Accordingly, Sebastian Schröer, for example, notes for the German-speaking world:
"[...] although 'street' continues to be thematized as an 'idealized place of authenticity,' a 1 The move into other, closed or partially public spaces can be observed in urban dance in particular. On the one hand, the dancers themselves open up scene-specific halls or training rooms; on the other hand, an increasing interest of pedagogical and social institutions can be seen. As a result, appropriate courses are offered for children and youth groups in order to make targeted use of the emancipatory potential of dance practices there as well. Urban dance thus receives attention from other publics, but is also capitalized, uprooted, or alienated by being confronted with a different value system along with institutionalization. This growing domestication2 initially leads to the disappearance of dance from its original space of action - the street - and possibly also away from its original actors. Is this development purposeful? While graffiti has long influenced the formal language and aesthetics of the visual arts,3 urban dance - with some detours via the breaking up of classical dance forms and houses - is now also taking its place in institutions and in the aesthetic language of the visual arts.

In contrast to this institutionalization, artists seem to be leaving their homes and moving into the streets and public urban space, also driven by the relevance debates of recent years. Whether individual interventions, entire festivals or exhibitions in empty spaces 4 - there seems to be a shared need to move out of the built nest of safe institutions and into urban space. If we look back in art history to movements like Dadaism or Fluxus - where the boundaries between art and life were supposed to become fluid - this institutional flight is cyclical and self-explanatory: the opening up of new spaces, new publics and seemingly undescribed fields of experimentation, new points of friction with new publics and above all and breaking out of the white cube and purely into everyday activity.

Hardly any conglomerate of subcultural practices that originated in the public, urban space is as popular today, or even as (art-)scientifically reappraised, as hip-hop.
At first glance, the exhibition project ...I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker fits into such a reappraisal series, but on closer examination, it is not just a matter of exhibiting or displaying a culture, but of revealing myths and questioning an artistic form of expression: non-academic dance.

Hip-hop in all its self-empowering manifestations emerged on the streets of the US Bronx, in the deeply precarious living conditions of the black community of the 1970s. The various forms of rapping, DJ-ing, graffiti, and dance have long since been incorporated into the mainstream and into our hegemonic, white middle-class-dominated everyday life. Against this backdrop, it is important to keep in mind when engaging with hip-hop cultures that our contemporary understanding can be located far from these origins - there have been many stages of change and appropriation since then. Increasingly, the pillars developed independently of each other, changing contexts, spaces, and expanding their own basic frameworks.

Accordingly, Sebastian Schröer, for example, notes for the German-speaking world:
"[...] although 'street' continues to be thematized as an 'idealized place of authenticity,' a 1 The move into other, closed or partially public spaces can be observed in urban dance in particular. On the one hand, the dancers themselves open up scene-specific halls or training rooms; on the other hand, an increasing interest of pedagogical and social institutions can be seen. As a result, appropriate courses are offered for children and youth groups in order to make targeted use of the emancipatory potential of dance practices there as well. Urban dance thus receives attention from other publics, but is also capitalized, uprooted, or alienated by being confronted with a different value system along with institutionalization. This growing domestication2 initially leads to the disappearance of dance from its original space of action - the street - and possibly also away from its original actors. Is this development purposeful? While graffiti has long influenced the formal language and aesthetics of the visual arts,3 urban dance - with some detours via the breaking up of classical dance forms and houses - is now also taking its place in institutions and in the aesthetic language of the visual arts.
In contrast to this institutionalization, artists seem to be leaving their homes and moving into the streets and public urban space, also driven by the relevance debates of recent years. Whether individual interventions, entire festivals or exhibitions in empty spaces 4 - there seems to be a shared need to move out of the built nest of safe institutions and into urban space. If we look back in art history to movements like Dadaism or Fluxus - where the boundaries between art and life were supposed to become fluid - this institutional flight is cyclical and self-explanatory: the opening up of new spaces, new publics and seemingly undescribed fields of experimentation, new points of friction with new publics and above all and breaking out of the white cube and purely into everyday activity.
Despite the supposed spatial opening to society, the public visual arts structurally detach themselves only slowly and dialectically from the image of the lonely artist (!) in the studio, so that their actions often take the form of individualistic gestures and actions in public space as well. Hip-hop and especially urban dance, on the other hand, are based on a crew culture and the basic approach of "each one teach one "5 , which can be traced back to emancipatory driving forces, respect and learning together. In addition to the great freedom of improvisation with one's own body as material, it is also this basic attitude that leads to approaches of pop cultural variations to the spheres of fine arts, namely those that aim precisely at collaboration instead of competition, at horizontal learning and working and participation, as it happens in the exhibition project. The aim of the project is not only that urban dance is understood as an art form, without appearing to be exhibited, but that actors from both scenes come closer together.
The exhibition project is preceded by a one-year research and networking phase in which the team of Pumps and Hammers Erika Knauer, Lina Mustafa Thöne, Daria Nazarenko, and her crew HoS bring together dancers from all over NRW. In the joint sessions, this community is formed with the aim of building a long-term, supportive exchange network. By representing themselves in the urban and digital space, and ultimately also in the art institution, these actors become role models and points of contact for new dancers in the scene. With regard to her own double role, Nazarenko deals with questions such as: What can the urban scene learn from the visual arts and vice versa? How can pure appropriation be prevented and each other be met in a power-critical way when Western forms of art institution incorporate practices from other cultures into their canon? Is an influence beyond the technical, aesthetic level possible - for example in the interpersonal sphere?
Last but not least, the exhibition and the accompanying podium will also be about how to deal with power relations in the cultural sphere. Which myths and clichés must be overcome in order to promote solidarity and community? A self-critical questioning towards unconscious appropriation processes of contemporary art is in focus, especially the importance of institutionalization for an urban practice.

TEXT BY PAULINA SEYFRIED