** Progress Report due June 4th **

My travels to Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin are just beginning, thus my research up to this point has consisted of acquainting myself with the historical background of my proposed topic. Specifically, I have read several books and articles on the sociopolitical history of Germany between 1945 and 1989 and other materials pertaining to researching dance, interviewing techniques, and structuring documentaries. After reading the seminal text, Researching Dance: Evolving Modes of Inquiry, I uncovered numerous methodological approaches to ethnographic research in my field. In response, I assembled a detailed timeline of events before, during, and after the Second World War, which has allowed for a more efficient way of referencing the parallels between politics and culture. In order to legally gather primary source information I created an official permission agreement form to ensure the interviewees of my intended use for the information they share.

Upon my arrival in Dresden, I arranged appointments with Jason Beechey, the director of the Palucca School (founded 1925), and Ingrid Borchardt, teacher and past student of Gret Palucca herself. These subjects shared their valuable experiences and perspectives on modern dance in their cultural center of Dresden on camera. I also spent several hours in the school’s library full of dance archives reading and photocopying informative text from the Second World War to today. In addition to these aspects of study, I researched the physical side by participating in a modern dance class at the school. Ultimately, my findings in Dresden have surpassed my expectations, and I am eager to translate the information I gathered into my own historical and ethnological theory of modern dance after the DDR.

Now I will be traveling onwards to Leipzig for four days. Through much effort in finding dance institutes and companies, I established a lack there of, but through word of mouth within the dance community, I hope to determine other truths. The majority of my time in Leipzig will consist of translating and examining written material in libraries, as well as cultural investigations via visiting historically related museums. I hope to spend one to two full days in the city’s library and dance archives institute in search of any additional correlating facts or data through books, visual/oral evidence, letters, periodicals, contracts, photographs, newspaper articles, and programs.

Berlin, however, has an abundance of dance communication possibilities. I have accumulated over twenty dance foundations, plus an underground community of artists who are producing low budget works due to the deficit of legitimate funding. In the course of my preliminary research, I have become more aware of the financial complications that continue to arise as a result of the governmental separation of East and West Germany. I hope to integrate myself into these dance groups, so that I can further interpret their artistic, political, and cultural struggles toward recognition and ultimately an appreciated existence.