Preface I is the first part of three day experimental and improvisational series with organ and vocals by musician Rahel Hutter. The performances take place every morning at the Taborkirche.

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An aequa conversation on OVERTIME

DICE’s 2019 programme addresses the valuation of time and work in relation to music, art and society, and examines the manifold meanings of OVERTIME in an ever-changing global context. What is OVERTIME? What role does it play in our lives? Who benefits?

DICE aims to build support systems for those who can use it most, and strengthen the connections between us. What better way to start the day than with a conversation with each other? Sarj, DICE team member and co-founder of our partner organisation aequa, will facilitate this open discussion and workshop on the theme of Overtime.

About aequa: aequa is a community for social equity. Our vision is an equitable society in which every person can thrive. Our mission is to activate, enable and connect an intersectional community, and to do so sustainably. We do that by hosting gatherings for folks to exchange experiences and know-how, tackle shared challenges, and collaborate to create the world we dream of. Together, we explore both our individual potential and our collective power.

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With PERIGGA, Folly Ghost and Sara Fumaça of No Shade.

CDJing Workshop: This workshop will provide an introduction to DJing using the Pioneer CDJ- 2000 NXS and how to best prepare your music, in Pioneer Rekordbox, to facilitate the mixing.

One of the main advantages of DJing with CDJs, that makes them one of the most popular ways of DJing, is their portability – you only need a couple of usb flash drives, accompanied by a pair of headphones, to be ready to perform your performance. Through live tutorials by No Shade, this open workshop will provide a broad but detailed overview of how to use the equipment accompanied by some basic music theory knowledge and terminology, useful technical knowledge and some personal tips and tricks.

*Laptops Required by Participants

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A talk by Christina Lee

The expectation to sacrifice long-term goals for short-term survival, or work longer and harder than everyone else to get ahead of the pack, is part of the “negative solidarity” mindset which emphasizes pain over pleasure, individual effort over collaboration and says that the only people who succeed are the ones willing to sacrifice everything.

Positive solidarity, on the other hand, involves advocating for others in your position when you advocate for yourself, in trying to bring others along with you in your success, at identifying with and collaborating with your “competitors” to mutual advantage. It would also eschew the idea of self-care as something for sale, but rather something that is flexible and can entail working on your passion, spending time with others, and putting in the time for long term goals that bring pleasure and satisfaction rather than (necessarily) professional or financial benefit.

This workshop examines different approaches for trying to make decisions about how manage your time and affairs from the perspective of what works best for you and your community, rather than staying competitive with the industry/others.

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Workshop by Portrait XO

The better you understand your limitations, the better you can work within them: efficiency + improved communication through knowledge of your boundaries with work.

It’s easy to burn out. Whether you’re working for yourself, for someone else or somewhere between the two, work can be draining. There’s no quick solution to this problem. Everyone has unique goals and standards, everyone has their own idea of the work they want to produce.

In this workshop participants will be guided through a set of questions. These questions were devised to help participants navigate and map their own internalised definition of what overtime and overwork means. The end goal of this workshop is to help paticipants better understand where their personal boundaries lie when it comes to work, and how to work within these limitations.

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A workshop by Maeb Murphy

A successful grant application can get you money and allow you to implement your project ideas or make them more sustainable.

In this practical session we will go into the motivations behind grant applications, how to find suitable funders and the basic elements of a grant application including project proposal, budget, timeline and work packages.

We will also touch on the non-profit industrial complex, introducing some ideas from the book by INCITE! called “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded” and exploring how we can both survive under capitalism and other oppressions and do necessary and sustainable community, artistic and activist work.

This interactive lecture will give you the tools to get cracking on your next funding application and identify areas you need to work on. Concrete project ideas are welcome but not necessary.

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A workshop by Jenifa Mayanja

What are you worth? How to know what price to put on your labour and how to navigate making that valuation.

In this workshop we’ll disect the meaning of “Negotiating Your Worth” by considering both the phrase and the individual words “negotiating” “your” and “worth.” If you’re questioning whether your worth is the same as your value, how to set realistic expectations when negotiating rates of pay, when to persist and when to walk away from difficult negotiations and whether you should mix the personal and the professional, then this is the workshop for you. We’ll be talking about what roles experience, economic power, opportunity, gender and ethincity play when negotiating your worth.

As an interactive workshop, participants are expected to do some self-evaluation exercises, and will be given the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the workshop.

