Background In 2024 and 2025, a special artistic partnership brought together the Anjali Dance Company from England and com.dance e.V. from Germany. Between digital spaces and real encounters in Freiburg and Leicester, a lively dialogue emerged from movement, symbolic language, and trust. The focus was on nonverbal communication and joint improvisations – discovering a language of the body beyond words. This encounter gave rise to choreographies and improvisations whose essence is mutual listening—culminating in a lecture performance at De Montfort University in Leicester (UK).

The collaboration showed how dance transcends boundaries and allows community to be experienced anew in the artistic process.

Performance The collaboration between the Anjali Dance Company and com.dance e.V. resulted in a contemporary, mixed-abled dance performance that emerged from the two-year cross-border exchange between Germany and the United Kingdom. Five dancers with disabilities from both countries worked together with two choreographers over a period of four weeks on a touching dance composition entitled ‘We Dance – We Connect’. The project deliberately uses the dancers' different physical, linguistic and cultural backgrounds as a creative resource.

The performance unfolds on several levels: dance improvisations based on leading and following, playing with proximity and distance as well as space and time, are combined with a developed movement language based on gestures and sign-language. Through fluid transitions or intentional shifts, and based on the theme of encountering one another, the dancers form ever-changing choreographic constellations within the space. Central to this is the listening bodies between the dancers: the subtle perception, reaction or conscious non-reaction, the going with or independent deviation. This mindful interaction forms the driving force of the performance and makes the connection and trust between the bodies in the space palpable.

The piece sees itself as an artistic statement for diversity, accessibility and communication, as well as for a coming together that unfolds purely on a physical level. It invites the audience to experience the subtle dynamics of the interactions on stage and to feel the power of collective presence in the dancers' flowing movements.