School of Dance, Hannah Schwadron, Choreographs Film in Germany
Haannah Schwadron
This summer, Assistant Professor of Dance, Hannah Schwadron traveled to Hamburg, Germany for a creative residency and performance workshop. The project engaged middle school students on the contemporary relevance of holocaust history, and culminated in the performance of site-specific choreography and collaborative production of dance film, Klasse. Choreographed by Schwadron and directed by FSU Assistant Professor of Communication, Malia Bruker, Klasse received the support of the Dance Film Association’s annual Production Grant as well as the help of the Friends of Dance, and will be screened in this fall’s Evening of Dance at FSU.
About the Dance Film:
Klasse tracks back to the winter of 1938 in Hamburg, Germany at the height of WWII in an old school classroom kept just as it was during the war. The chairs, the desks, the chalkboards and the solid walls are reminders of the haunting fixity of place against the visceral trace of memories left as records of a tortuous time. The intimate cast of German middle school students and professional dancers brings to life bits of letters written between young classmates as they left Germany one by one on the Kindertransport.
Making of Dance Film, “Klasse” in historical classroom at the Israelitische Tochterschule with students from the Ida Ehre Schule, May 2015.