soliciting applications, and selecting participants, it had to be cancelled at the last minute due to studio capacity limits that were beyond our control.
Like most arts organizations, we have had to compromise many of our core components to keep a semblance of our program going. And even then we’ve had to cancel, affecting the lives of many people involved. It has been ongoing and exhausting.
Separately and before the pandemic, founding director Alessio Castellacci decided to move on from leading ROAR in order to focus on his own vocal teaching and workshops. Alessio and ROAR’s core mentors worked together to keep the transition and the program moving through the unpredictable changes the pandemic brought. It seemed the most important thing was to keep going and do whatever was possible to offer people the kind of engagement ROAR values. We all needed it.
Now, we need to pause.
We need to rest and recalibrate.
And we need to take the time it takes to do this and come back with our core values intact.
We know there is a lot of desire for what ROAR offers and that there is pressure from a business standpoint to continue to produce, even when it’s risky. ROAR’s core teachers are still invested in this program but we are pushing back against that pressure. As artists that make up ROAR, we value the pause, the failure, the flexibility to not follow the consumerist cycle that institutions are beholden to. We value the possibility of a radical journey into what it means to continue and how. We value that we don’t exactly know and can sit within that space and listen.
We look forward to the future. Thanks for your patience and space to dream and evolve.
With enduring warmth,
Alessio, Anna, Diego, Shannon, and Sonja
ROAR HYBRID 2021
RADICAL JOURNEYS IN BODY, DANCE AND
PERFORMANCE
2 MONTH PROGRAM
16 Aug - 15 Oct
(Berlin + online)
*CANCELLED DUE TO COVID19*
ROAR 2021 HYBRID will be a two-month Program that takes place for one month in Berlin and one month online. ROAR 2021 approaches the context we continue to live in as an opportunity to try something new, to focus on the unknown benefits of being challenged to adapt in unpredictable ways. Like many contemporary artists, working with disorientation and reorientation, we see this moment as an opportunity to practice. For our 2021 program, we will dip our toes back into immersive in-person programming for 4 weeks in Berlin adhering to COVID 19 safety protocols. The program will then transition to an online format and offer participants an opportunity for continued practice and deeper integration.
THE PROGRAM: The 2-month Hybrid Program will take place August 16 - September 10 in Berlin and September 12 in Berlin and September 20 - October 15 Online. We will have a week break in between to accommodate traveling and adjustment to the online format. The 2021 ROAR hybrid format will consist of 4 interconnected journeys led by ROAR core teachers: Shannon Stewart, Anna Nowicka, Sonja Pregrad, Diego Agullò. Each Journey will open a space of embodied and discursive practice rooted in the mentors’ field of inquiry -- constructions of identity, dreams, perception, experiential philosophy and what is being altered in our comprehension of these things based on contemporary issues. Read specific journey descriptions for more info. Each teacher will teach one week in person and one week online.
>> The deadline to apply to ROAR Hybrid is May 1, 2021 - with two dedicated free spaces for black and indigenous people of color (BIPOC) and/or people with refugee status.
To know more about how to apply and the program schedule click on the button below.
THE journeys
(click on the images to learn more)
JOURNEY 1
WHAT DOES THIS BODY MAKE?
JOURNEY 2
DREAMING REALITY
JOURNEY 3
DANCING THE PROBLEM
JOURNEY 4
THE DANCE AS AN UNSTABLE OBJECT OF HERE AND NOW
ROAR ONLINE 2020 IMPRESSIONS
PROGRAM FACILITATORS 2021
Anna
Nowicka
DREAMING REALITY
Sonja
Pregrad
THE DANCE AS AN UNSTABLE OBJECT OF HERE AND NOW
Shannon
Stewart
WHAT DOES THIS BODY MAKE?
Diego
Agulló
DANCING THE PROBLEM
Movement Practices Teachers
SEE JOURNEYS
The Program
ROAR Berlin is a study program focused on the development of hybrid approaches in the field of movement art. Each year we invite a selected group of international participants to join a 3-month curriculum, with the intent of igniting a transformative process of experimentation through guided group research.
THE STUDIO
Located within the premises of Bethanien Kunst Quartier in the heart of Kreuzberg district, STUDIO 2 is a 165 square meter movement studio.
Run by the MIME CENTRUM BERLIN and part of the International Theater Institute Germany (ITI), it is a vibrant place for collaboration between artists, scholars, archivists, students and theatre enthusiasts.
Photography: Derin Cankaya, Kuba Wittchen,, Display by Ola Osowicz, Diego Agulló, Sarrah Danziger