INtangible Roots: Moncell Durden in Berlin

Update 2.3.: We can now officially say that THE EVENT IS GOING TO HAPPEN! We are going to collaborate with the Flying Steps Academy, located in the center of Kreuzberg. They are a fixture for Hip Hop culture in Berlin since 15 years and they offered to open their space for our event. We are so grateful for this opportunity :) We have also moved all the information to our new official website: https://intersectionaldancefloors.org/ From now on you can sign up via the website instead of here. We are still using the Gofundme to manage payments, but we collect the sign ups via a form directly on the website. If you have contributed before via Gofundme, please still sign up via that form (obviously you don't have to pay again!) https://intersectionaldancefloors.org/#signup -------------------------------------------- Update 24.2.: We are very happy to see that so many of you contributed with small sums to access the online recording of the lecture. That shows how much you care for this event to happen, even if you cannot physically be there. What we are still missing are actual sign-ups for the workshops. We heard that there are some insecurities about the process, so here are a few clarifications that hopefully help: 1. Your contribution is your payment for the event. There is no additional payment needed. If you contribute 90 EUR (or a minimum of 60 EUR), you pay for s spot in the workshop. 2. Even if you decide to not display your name publicly, we can still contact you. So you can stay anonymous from other contributors, while we have the necessary data to continue the registration process. 3. If you want to participate, but you don't want to use this platform you can send us an email to [email protected] and we can give you payment information privately. What happens next? We have set our deadline to March 1st, which is in 5 days from now. We are hoping to get at least 500-1.000 EUR more through this campaign, which equals 6-12 registrations for the workshop. If we reach this amount we are going to close this campaign and switch to an official registration form. We will inform everyone that contributed personally and ask you to fill out the form with a remark that you paid through the gofundme campaign. We will then use the funds of the campaign to start booking the venue, travelling and accommodation while keeping the registration open for more participants to join. If we fall short and don't feel comfortable committing we will immediately pay back all the contributions and communicate to everyone that the event will not happen. So, if you want to join, please contribute before March 1st. This will really help us feel secure enough to move forward 🙂 Gofundme page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/intangible-roots-moncell-durden-in-berlin Dear Community, In recent years, the dance community has started to put in more effort in becoming aware of the afro-diasporic roots and the importance of acknowledging Black American Culture as the foundation of many arts we now celebrate globally, such as Lindy Hop, Jazz and Hip Hop. This movement has been initiated and is still led by well-known Afro-Diasporic dancers worldwide and thanks to them, the dance community in Berlin has now been given the opportunity to host the great Moncell Durden for a workshop and lecture! Moncell is not only a dancer and educator, he is also an internationally renowned historian, author and filmmaker. He has dedicated decades to learning dance and researching Black American and Africanist culture and art, specifically but not limited to Jazz, Lindy Hop, Hip Hop and other contemporary Street Dances. Find out more about Moncell Durden here: https://www.moncelldurden.com/ Since this started as a spontaneous project with the arrival of Moncell in Europe, we are still in the process of creating the final concept, but here is what we are planning to do: INtangible Roots: comprehending the cultural identity and continuum of the Africanist Aesthetics in Black American Social Dances The main purpose of this event is to create learning opportunities, for us as dancers and as a community, about the cultural backgrounds of the dance and music we engage in. No matter if you dance Lindy Hop, Hip Hop or any other dance with roots in an African or Afro-diasporic community, we hope that this event will give you a broader perspective and more context about the aesthetics, values and contexts of the dance you enjoy. We believe that this is an important work we have to do, especially as a European community that has no direct connection to Black American culture and also very few representatives with any direct Africanist cultural knowledge. We want our dance scene to become more diverse and the first step is to acknowledge the history and culture that is not ours, to learn about it and to apply what we have learned to our dancing and our scene. Only then can we start understanding, which steps to take to make the dance scene more welcome to BIPoC. We also would love it, if the different communities of dances with Africanist roots learn more about each other's presence and the common history and cultural values, so that we can have more exchange between these dances. Let’s invite each other to dance and learn together and from each other. Program Dance Workshops: Moncell Durden: Texas Tommy and how Charleston and cake walk changed it to early Lindy (1 hr 20 min) Moncell Durden: The Continuum - From Lindy Hop to Hip Hop (1 hr 20 min) Depending on the budget we can raise, we might add more dance classes with BIPoC dancers based in or close to Berlin Lecture & Panel: Moncell Durden: American history of black dance from the ring shout to today (90min) Introduction and Moderation by Raphael Moussa Hillebrand, street dancer and activist from Berlin (https://raphael-hillebrand.com/) Panel discussion with Moncell Durden, Raphael Moussa Hillebrand, Momo, more to be announced Short open FAQ Party: We might throw a party too. The exact details will depend on the budget we can raise and the location we can get, but after all the learning and listening we also