Dream Venue

It's a truly improbable story. In Berlin, amidst the turmoil of ever-widening budget gaps and dramatic cuts, a new cultural institution was founded. A dance center unlike any other in Europe. A dance house for children and young people—the Junges Tanzhaus Berlin on Lucy-Lameck-Straße. It doesn't consist of just one or two rooms, but of an imposing building, a former brewery with five floors (two of which are basements), a large theater hall, numerous rehearsal rooms, studios, offices and conference rooms, and a fully equipped canteen kitchen. Plus a large entrance hall with a bar and tables as well as gardens all around, right next to Volkspark Hasenheide.

To explain how this came about, one must begin with a meeting that took place more than twenty years ago at the Podewil in Berlin. The ...