Marcela Giesche (US/DE) was the 2024 Caroline Plummer Fellow in community dance at the University of Otago / Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. She is a freelance choreographer, performer, curator, researcher, dance teacher and founder/ artistic director of the dance venue LAKE Studios Berlin (www.lakestudiosberlin.com) in East Berlin. She has presented her choreographic work and shared her movement techniques internationally in schools, universities, festivals, companies, and dance studios with professionals and amateurs alike. You may find out more about Marcela and her artistic work here: www.marcelagiesche.com
Framework & Inspiration:
One of Marcela’s main goals in art making is to bring contemporary dance out of its bubble and make it more accessible to the general public: “I wish to open as many different minds and bodies to the transformative and communicative power of movement as possible.” With her work, she would also like to open people’s eyes to the idea that “all movement can be dance – it just depends on how it is framed and perceived”. Similarly working with dance can also encourage one to unframe dance practices from pre-conceived limitations such as technique, The perfect body, or appropriate spaces and times for dances to occur. She would like us all to find ways that dance may continue to inform and expand the ways that we see our movement and improvisational possibilities and ways that dance and our perception of it can influence our lives.
Dance, choreography, improvisation, and movement research can also include and connect with any other fields of study: we all have a body which we can get to know better. Embodied intelligence can significantly influence and contribute to new ways of learning, understanding our environment, and relating to one another.
Purpose:
This blog and website will be used to gather reflections and resources for anyone interested in movement and dance practices.
The overall aim is to make the material inspiring, accessible and easy to understand for people coming from all different backgrounds. With this in mind, Marcela welcomes comments, questions and reflections at all times. She looks forward to hearing from you:
all movement is dance 