Letter from Berlin.

"When you talk about Germany, it's always necessary to know that we are a federal country, and development in Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, or Berlin is, in itself, different," says Nele Hertling, who has been director of Berlin's Hebbel Theater since 1988. "It's not easy to speak about `German' dance. It is `Berlin' [dance], similar in Munich, very different in Hamburg and in the Rhineland."

Hertling's description of a decentralized nation-state is important to an understanding of dance in Germany. Politics have affected the progress and development of dance in Berlin, where the cold-war division of the city into East and West Berlin instigated an additional degree of separation. Despite a decade of reunification, the two sides continue to hold different political, philosophical, and aesthetic customs; it is not uncommon for the citizenry to refer to one another as "Ossis" or "Wessis" (East or West Berliners).

Following the close of the Mary Wigman School in 1967, there were no venues for contemporary dance in West Berlin. Dirk Scheper (secretary of the department of performing arts at the Berlin Academy of the Arts) and Hertling were instrumental in rekindling modern dance in the city. Building upon the legacy of Wigman, Rudolf von Laban, Kurt Jooss, and Gret Palucca, who, pre-World War II, forged an independent spirit outside the opera ballet tradition, Scheper and Hertling launched the Pantomime Musik Tanz Theater Festival, an international event held annually from 1973 to 1995.

"There's a special modern dance audience in [West] Berlin," says Scheper. "It's limited, but they are there." He explains that reunification spread thin the West's "special audience" as well as economic resources, as the East had little to offer in either respect. Furthermore, the new Berlin is experiencing a situation similar to that of dance communities on both sides of the Atlantic--shrinking funding sources and limited audience development as dance, and the arts in general, vie with other media for a piece of the financial pie and a sense of continuity.

Reunification also doubled the number of venues (and performances) available to Berliners, since East and West had developed separate opera houses, theaters, and ballet companies. For example, the West Berlin Arts Academy had been an autonomous institution that, according to Hertling, "supported another idea of dance than ballet." As of 1989 it was obliged to merge with its East Berlin counterpart, whose focus was not dance but areas such as literature and architecture. The outcome was that well-intentioned preoccupations with unity and reconciliation subsumed the Arts Academy's special status with regard to dance. In this and other instances East-West differences remain issues of political, economic, philosophical, and aesthetic proportions--cultural politics.

Fast forward to 1999. From August 12 to 29, Berlin was bursting with dance energy--concerts, workshops, panels, seminars, improvisation--as the twelfth annual "Dance in August" international festival brought world-class artists to Germany's new capital. According to Hertling, the festival's audience is diverse and broad-based, including opera- and theatergoers as well as dance enthusiasts. Although the principal co-sponsors are Hebbel Theater and Tanzwerkstatt, venues include the Hebbel, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper, Akademie der Kunste (Arts Academy), Schiller Theater, Theater am Halleschen Ufer, Podewil, and Sophiensaal--a variety of houses ranging from major and traditional to intimate and alternative.

In spite of economics and politics, there's a healthy dance culture here, indicated by the fact that, at Scheper's estimate, there are twenty regular dance critics, including newspaper and radio. As in other countries, some Berliners are turning to solo or duo work as a money-saving measure. Collaborative events with theater groups or ballet companies are another route, and this fall's Hebbel Theater lineup features several theater productions carrying choreographers' credits.

According to writer-critic Irene Sieben, "a big, big step" has been taken by the Schaubuhne in naming Sasha Waltz, a Dutch-born Berliner, as one of its three co directors. It is hoped that this appointment, along with the year-round dance programming at the Hebbel, will move dance a bit closer to front and center in Berlin.

The city's fall dance lineup includes Tanztheater Wuppertal (Pina Bausch) in a program of revivals at the Schiller Theater in September, Dusseldorf's Neuer Tanz (VA Wolfl) at the Hebbel in October, a revival of the late Gerhard Bohner's Golden Mean at the Arts Academy in November, and Tanztheater Basel (Joachim Schlomer) at the Hebbel in December. From January 17 through February 8, the Hebbel will run its annual international "Dance in Winter" festival, a modest version of "Dance in August," with concert presentations as its focus.

A good deal of activity is imported. Hertling applauds this, asserting that what is lacking is a "real, international, professional, artistic quality in many companies here." She cites the need for a professional school and a "style-forming person" equal in stature to Frankfurt's William Forsythe: "If every year we could offer a project to be created inside Berlin with Berlin-based artists and could premiere it in Berlin, this would change the [dance] world here completely."

Despite any perceived drawbacks, Berlin is home base for a number of outstanding choreographers. Hertling cited Waltz, Jutta Hell and Dieter Baumann of Rubato, Anna Hubert, and Felix Ruckert in this group. Sieben added Xavier Le Roy. Johannes Kresnik was also pointed out.

Also deserving of attention is the fine ongoing training provided by independent schools such as Tanz Fabrik and Tanztangente. Both were founded or co-founded by Americans (Christine Vilardo and Leanore Ickstadt, respectively) a generation ago. Over the ensuing decades they have functioned in a way that parallels university dance departments in the United States. With no dance programs in German universities, their significance cannot be overestimated.