KLASSE

 

Klasse tracks back to the winter of 1938 in Jewish Hamburg, Germany at the height of WWII in an old school classroom kept just as it was during the war. The chairs, the desks, the chalkboards and the solid walls are reminders of the haunting fixity of place against the visceral trace of memories left as records of a tortuous time. The intimate cast brings to life a year of letters written there between young classmates as they left one by one on the Kindertransport, and features professional dancers from the US, as well as German middle school students. In bringing this mix of dancers together, Klasse relates historical material to experiences of classroom victimization and heroism among pre-teens in a contemporary context.

 

Klasse is the 2015 recipient of Dance Films Association's Production Grant and the Audience Choice Award winner for Screen Dance Miami. Story, research, producing, and choreography by Hannah Schwadron.