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A workshop by Caren Miesenberger

The FEMINIST MEME SCHOOL is a workshop created by the journalist and online editor Caren Miesenberger. Participants are invited to form a temporary meme editorial with Miesenberger. Memes act as social and political commentary. In the workshop, participants transform their own experiences of discrimination into Memes. By translating negative experiences into texts and images, they become mimetic, temporary, relateable. During the workshop, the memes produced by participants will be shared on the Instagram account @feministmemeschool.

The FEMINIST MEME SCHOOL workshop is designed to empower and encourage participants to recognise their own experiences of discrimination and to draw strength from them. FEMINIST MEME SCHOOL is about bravely confronting the digital public in a protected setting. FEMINIST MEME SCHOOL is here to let you know, IT’S OK TO BE FREE and IT’S OK TO BE LOUD.

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DJ set by Stella Zekri

To celebrate the close of our first day of the DICE Conference, and just before our opening night Artist Spotlight talk from Juliana Huxtable, we’ll be hosting this Community Assembly, which is open to the public. We’re proud to host some of our favourite grassroots groups, such as Transfeminism International, aequa, Centre for Intersectional Justice, and more.

Multitalented Stella Zekri works as a DJ and vocalist, seamlessly blending a wide spectrum of influences into soulful sets and performances. Growing up in Paris, she incorporated hip-hop’s sampling culture into her musical identity and has been enriching it with funk, disco, afro, house, neo-soul, jazz and anything in between.

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Keynote by Juliana Huxtable

DICE Conference + Festival will present an opening night Artist Spotlight presented by the renowned multidisciplinary performance artist + DJ + Author Juliana Huxtable. Huxtable will trace her artistic development and speak candidly about her experiences in both the music and the art world, elaborating on how her experience as an activist and a club promoter has influenced her work.

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Presented by GodXXX Noirphiles, ÁZA and Night Child. 

The three sistxrs raised from the soil of the earth, with the lava of the earth’s core as their life source, mystify those who meet their eyes. Their song will entice you and their movement will seduce you. But beware, not all that is beautiful is good.

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Preface II is the second part of three day experimental and improvisational series with organ and vocals by musician Rahel Hutter. The performances take place every morning at the Taborkirche.

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When organising socially-focused or grassroots/activist events, we’re faced with a range of choices. DIY is a lot of fun, until everyone burns out. Commercialising your activities in order to pay the bills can often run counter to the central political values of activist ventures. The funding landscape seems to offer a sort of third way, a path out of burnout and financial ruin without needing to cater to brands or chase profit. However, it comes with its own set of difficulties and barriers to success. Joining us to discuss the positives and pitfalls of the funding cycle are Lena Szirmay-Kalos (Montag Modus), Sky Deep (Reclaim the Beats/Reveller Records), Jana Braun (Bezirkskulturfonds Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg).

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A workshop by Donna Maya

From beat programming to song production
Ableton Certified Trainer Maya C. Sternel, a.k.a. Donna Maya, will show you an efficient and productive workflow to sketch your ideas and compose your music easily. You will learn how to program drums, bass and melodies with Ableton Live and Push, use MIDI instruments, edit and manipulate samples, experiment with effects to create unique sounds and arrange a track.

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Intersectionality Through Movement for Activists and Organizers (for BPOC): A practice in holding space for each other through movement by Adrain Blount.

Through breathing and affirmation, we will discuss intersectionality, what it means and looks like to hold space for our varying experiences with intersecting/differing identities, how/what it looks like to practice that in activist and organizational work, and how we can effectively interpret our conversation into collective movement thereby reinforcing community work and collective nurturing. This workshop references somatic body work.

*The workshop requires person to person contact. Those who are not comfortable with person to person contact can notify the instructor beforehand to discuss. 

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A talk by Dr. Emilia Roig

Healing. Transforming. Creating. Tossing the master’s tools. What does transformation look like? Oppressive patterns permeate all areas of life, including left wing movements and politics. Toxicity and domination can be overcome. If we shift our resources and power to another direction, from reacting to dismantling and creating we can escape reproducing the patterns inherited from oppressors. It’s easier said than done, but therein lies the power of liberation.

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A talk by Friederike Beier

This talk explores the temporalities of care and how care is connected to multiple and intersectional precarity and inequality. The acceleration of time in neoliberal capitalism, meaning the logic of efficiency and effectiveness, is contrary to the temporalities of care. Tasks associated with care are mostly performed by women, often migrant women, who do not have the resources to outsource labour. This means that these contradictory temporalities have tremendous effects on intersectional inequalities.

