What could mediation mean within a hierarchical world vision, is dance mediation different from other forms of mediation?
A talk by Nora Amin with many integrated questions to take with us.
As a late migrant to the German society, the word “vermittlung” or “mittlung” remains a riddle to me. As part of my so called “integration” -which is another riddle to me- I try to analyse and understand what “vermittlung” or “mittlung” means, especially in relation to dance. Originally in my native language -Arabic- the word is never used in relation to arts, “Wasata” or “Wisata” is frequently used in contexts of conflict, where at least two parties cannot agree or share an understanding until a third party comes in to – hypothetically stand in the middle- and attempt to bridge the gap of understanding and therefore create consensus versus the existing conflict. Throughout my whole life in Egypt, in the Arab region, in the Middle East, in Africa, the word “mediation” has been super charged with references of conflict, the assumption of a certain “middle position”, and the presence of a third party -usually from Europe or the USA- to mediate/solve the conflict. When imagining and framing a conflict -a political one- it becomes so much linked to mediation. Mediation therefore meant the existence of a conflict. And with time, we -there on that side of the world- understood that this middle position of mediation is in reality a position of privilege that is usually granted to the West, in reality there was no middle, because with privilege there is only hierarchy, exploitation and discrimination. The middle position was actually a metaphorical middle, because everybody knew that such position was going to be guided by interest and alliances. All the processes of the so called “mediation” were therefore processes of “negotiation”, a “negotiation” to preserve the existing privilege and to protect from the development of a conflict into a crisis, a crisis that would eventually burst into a re-mapping of power relation and therefore may produce threat to the existing interests and privileges.
These were my thoughts trying to approximate my linguistic and political references to a term that was -to me- newly linked to dance. But I would ask if this attempt of approximation is valid or not, may be the term “mediation” here in Germany and “vermittlung” and “Tanzvermittlung” has absolutely nothing to do with those references? Even so, how can we protect the term and dissociate from those references? And is the German language and its socio- political references really able to be disconnected from such historical and actual connections of meaning? As a migrant and as a dance practitioner, scholar and instructor, I cannot help attracting other languages that I know into my interpretation of the German terminology involved in the dance field. I am confident that many fellow recent migrants are doing the same. The situation of migration and post migrant theatre and performance informs us that we are continuously in a mode of interweaving, of course if we acknowledge the change and transformation of the social fabric and of the new identities forming and growing towards a new notion of society in Germany. With this interweaving there could be very positive shifts of understandings and re-positioning due to the existing plurality and diverse systems of thought and expression. Nonetheless positive shifts and growths can very well be obstructed by power and hegemony, in order to preserve interest and authority, here “mediation” would step in to release the conflict between those new forces of change and the existing power, authority and privilege.
To extend my interpretation as a migrant trying to translate the situation and the term, I would imagine that “dance mediation” steps in -as a new term to the cultural field in Germany- to create connections, facilitate conversation, and bring those new forces of change, of interweaving, of shifting and of de-stabilisation closer to the focus that has be occupied by an extended vision of what dance is, how the dancing body should be, and about beauty, ability and normality in general. Nonetheless to do so the “tanzvermittlung” has got to be really in the middle, but is anybody really ever in the middle?! Is there really a middle?! Or are we talking more about being in the “centre” rather than the “middle”? What is the difference between “mittlung” and zentrum”? For me, middle is a soft and misleading word covering up for “centre” as a power position. The question now: can somebody who has been privileged by occupying the centre become responsible for de-centralising?! Or is it really the mission of those who have been marginalised, racialised and discriminated, to take over the decentralising as a natural development of their processes of change, interweaving and implementing justice?…
The current situation of dance mediation is shifting. We are no longer thinking about how to just implement activities, but actually questioning mediation itself and formats and dance itself, in the light of critical theory, of feminist approaches and of efforts of decolonisation and anti-racism. We are re-thinking our positions, convictions, systems of thinking, education and cultural policy. It is necessary to look at dance in a wide sense, and from diverse perspectives that certainly contradict the canon, the established knowledge and educational history of dance, because this is the way to meet the socio-political transformations around us -and within us- and this is how we can make sure that our understanding of dance is not falling into stagnation or into an instrumentalisation by power, privilege and interest. Dance mediation can be a field where the subordinate dilutes the notion of middle or centre, and introduces a sphere of interweaving that is not based in binary terms, nor in divide and hierarchy. Dance mediation can be a transitory field ultimately aiming for its own dilution. The ideal is to have a dance community where everybody can be present, sharing and visible without assistance, without a mediator; a dance community where dance is created, is performed and learnt and practised and received without discrimination, without translation, without an additional arm pushing it towards the periphery or attracting the periphery in, specifically because there would be no centre and margin, and the flow between all forms of dance and all dance community participants would be equal and mutual. Wouldn’t that be a nice dream for our society as a whole? And for dance as a microcosm of that society, and as a leader and catalyst for it?…
How nice would it be to re-visit our systems of thinking, our vision of the world, how we perceive the world and how we perceive ourselves, what notion of humanness does this society have, is humanness connected to privilege or productivity or whiteness, how is humanness practised here and how is it embodied and played out in dance and in communication and in the general pedagogical system, what is the place of humanness and healing within our future vision of citizenship, and who produces knowledge, who represents knowledge and who communicates it, for knowledge in general and later for dance knowledge and mediation in specific…. because examining knowledge transfer in dance starts by questioning knowledge itself in big, what we perceive as knowledge and what not, and by questioning the systems of its transfer, then comes the next step of questioning in relation to dance and dance knowledge transfer. If we are serious in such examination and questioning we should know that there is no way to avoid dealing with a history of colonialism, racism and patriarchy, because it would be too innocent to imagine that dance knowledge is not affected by any of those, it would be too innocent to imagine that the dance field has no conflicts and that dance mediation is just a smooth and harmonious process of extending dance.
From google translate -my accessibility assistant- I got the following related word when I typed “mediation”:
- Intervention in a dispute in order to resolve it
- Conciliation
- Arbitration (which as I learnt it in the USA with my arts management diploma, is about cleverness in negotiation)
- Intervention
- Interference
- Intercession
- Negotiation
- Obtrusion
- Intrusion
And after playing with the word and back and forth between English, French, German and Arabic, I got these:
Repair Reform Rehabilitation Remedy
I would be very interested in continuing my google search with actual questions to all of you, so you can share your understandings of the term and of the practise, perhaps a way to expand the meaning, actualise it and hopefully transform away from linguistic, political and colonial heritage related to war, occupying land and masked colonisation.
Some simple questions to take with us onto the future:
What is dance?
How do you get your knowledge about it?
Does it live everywhere and embody everybody? Does it grow with you from childhood till now? How? What does it express?