A word at the outset: The alarming reduction of dance coverage even in the most ambitious German newspapers - with the exception of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt - as well as the too lopsided policy of "Europe's Leading Dance Magazine", which concentrates mostly on the off-scene and its personalities, have encouraged me to try and react directly, in the form of an internet journal, to the current events and happenings in dance.

This journal can only cover a selection of events, chosen by the author in his own responsibility. Critical comments must not be taken for reviews, which have their own place and link in tanznetz.de. Reactions of the readers and also suggestions via e-mail are welcome.

This is, as mentioned above, an experiment - also for example in covering more extensely dance on TV which until now is painfully neglected by the critics, discouraging the producers more than encouraging them in their efforts to help dance to play a more important role on TV.

oe, Stuttgart, March 31, 2001

Horst Koegler exclusively at tanznetz.de
(by Horst Vollmer)

Introduce Horst Koegler? You know Horst Koegler - or you are not interested in stage dance.

But let's pretend for once that we have to explain to a newcomer in this field who Horst Koegler is. Which is not that easy. WHO is Horst Koegler? Maybe we can describe him better by answering the question WHAT is Horst Koegler.

Because Horst Koegler is an institution. Since decades. So well established and respected that everybody who knows this institution only calls him by the contraction "oe" which he used to sign his reviews in his time with the Stuttgarter Zeitung.

"oe" stands for several issues of German (and English and Italian...) dictionaries of dance. "oe" was the long-time editor of the German "Ballet yearbooks" we all miss so much today. "oe" has written since the Fifties against the ignorance of dance in the cultural sections of German newspapers. "oe" is responsible for innumerable books or has contributed to them. "oe" has written for newspapers and magazines all over the world, but also for the highly respected "Encyclopaedia Britannica", as the first and most important dance critic from Germany on an international level. "oe" has turned the Stuttgarter Zeitung into the most important German newspaper in dance coverage for two decades, and in the meantime he has fostered a considerable crowd of aspiring young critics.

All of this (and it is only a part of what the name Horst Koegler stands for!) makes "oe" an institution. Without any doubt he is the doyen of German dance criticism, drawing from an almost unbelievable fund of experience amassed in decades of watching performances, of course not only in German regions, but all over the world.

Horst Koegler was born in Neuruppin in 1927, he worked in Berlin and Cologne as a freelance journalist and has been living in Stuttgart since 1977, when he was employed as dance editor for the Stuttgarter Zeitung in a regular position. Still connected very closely with the dance and music scene in Stuttgart (of course he also an expert on music), he is roaming the world now from the Swabian capital just as he has always done, driven by an inexhaustible curiosity to see ballet and opera events and by the pleasure to report about what he has seen.

And from now on, Horst Koegler will report in his "journal" exclusively for tanznetz.de, as critical, passionate, eloquent, experienced and caring as we all know him.

The team of tanznetz.de is very happy to welcome Horst Koegler, and we wish his readers the greatest of pleasure and stimulating readings while rummaging through "Koegler's journal".

Horst Vollmer