MW »My name is Maya Weinberg. I am a dance maker, a choreographer, performer, dramaturge and curator. I moved to Berlin eight and a half years ago. Basically, I am navigating between all of the roles and I always enjoy the movement between these different roles in the field of dance. That’s more or less the way I see my practice.«

RK »My name is Roni Katz and I relate a lot to what Maya says. I relate to the idea of putting together projects in the sense of seeing: who are the people? What is the place? What is the content? Who’s the audience? Who are the performers? What is the physicality? I try to compose these elements into what I would also call an event — and that can be very many different things. Somehow dance is the language in all of this but it has many different shapes.« 

MW »It’s funny, if we’re thinking about dance and movement and talking about moving between things, somehow it makes sense — this idea of thinking about dance as a larger concept.«

RK »And also kind of like a flux. I enjoy the pathway, finding out how I can go different places through dance and choreography.«

On decision making

MW »There are always a few parameters: the personality, the background and the stories. It’s hard to separate these. When you read a text, you cannot really just say that it’s a great concept but you always look both on the more personal aspects and the context. So in a way it’s about navigating between these two. I also have a very strong intuition about people that I would really like to meet and work with. 

But when we curate an evening, we always look for something that connects — a topic that we feel is important and relevant. What are the current ideas that people are busy with? In a way it’s always this exchange between what I, as a curator and person in the world, feel important to bring and what is being proposed. There is no one way of doing it but for us it’s diving into this process of searching for the right combination. In the end, you see it together and you’re like: Yes. This will work together.«

RK »There is my personal taste, there’s what I find important or political, relevant. And there’s also looking at the quality, or the potential of the quality and identifying this potential. Sometimes it’s not my taste, but I see a quality that is distinct and worth presenting. That is what I am meandering between always. There are so many parameters to consider. Like one person had some opportunities but not this way. Or this other person, where I know they feel like they didn’t get much opportunity yet but there is so much ahead of them and I can see that. So we’re trying to take all of this into consideration. There is really something about acknowledging and accepting the power of deciding whether someone is going to present their work in a specific time and place. First of all, it’s just one opportunity so if they don’t get this, they will have other opportunities. I am not responsible for their career. And on the other hand, NAH DRAN extended was so significant in my own trajectory that I know it is a significant opportunity. So it’s about looking really carefully, acknowledging that it is important and handling it with the care that it requires.«

On the Open Call

RK »We have a line in the Open Call that says “We are also committed to offering this opportunity for artists of color and of different marginalized communities” and you can see that in the applications that come. We talked about how we are then accountable for that statement that we made in how we choose the works.«

MW »Clearly, there are proposals from people that you know will never get opportunities to show their work through the more traditional, institutional systems. This is another parameter that we really think about.«

MW »The decision process is always weird, because in the end, we can only choose six works.«

RK »This time for example, at some point, we wrote 16 names on the table and then you’re attached to people but at some point you have to put it aside and you just look at the cloud and themes. You have to detach yourself from the person or the proposal and I think that’s a really important step that is very hard to do. In the beginning, we choose our personal favourites and we do that independently from each other, so we bring them together. It’s a nice moment then, where it becomes unpersonal in a way but then you always come back to the personal, your desires, your affinity to some ideas or even identities.« 

On working together

MW »We are each responsible for one evening. Basically, we do the process of curating together for both evenings. Then we split the responsibilities, in terms of being outside eyes or dramaturges and being in contact with the artists, doing production work, of course coming to the studio and offering whatever is needed. On the day of the performance (or shooting) we’re there of course. In a way it’s like being whatever the artists need.«

RK »Because we are also close friends, we are always in conversation and we support each other, even if one person is the responsible one. And I think that is the beautiful part about curating this together, also with Gabi. Because we also work together in a different collective and have our own artistic process, I now think about the fact that we curate as a collective too. That way it’s not only one person with power who gets to decide but we also challenge each other through that power.«

MW »We share many projects and being such close friends, this is something that feels very natural and special to do together.«

RK »It’s a bit like opening up our friendship and extending it to others.«

MW »It’s also about values that we share: friendship and solidarity. I guess Gabi will agree.«

On the two evenings coming up in 2022

»One of them is dealing with care. Care almost as a survival practice. Tenderness. Maybe a ceremony. Moments in life. The stages we go through. The places we go to, where life takes us. Very personal. Very universal. 

The other one is about channeling and transmitting ideas or questions or themes from other resources into this very moment. About ritual. A call for change, thinking about the future. There’s something around the voice, practices of expressing this call. And nature. The connection to nature. Practices that are related to nature.«

RK »For me, the artistic accompaniment is the most exciting part. It’s a quite short process, we don’t spend more than three sessions with each artist, but these moments are beautiful. It’s very pleasurable to witness these artistic processes of emerging artists. In a way, I’m really far away from that but also really not. It’s a mirror and it’s nice to have that connection.«

MW »There is a lot of care in these meetings. It’s very special about this format too. It’s a short process but so significant.«