BLOG INITIATOR & AUTHOR

THANK DANCE TO ENLIGHTEN ME IN TIME

This blog is part of my search for belonging of my work as a dramaturge in de performance arts. 
This blog is an open research & reflection on existing practices.
This blog will focus on groundbreaking developments in cross-overs of different fields: Arts, Education & Organization. 
This blog comes from an urgent & intrinsic motivation to make the world a little bit better by knowledge and experiences in artistic practice. 
This blog asks a lot of questions with the intention to come to a core essence of why we practice art in contemporary times. 
This blog claims a conviction that the embodied & conceptual knowledge and experience from the performance arts are of great value for society to learn from. 
This blog aims to find synthesis between theoretic issues and practical methods, between learning and doing, between process and product. 
This blog takes the context of happenings rather seriously. 
This blog is embracing mistakes and failure in order to make innovative progress in the end. 

 My name is Anne-Marije van den Bersselaar and I work as a dramaturge, teacher and education developer in contemporary dance & performance art. I mainly work with students & young artists who need to prepare themselves for the future. 

 One of my main concerns every day is what I can approach within these people to let them (self-)learn, develop & create. What do dance artists need in contemporary society to create their urgent work? How can they create their own stories? And how can people connect to that art practice? Next from my entrepreneurial impulses, I work mainly for the Dance Academy of Fontys University of Fine & Performing Arts. 

My own learning didn't come easy over the years.  I grew up with intensive dance practice for more then 11 years, but it was never a pre-conceived plan to become a teacher in dance theory.  Although my parents were very surprised I made that career move, they could see me "mature in the most playful way" (and I quote). From that moment my life took of and I embrace all teaching has given me.  I stopped planning my future from that moment on. And this change in attitude actually changed everything around. 

I studied hard for quite some years. But before that wonder happened, I had to deal with my terrible high school period. I didn't seem to understand what studying was about ...at all. Though, I was never bored. There, I learned foremost by accident or coincidence back then. Distraction and lack of focus brought me in trouble till the end. In the end I left school in fatal confusion, but (Thank God....) with a diploma. 

The individual trajectory during university college afterwards eventually gave me back my confidence. So I stretched my study as much as possible to digest all knowledge from history and philosophy till politics and psychology in the performance arts. Eventually, after being pro-actively involved in internships and dance research aside my regular program, I finished my Master of Arts (MA) in Contemporary Theatre & Dance Studies in 2012 (University Utrecht). 

Some years later I somehow arrived in Tilburg, a real metropole. And there 'learning' really began. And this brought me eventually to the stories that I will share on my blog. 

For more information about my work practice, go to www.motionterritory.com. 

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