The puzzle trail MISSION RUDOLF is an entertaining journey through the history of Swiss dance for the digi-tal age with a regional focus. The eponymous app draws players into the fictitious case of the “mad man” Rudolf and leads them on a two-and-a-half-hour trail taking in up to six culturally relevant sites spread across a given town, where they solve movement puzzles, learn about famous names from the world of dance and get to know the town’s dance heritage while saving it from being immobilised. The diversity of Switzerland’s dance culture is showcased through works from circa 1917 to the present day. Various methods are employed to offer an insight into the workings of dance, from exploring the body to piecing to-gether a short sequence of movements or reflecting on how we move through space. MISSION RUDOLF is a hybrid format combining digital and analogue spaces, realities and movements. The puzzles are present-ed digitally in the app, but they can only be solved by performing real dance moves in the correct locations.
The idea behind this online platform is to make an extensive archive covering 40 years of dance crea-tion in Switzerland accessible to the general public. The collection of material spans the artistic and teaching career of Annemarie Parekh, one of the pioneers of Swiss contemporary dance. It also doc-uments many internationally known dance personalities who taught at the “akar” studio between 1970 and the first decade of the 21st century. At the heart of the archive are 60 video recordings of work-shops at the “akar” studio in Bern and performances by the modern dance troupe Akar. The archive paints a detailed portrait of a seminal period in Swiss dance. Collaboration with musicians and graph-ic designers was a key element of Annemarie Parekh’s artistic work. The way choreographies arose from this interaction between disciplines is a source of inspiration for today’s dance practitioners and teachers. The online platform “akar – past, presence, future” is intended to make the collection of ma-terial accessible to anyone with an interest in the subject and bring benefits for current and future dance creation in Switzerland. It is scheduled to go live in autumn 2024.
Contact: doreheim@bluewin.ch, President of the association “akar – past, presence, future”
Documentation of the festival “cultural heritage, dance!”
There have been three editions of the festival “cultural heritage, dance!” to date: in 2019 at the Südpol in Lucerne, supported by the FOC’s Dance as Cultural Heritage 2018 programme; in 2022 at the La Poste theatre in Visp and the Dampfzentrale in Bern; and a third in 2023 at the Théâtre du Jura, once again supported by the FOC via the Performing Arts Heritage scheme. The project is inspired by the French concept Danse en amateur et répertoire (Amateur and Repertory Dance), which seeks to pro-mote non-professional dancers beyond just training. The Swiss version focuses on raising the profile of the country’s choreographic and dance heritage and breathing new life into it as well as making contemporary Swiss dance creation accessible to a wider audience. Following the three editions that saw a total of 23 repertoire pieces reinterpreted, the material is to be collated in order to make infor-mation and links accessible in a standard format to anyone with an interest.
