I was terrified to come to Berlin. The dance project for which I was invited was intimidating, focusing on themes of dominance and submission. Berlin took on a mystique of cold steel, empty people walking to there preconceived destinations in black, a city taken over by radicals who need no others to join there battle. However, the messages from the spontaneous, ever-manifesting, travel-god were clear and persistent enough to propel my motivation to book my flight from Helsinki to Berlin. The spontaneity I experience and live by is a teacher. The dance serves as a wonderful metaphor for this disposition I am forced to adopt. The grand metaphor I left America with was softening into the dance – sure I will continue this one for the rest of my days. The newest task to understand and is this: let the dance happen to you…

Helsinki had no more to offer and Berlin in all its imagined fury was still bright and exciting and in perfect timing – for I had three weeks to live before the Nordic Improvisation Meeting in Stockholm.

Now a glimpse of my process:
this is where I first arrived in Berlin:
Tacheles: a warehouse/gallery/bar/café/squatters palace/ whatever space. It is a massive structure, walls covered with years of art, graffiti, and spray paint slop, windows cracked and broken and also completely sprayed; broken beer bottles and the distant smell of urine carve the way up the dungeon like cement stairs. This is the historic, crazy, chaotic, revolutionary Traceless. This is where I live – at night going to the bathroom, I would usually be met with shock from the tourists wandering around the huge fun-house, “you live here!” was the most popular expression from these people.

I was part of a performance project called Underground Kingdom. Our performance was in a closed theater space inside this monument to art and revolution. Some of us in the ‘Underground Kingdom’ lived on the fifth floor – our dormitory was locked and secure, thank goodness.

The project, for me personally, was a huge success and learning experience. I entered a strictly alternative world, forbidden to most, one I would have never ventured inside had this opportunity not developed. I am full of excitement and gratitude for finding this world of darkness and transformation.