This talk outlines feminist and postcolonial theorizations of time, emphasizing that under capitalism, time is a social construct. Time, in this sense, is based on a linear, monochromic and task-oriented sequences, exemplified by universal and hegemonic clock time. Linear clock time was introduced during the era of industrialization, popularised by emerging industries, assembly lines and factories.

The temporalities of care are to the contrary circular, diachronic and include multiple tasks which are based on subject-subject instead of subject-object-relations. Humans can be taken care of or educated faster only at the expense of quality.

These contradictory temporalities lead to ambivalences and the precarity of people who perform these tasks and are taking care of others. People who work in caring professions, such as kindergarten teachers, nurses or domestic workers often work overtime and are always underpaid. People who take care of others unpaid, be it children, relatives or friends feel the effects of these contradictory temporalities and ambivalences in a similar way. Caring relationships leave less time for paid and promising jobs, which demand around the clock availability and high performance. Therefore, unpaid care work results in double shifts, overtime and precarity.

Finally, this talk argues in favour of for alternative and multiple temporalities and the adjustment of modern work to the needs of human relationships.

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Pêdra Costa, Sanni Est & Tai Linhares, three Brazilian creatives of colour exchange their personal and professional experiences and discuss the current the political situation in their home country.

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A presentation with Lyra Pramuk.

In this presentation, Lyra Pramuk will share insights into her live performance and composition process as it currently unravels. Focusing on personal and historical background, live, improvised singing, resampling, and FX processing, this presentation will posit a model for embodied improvisation between human and computer leading to a speculative, post-human music practice rooted in dedication, listening, and embodiment.

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Come to the VUT x BMC Reception at DICE 2019!

Sekt, beer, soft drinks and snacks will be served.

** No ticket necessary for the reception. **

With special guest DJ The Neighbourhood Character

About VUT – Verband unabhängiger Musikunternehmen e.V.

The Verband unabhängiger Musikunternehmen e.V, (VUT – Association of Independent Music Companies) represents the interests of small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) in the German music industry. Its members are made up of around 1,300 labels, publishers and distributors, as well as self-promoting artists. Overall, independent music companies account for a market share of more than 35 percent of the music recordings used. Characteristic of our members are the collaborative relationships with their artists and their willingness to innovate.

As an association, the VUT is committed to the interests of the independent music industry, whose core are its musicians and authors, at German, European and international level. As a service provider, the VUT offers its members a wide range of consulting, information and other services. These include membership and legal advice, education and training events, the conclusion of framework agreements and regular industry newsletters.

Music Industry Women is a network founded by VUT in 2015. We organize get-togethers and panels at the VUT Indie Days and a mentoring program, which started in 2015 for the first time and took place once again in 2017 in cooperation with Berlin Music Commission and funded by Musicboard Berlin GmbH.

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A performance by İpek Gorgun

Preface III is the last part of three day experimental and improvisational series with organ and vocals by musician Rahel Hutter. The performances take place every morning at the Taborkirche.

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A workshop by Valerie-Siba Rousparast

A post of one’s own: How can I use social media for my work, how can I represent my cause?

For people who experience discrimination, taking up space is a
political act – be it IRL or online. This workshop will help you use social media as a tool for your own agenda, to reach a wider audience. With the help of journalist and social media creator Valerie-Siba Rousparast, you can finally create the story post that you’ve had in mind forever, but never dared to actually create.

Valerie-Siba Rousparast is an Editor and Writer. Since 2016 she conceptualises and produces print and video content as an editor for several publications, including Missy Magazine.

With an intersectional queer-feminist perspective on pop culture, music, art and society after studying Anthropology and Gender Studies, she also writes a critical column for fashion magazine Praise. She is part of the curatorial collective _thek, producing exhibitions, performances and music events. Besides that she works as a communications and social media consultant.

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A workshop by Pêdra Costa

Do you want to write a manifesto? Let’s do it now! This workshop is a place to create, to encounter, and to exchange knowledge. If you’re interested in learning how (and why) to write a manifesto, how to make it into music, how to publish it, how to distribute it, how to perform it and more, come to this workshop.

This is a practical workshop and will be held in English, manifestations in any language are still welcome though! Participants are invited to discuss their ideas with the group but participation is not required. If you want just to watch the manifestos manifest, come! If you have already written a manifesto, bring it! If you want to leave the workshop with a written manifesto, we’ll be there to facilitate its creation. We’ll have examples of manifestos from Berlin’s queer scene. This workshop is open to all queer people.

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A Workshop by Lola Rose and GodXXX Noirphiles

A drag workshop discussing gender, movement and practical makeup.

