A choreographic dialogue by Dana Caspersen and MichaelDouglas Kollektiv

“The Exchange” is a choreographic dialogue by Dana Caspersen and MichaelDouglas Kollektiv played in various spaces, to present a new genre of performing arts and to participate to the panel discussions and public exchanges.

Increasing social dynamics, namely the mobility of people and new urban communities, brings with it the need to rethink the potential of the cities for every citizen and their communities. As a reaction to the current social and artistic situation, The Exchange makes a proposition to its participants inviting them to join a new kind of public research to examine the question: How do we as individuals impact the level of violence in the world? The events utilize simple physical actions, such as walking, gesturing, and physical imagination as tools of exchange for engaging in this collective examination. In the current international atmosphere of heightened division across racial and ideological lines, violent interactions increasingly become an acceptable, if unwanted, norm and a sense of hopelessness often arises. The Exchange counters this hopelessness by providing participants a platform from which to consider what they believe about violence, where they learned those beliefs, and how those beliefs tend to focus their attention and actions in conflict. Through this reflection and exchange, a ground is created from which we can consider what we as individuals and communities have the power to change.

After its Premiere in May 2016 in Cologne, Germany, The Exchange was presented in 2017 in Ankara, Turkey, Bratislava, Slovakia and Bucharest, Romania, each time in unconventional venues. By joining the Tanzmesse in NRW, Dana Caspersen together with MichaelDouglas Kollektiv are introducing a very international and diverse public to a choreographed artistic system of negotiation with the collectivity and with the space.