Art stations fundation - by Grażyna Kulczyk

How to establish the individual profile of an artist

In order to realise a work of art, an artist or choreographer needs both general and specific abilities which are gained gradually in life, on the streets and in school. 
But only rarely does one learn something about the share of applied psychology and its diverse contribution to art production.

Many of the abilities an artist needs during the creative process and for the public demonstration are indirectly or directly linked with mental abilities and psychological skills. 
This includes the ability to focus ones awareness in a playful way on a vaguely anticipated target and the ability to successively assert ones individual willpower and imagination. But above all it is necessary to develop ones own aesthetic position which is often in opposition to current aesthetic standards and general truths.

Furthermore, an artist must be able to build an extraordinarily strong self-confidence regarding his own personality in order to emphasize its aesthetic expression. 
However, what a choreographer needs most is intuition and knowledge to be able to symbolize his or her experiences in a work of art. He or she must mainly be prepared to immolate sufficient lifetime to be invested in his or her manifestations of art.

He or she should also have a sense of triggering some kind of aesthetic pleasure in others as well as a certain talent to motivate participants to realise the aesthetic intentions of the leading choreographer in a cooperative way.

But how can we specifically shape these diverse skills?

The following subjects are discussed in this seminar: 
1. What psychological qualification does the individual artist require to set off a creative process from the first vague inspiration up to the final artistic manifestation?
2. How can an artist discover and consistently develop his/her individual artistic subjects?
3. What interactive principles and methods are qualified to facilitate the creative process when several collaborators are concerned? 
4. What psychological and cognitive abilities (individual willpower, comprehension of time and space, relation of “I” and “You”) allow a particular aesthetic style?

Requirements for the participation:
The artists must have at least 3 years of professional artistic experience. The participants need to bring several exemplary excerpts of their artistic work hitherto.
The seminar is held in English.

Bertram Müller is the co-founder of the 1979 founded association „Die WERKSTATT e.V.“ and has been its artistic director since. 
On the base of academic studies and degrees in philosophy, theology and clinical psychology he has been a lecturer for psychology and for the training of psychotherapists at domestic and international institutions since 1985. 
For more than 20 years one focus has been on concepts and methods of applied psychology to support creative processes, in particular the autonomous, creative shaping of the personality and the development of individual vocational artists’ profiles.
Bertram Müller is among other things the initiator and project leader of „Take-off: Junger Tanz”. Tanzplan Düsseldorf, co-founder of the EDDC – European Dance Development Center in Arnhem and Düsseldorf (until 2003), iDASnrw – International Dance Artist Service NRW, President of the European Dancehouse Network (EDN) as well as a member of several juries.

Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote of throwing the body into the fight. These words inspired me to go on stage. Other inspirations are the reality around me, the time in which I live, my memories of history, people, images, feelings and the power and beauty of music and the confrontation with one's own body which, in my case, does not correspond with conventional ideals of beauty. To see bodies on stage that do not comply with the norm is important - not only with regard to history but also with regard to present developments, which are leading humans to the status of design objects. On the question of success: it is important to be able to work and to go your own way - with or without success. I simply do what I have to do. 
Raimund Hoghe

Raimund Hoghe was born in Wuppertal and began his career by writing portraits of outsiders and celebrities for the German weekly newspaper "Die Zeit". These were later compiled in several books. From 1980 - 90 he worked as dramaturge for Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal which also became the subject matter for two more books. Since 1989 he has been working on his own theatre pieces for various dancers and actors. 1992 started his collaboration with the artist Luca Giacomo Schulte, who is till now his artistic collaborator. In 1994 he produced his first solo for himself, "Meinwärts", which together with the subsequent "Chambre séparée" (1997) and "Another Dream" (2000) made up a trilogy on the 20th century.

Since 2002, Raimund Hoghe works also on group pieces : "Sarah, Vincent et moi" (2002), "Young People, Old Voices" (2002), "Tanzgescchichten" (2003), "Swan Lake,4 Acts" (2005), and the duo "Sacre - The Rite of the Sprin" (2004) with Lorenzo De Brabandere. He went back to the solo form in 2007 with "36, Avenue Georges Mandel" created in Seoul and presented during the Festival d'Avignon. Raimund Hoghe follows his cycle on classical and history of dance pieces with "Boléro Variations" in 2007 ( creation for the Centre Pompidou / Festival d'Automne in Paris) and the solo "L'Après-midi", for the dancer Emmanuel Eggermont, on Claude Debussy "Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune" and Gustav Mahler "Lieder" (creation in Festival Montpellier Danse 2008 /Théâtre du Hangar).

Hoghe frequently works for television on projects such as "Der Buckel", his 1997 hour-long self portrait for WDR (West German Radio and Television). His books have been translated into several languages and he has presented his performances all over Europe, as well as in Japan and Australia. He lives in Düsseldorf and has been awarded several prizes including the "Deutscher Produzentenpreis für Choreografie" in 2001, the French Prix de la Critique in 2006 for "Swan Lake, 4 Acts" (in the category "Best Foreign Piece"). Critics from the magazin ballet-tanz awarded him "Dancer of the Year" for 2008.