Turkish Immigrant Community in Berlin, Germany

Effervescent Collective member Claire Cote has recently applied for Fulbright scholarship to support her proposal to collaborate with the Turkish immigrant community in Berlin, Germany. Claire has lived and studied in both Germany and Turkey. In 2009, she created a photography exihbition drawn from photographs taken on the commuter boats across the Bospohorus in Istanbul. Claire's choreographic work in her senior year at Goucher College focused on the alienation and isolation of immigrant communities. Claire hopes to develop a movement vocabulary that articulates the cultural alienation/integration of the Turkish immigrant community in Berlin through contemporary dance movement.

"To create this movement dialogue, she I generate cross-generational and cross-cultural community choreography workshops, which will manifest as a choreographed piece performed by the German-Turkish and German participants who wish to perform.  Ethnographic fieldwork will deepen my understanding of the multiple perspectives involved in creating a dance piece with participants of different generations and backgrounds.  Furthermore, the navigation between existing perspectives of contemporary dance within the dance community in Berlin versus within the larger public sphere will guide my theoretical understanding and process as a choreographer. Since notions of perspective are emphasized as the underlying focus of the M.A. Choreography coursework, professors and peers at the Co-operative Dance Education Centre in Berlin will also deepen this understanding.  The open and thriving dance community in combination with the turbulent political climate regarding Turks in Berlin promises to embrace this project as an alternative mode of addressing the Zeitgeist of Turkish integration in Germany."

If you would like to help support this project, please contact us.