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A panel with Ari Robey-Lawrence, Mac Folkes, Christelle Oyiri, Djibril Sall, Estherand KILLA

In recent years, “Identity” has risen to the top of the contemporary consciousness, and nowhere more than in the underground and experimental arts scenes. In response, a race to establish “diversity” initiatives, particularly among music platforms that have been criticised for their lack of diversity, has transpired across the industry. Dance music has seen a surge in formerly underrepresented performers being pushed into the spotlight, and identity has become a new currency that festivals, club bookers and labels are eager to trade in. But to what extent are these formerly sidelined demographics able to control or mediate their new-found representation? How permanent are these apparent changes for the better, and who ultimately profits from such change?

What sort of role should identity play in dance music (or other creative industries) and what an identity-based economy might look like when motivated by equitable representation, as opposed to the appearance of “diversity”?

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A Panel with Prince Emrah, Cupcake, Judy LaDivina,  DARVISH and Lux Venérea

Immigrants: We Get The Job Done is a conversation between four panelists who have either immigrated or have refugee/asylum status in Berlin and have created strikingly beautiful artistic personas while structuring their own collectives and events on their own terms. Cupcake, DARVISH, Prince Emrah, And Judy La Divina will speak about their process of coming into their own as artists while getting the job done to create safe(r) spaces for other artists of immigrant and refugee status. The conversation will be moderated by the witty tragicomic Lux Venérea.

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A panel with Ari Robey-Lawrence, Jenifa Mayanja, Mac Folkes

Since the nascence of the concept of popular culture in the early 20th century, it was considered something that was inherently generational — a fundamental characteristic being that each generation abandons the habits, styles and aesthetics of the old in favour of the new and completely modern. The advent of the electronic age has led to a palpable splintering between generations where fertile ground for coalition between generations once existed.

Does the opportunity for intergenerational coalition and communication still exist in dance music environments? How do participants in local rave scenes circumnavigate the division and isolation imposed by the dominance of social media & virtual communities? How do we reconcile the need for exchange between generations of the past and present in the Internet age?

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Takeover by Maque Tumai, Bad Puppy and Sanni Est

** This event is free and open to the public. No tickets necessary. **

The CuloNizers is an artistic collective and community network of latinX queers founded in February 2019 in Berlin. Their mission and focus is to create new spaces for the spread of Latin American culture and arts under a de-culonial vision/version. They believe in the arts as a decolonizing expression of bodies, and self-manage activities for the empowerment, expansion, and promotion of queer Latinx, trans and non-binary artists. Their first creature is Culoka, the first LatinX Queer Perreo Party in Berlin.
https://www.culonizers.net/

CRYSTALLMESS will present COLLECTIVE AMNESIA: IN MEMORY OF LOGOBI at the Taborkirche.

As Aimé Césaire stated in Discourse of Colonialism : « For us, the choice is made. We are among those who refuse to forget. We are among those who refuse amnesia itself as a method ».

A pluridisciplinary project, combining DJing, video and 3D, Collective Amnesia is an active process, which consists of collectively forgetting, decontextualizing, minimizing, and burying facts. The performance intends to explore the intersection between post-colonial alienation, technology and DIY culture but also, the postmodern approach of ethnomusicology. Collective amnesia is here an active process, which consists of collectively forgetting, decontextualizing, minimizing, and burying facts. Indeed, what is the causal link between 1999 Ivoirian coup d’état, 2005 French riots and 2007 Techno Parade in Paris? It is precisely here that Logobi’s memory comes to reveal the intersection of events, the absence of historical coincidences.

Based in Paris banlieues, CHRISTELLE OYIRI is a DJ, producer, freelance sound designer and contributes to platforms including i-D, Guardian, Noisey, Complex UK, Dazed & Confused, M le Magazine du Monde, NON Quarterly. When she gets behind the desks and lets her hair down, she goes by the name of CRYSTALLMESS, and delves into fertile subcultures and corners of the past in her show « Unleashed » on Radar Radio. Influenced by the work of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit of the University of Warwick, her multidisciplinary practice allows her to tackle the subjects of experimental futurisms, digital culture, representation and the black diaspora. She participated in « Revolutionary Beauty » panel at ICA Singapore (2016), organized « Mardi Gras » (in partnership with Rinse France) at Museum Of Quai de Branly, which focused on carnival culture in the french west indies and its political substructure in 2017. The same year, she talked about black virality at « Post-Internet dances » and took part in Cyberafrofeminisms at La Gaité Lyrique.

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