want to let go and just dance! Depending on the budget we are thinking of throwing a party, after all the learning and listening we also want to let go and just dance! Preliminary Schedule: Saturday Afternoon: Dance Class Saturday Evening: Lecture and Party Sunday Morning or Afternoon: Dance Class Who is this for: We want this event to be an opportunity for learning about Black culture and history, but also a space to get to know dancers from different styles, which is why we want to reach out to Lindy Hoppers and other Swing dancers, to Tap dancers, Hip Hop dancers, House dancers, everyone who is involved in a dance form that belongs to the continuum of Black and Africanist culture. No matter if you are already an experienced dancer or just began your journey, you are very welcome to join: The classes are open level. Also, we want to invite people that are not yet part of our community but hopefully interested in this event. So we are going to reserve 5-10 spaces for the workshops to give away to community projects in Berlin. Budget Goal: 5.000EUR until 1st of March Gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/intangible-roots-moncell-durden-in-berlin We want to be transparent with you: Moncell Durden is an expert in his field. He teaches at several Universities in the United States and is invited internationally to share his knowledge. We want to make sure he earns what he deserves, even though he offers to come for a special community fee. We are organizing this privately and therefore need your help to make it happen. We cannot commit to confirming the event and booking any venues, before we know we will raise enough money to realize this without risking our own financial situations. This is why we created the Gofundme. Once enough people have booked a spot in the workshop via the crowdfunding platform, we are moving forward to book the venues etc. If it doesn’t happen until the set deadline, we will immediately pay everyone back in full. Here is an projection of the money we need to raise, as closely as we can estimate it: 2000 EUR Moncell Durden 350 EUR Raphael Moussa Hillebrand 250 EUR Momo 0-400 EUR Organizers: Allison and Oli 0-500 EUR Additional Artists 250-500 EUR Travel and accommodation 500-1000 EUR for Venue and Party Total: 3.500-5.000 EUR Once we know the outcome of the funding we will be able to make more concrete decisions, because there are different options depending on the final budget. If we end up having a positive balance after the event, we are going to donate the profit to a non-profit organization that focuses on BIPoC and is run by BIPoC. (eg. Each-One-Teach-One e.V. https://www.eoto-archiv.de/). We want to make the event as accessible as possible, but still we have to make sure that the money comes in in the first place. So by contributing different amounts to the crowdfunding campaign you can get entrance to different parts of the event. The amounts are minimums, feel free to contribute more ;) Also, if you want to join the event but cannot contribute enough or anything, please reach out to us, we don’t want financial issues to be a barrier. From 10 EUR - Online Access to the lecture Even if you cannot come to the event, we appreciate your contribution. For a minimum of 10 EUR we are going to share with you the recording of the lecture. This will probably happen 1-2 weeks after the event and then you will have access for 3 months to watch it. The lecture is not going to be publicly available. From 30 EUR - Entrance to the lecture and party The lecture and party are going to happen on Saturday evening. From 60 EUR - Entrance to the full event: classes, lecture and party Please keep in mind that this is the minimum of a sliding scale. Here is what we recommend 60 EUR - Social Price: If you are having limited funds, we think 60 EUR is a very fair price for this program 90 EUR - Regular Price: We hope this is a price that is realistic for the average of our community, since it is what a smaller sized weekend workshop usually costs 120 EUR - Supporter Price: If you are able to give this sum, you are helping to cover the costs for a person that can only afford the social price. We hope to get an average of 90 EUR per participant. With this calculation we need approximately 40 people to cover the minimum budget. If we are over the minimum, we are going to look into ways to make space for more participants, maybe adding another teacher / panelist. Also, at one point we will be able to donate additional funds to a non-profit organization. Click here to get to the Gofundme campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/intangible-roots-moncell-durden-in-berlin Thank You! We already want to thank you for supporting this project. We think this is a unique opportunity to bring one of the most important contemporary scholars about Black American dance, music and culture to Berlin. You can be a part of making this happen. If you haven’t watched Moncell Durden’s documentary “Everything Remains Raw” yet, this is a great way to get in the mood already and prepare yourself for the event - you can watch it right after contributing - as a reward to yourself ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F-j5aXs_o4 Also a special thanks to Remy Kouakou Kouame for making this all possible in the first place! He decided to bring Moncell Durden to Europe for a tour and reached out to different scenes to collaborate. If you don’t know Remy yet, you are in for a treat: https://www.instagram.com/remy2kouadjo Last but not least we want to name a few more dancers and educators that have inspired and taught us to this point and without those this whole process wouldn’t be possible. This list is not complete: Angela Andrews, Breai Mason-Campbell, Dee Daniels Locke, Grey Armstrong, Hannah Lane, Helena Kanini Kiruu, Jean-Charles “JoYsS” Zambo, Josette Wiggins, Karida Griffith, LaTasha Barnes, Marie N’Diaye, Stephen Atamie, Tyedric Hill… Image Credits: Moncell Durden doing the Charleston in front of a wall: Photo by Jonathan Hsu Raphael Moussa Hillebrand jumping over wall: Photo by Christoph Leib Momo sitting on stairs: Photo by Thabo Thindi