This summer, I attended the Freiburg Contact Festival in southern Germany. The festival is now in its twentieth year. The dancing and dancers are well documented by dedicated photographers. But the place, its light, and its buildings where equally of interest and less explored.
The Freiburg Contact Festival 2019
Freiburg in Germany lies near the border of France and Switzerland. The Contact Festival is held in sports halls and associated buildings situated in the west of the city at the Wentzinger-Gymnasium.
A lake and parkland nearby create a hinterland with associated features, a pontoon bridge and buildings. A lookout tower allows you to survey the scene around.
In the sports halls, temporary spaces are demarcated – for sleeping in a dormitory, and areas for the storage of shoes and the like. Seating outside forms a communal area for meals to be eaten, meeting and resting. Periodically, these spaces are filled, and emptied as the process of living and dancing moves through the morning, evening and night.
The buildings are ‘cameras’ into which light enters from high windows: diffuse, reflected and coloured by surfaces.
Dance Diary
While at Freiburg 2019, I also kept a dance diary which I made into a scrapbook.
Photos of Freiburg Contact Festival 2019
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Inside a sports hall – the festival venue. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Each night, shoes migrate to a ‘shoe store’ outside the dormatry where one must be shoe-less. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Reflections in a window into a ‘control room’ looks out into the interior of a sportshall. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Outside the sportshalls, benches and tables were used for meals. Raining! 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: In the parkland beside the venue is a lake, spand by a pontoon bridge. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Lovelocks – enscribed padlocks on the pontoon bridge beside the festival venue. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: A map feature, in the Parkland beside the festival venue. CI islands? 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: At the top of a lookout tower in the parklands beside the festival venue. An upturned umbrella. Raining! 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: One of the festival buildings. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: The sportshalls in Freiburg. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Sun light enters a sportshall 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: The reflected light is evident on the ceiling of a sportshall. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Besides a sports hall – concrete surfaces and their hard-edge are softened by lichen and moss. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Sunset beside the sportshalls and beginning of the parkland beside them. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Reflected light enters a sports hall. The building beside it, has a rich organe red colour. 
Freiburg Contact Festival 2019: Light entering the small sportshall. The green tinge is probably algea in the moist atmosphre. 
Morning light on the pontoon bridge on the lake by the festival venue.
Photographs of people dancing
Patrick Beelaert was one of the photographers at Freiburg 2019 and he has a great album of photos on Flickr which show people dancing.