Starting from the question of how clubbing can be read as a performative practice, the workshop examines the relationships between movement, presence and pleasure in improvisational set-ups. Drawing on House Music and the search for an individual beat, we explore individual movement languages as well as the development of a personal movement style.

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Clubbing is removed from its familiar contexts and viewed afresh. Without the night, without alcohol and without social codes, the body itself takes centre stage. Between dance and performance, spaces emerge in which the divide between spectator and performer is dissolved.

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The Lab is not a technique class, but an artistic laboratory. Through a series of progressive improvisations, a shared space of experience emerges in which individual tendencies, interests and movement qualities become visible. Here, clubbing is understood as a practice that creates connection: to one's own body, to others and to the moment.

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From Teaching to Artistic Research

Initially developed at Tanzhaus NRW, Clubbing Lab has since been explored with smaller groups and with up to 70 participants in the foyer of Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, in the context of the Move-It! sessions. Informed by my work as a movement teacher, the workshop brings together methods developed through years of creating performances and working at the intersection of movement practice and theatricality. I began opening up these processes to a wider public as a way of exploring how artistic research can become a shared experience.

 

Somatic Practice: Attention, Comfort and Freedom

My approach is also informed by years of engagement with somatic practices, including Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais and Rolfing. Rather than submitting the body to a predefined form, the focus is on discovering a sense of comfort, curiosity and freedom within movement. It is a personal attempt to reclaim pleasure in the body — not as an achievement, but as an experience in itself.

 

Duration and Participants

The workshop usually takes four to five hours, with shorter three-hour formats also possible. This extended duration allows participants to spend time with the music and their own physical energy, discovering how movement changes through repetition, attention and shared experience. Participants between the ages of 18 and 75 years old  have taken part, bringing different experiences, bodies and relationships to dance into the room.

 

Clubbing as a Collective Performance

I am interested in clubbing as a collective performance and in the ritualistic role of moving to rhythm across cultures. In a world where we do not always share a language, movement offers another way of encountering one another. How we move, hesitate, observe, take space or respond to music can reveal aspects of ourselves that are difficult to express verbally.

For me, clubbing is also a space of horizontality and democracy, where the distinctions between artist and audience, performer and spectator, temporarily dissolve. Everyone contributes to the performance, whether by moving, observing or simply being present. It is a form of performance that can only be fully experienced by participating in it.

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From Workshop to Social Space

I am increasingly interested in bringing this practice beyond the familiar contexts of stages and classrooms, exploring its potential in festivals, public spaces and social gatherings. How might these situations unfold with larger groups of people? What happens when the experience extends over several hours, becoming a durational performance in which people can enter, leave, observe or participate at their own pace?

The next development of Clubbing Lab will explore these possibilities, including the potential of working with DJs to create shared musical environments for larger groups. I am currently exploring different approaches to this collaboration, investigating how music, movement and collective presence can generate new forms of participation.

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Ultimately, Clubbing Lab is an ongoing inquiry into how we encounter ourselves and others through movement. Each body carries its own history, rhythms and possibilities. Moving together does not require us to become alike; it allows us to experience both our individuality and our shared humanity.

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“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.

And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.

The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions.

It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”  

— Martha Graham

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