ROAR BERLIN

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. 

ROAR's learning environment flourishes from the collision between body-based art and other fields of research - philosophy, dream work, theories of perception, gender studies, performance art. The program stems from a vision of art-making intended not as escapism, but as a declaration of radical love, a place to understand, digest, transmute the culture of the body we inhabit, generating questions about individuality, collectivity and transpersonality through movement inquiry.

The program is organised in an Opening Week followed by four Journeys. Each Journey lasts 2 to 3 weeks and consists of daily Movement Practices (1.30 hr classes) and Thematic Intensives (4 hr workshops) facilitated by a team of experienced dance artists. Each phase is organised as a cohesive trajectory designed to immerse you into the creative space developed by each artist through years of work in the field. The last days of each Journey are structured as time of integration, to support the assimilation of the new tools and concepts practiced and identify/map/ formulate personal connections.

ROAR is more than an educational program providing a learning frame to its participants. It is a fresh format that combines flexibility of thinking, structural organisation, genuine care for the people and infinite playful creativity through experimentation and exchange. It gives priority not only to the acquisition of tools and methodologies, but to an actual group experience which engage different levels of coexistence. It is a collaborative work, held by a group of engaged pedagogues that attentively design a quest of new insights for all the participants. Transparent communication, self-responsibility, circulation of ideas/shared values and joy of communal artistry are at its core.

ROAR TEAM

The program is curated by Sonja Pregrad and Shannon Stewart in ongoing conversation with the core mentors Anna Nowicka, Maria Francesca Scaroni and Diego Agulló. They all share a long time friendship and collaboration within the frame of the previous SMASH Berlin program. Next to them other artists from Berlin's contemporary art scene are invited each year to share their approach to movement and performance-making. 

MENTORSHIP

Each year one of the core facilitators works as the main mentor during the 3-month program, following the group’s process during the 4 Journeys, offering support and insight when needed, creating a sense of continuity between the teachers and the participants.

LEGACY

ROAR Berlin is the development of the previously existing program SMASH Berlin. SMASH Berlin was initiated in 2013 by Claudia Dietrich and Alessio Castellacci with the intent of creating a new educational platform which gathered different Berlin based artists to develop a new, transversal discourse on performance, embodied creativity, collectivity.
In 2017 SMASH has officially closed its activities, finding in ROAR Berlin its evolved continuation under the curation of Alessio Castellacci in close collaborations with few core teachers who have been contributing to the different evolutions of the program since the beginning.

ORGANIZATION

ROAR attempts to create a financially and socially sustainable learning environment. All its activities are envisioned and organized without the support of public or private fundings. All teachers and collaborators receive minimum wages for their work, in order to support the program’s vision and keep the participant’s fees as low as possible. ROAR can exist only in the frame of the continuous and conscious support of the movement art community.