Being human while dancing: Diversity specialist Anna-Katrin Heydenreich

Something is different. Is it the shoulders? The back? The posture? The posture, the overall appearance, that's probably it. That's what makes a good dancer. Anna-Katrin Heydenreich appears graceful, elegant, focused. And she chooses her words similarly to the way she moves her body. Carefully. And then there's that look. Anna-Katrin Heydenreich has a dreamy quality about her.

Ballet and a Turkish wedding

Anna-Katrin Heydenreich reveals her passion right at the start of the interview. Beaming, she shows a video of her last dance performance. Women in flamenco costumes inspired by the Orient, their arm movements soft and undulating. Strings and piano sounds in the background. “Dance is a total work of art,” she enthuses. Then a second video – a rehearsal. Fast, energetic movements, sporty clothing. The choreographies are rehearsed intensively for weeks until every movement is perfect, Heydenreich explains.

Anna-Katrin Heydenreich has been fascinated by dance since she was a child. When she was six years old, her grandmother took her to see dance performances by the famous Stuttgart Ballet for the first time. The ballet company performed classics such as ‘The Nutcracker’ and ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ by star choreographer John Cranko, who was known for his storytelling and for his emotional, expressive works. “I left the opera every time convinced that you can only be happy when you dance,” Heydenreich recalls. After the Stuttgart Ballet pieces and a Turkish wedding, where she saw a belly dancer for the first time and was thrilled, she took her first lessons in ballroom dancing and rock’ n roll in high school.

For a long time, she had an “on-and-off relationship” with oriental dance. She was fascinated, but the music and outfits felt alien to her. It was only when she took belly dancing classes at UniSport HSG, quite informally with sarongs around her hips – at a time when Shakira was integrating oriental dance into pop culture – that she was able to get involved in this dance style, she explains. Over time, she explored various forms of “Oriental Fusion”, a mixture of classical oriental dance and dance genres such as modern dance and flamenco. And yet she always enjoys returning to classical oriental dance, which she does intensively once a year at the Mediterranean DanceLab, run by Boženka Arencibia, Shakira's long-standing teacher and choreographer.

Dance and expression

Anna-Katrin Heydenreich particularly appreciates the playful way in which dance deals with different forms of expression. Sometimes gentle and sensual, sometimes energetic and intense. Boundaries can shift – both physical and self-imposed. In our culture, the female body is celebrated much less than in others – for example, in the Oriental culture, where hips and, as connoisseurs call it, “torso isolations” are emphasised, says Heydenreich. Emphasising feminine forms in dance is hardly common in our culture. She is particularly fascinated by how dance brings to life the staging of gender. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And they can also dissolve. Drag queens, for example, stage and celebrate femininity independently of the gender assigned at birth, as the diversity expert emphasises. Dance not only makes movements flow, but also roles. This is another reason why Heydenreich enjoys taking lessons from both female and male dance instructors. She says that dance is about combining opposites, but also about balancing them. There are gentle and accentuated movements, phases of tension and relaxation – a technique known as “contract release”, she explains.

And then she started performing, for example at the TheaterTanzSchule St.Gallen. All these years she has always seen herself as a group dancer, says Heydenreich. She was interested in the personal encounters, in learning from others and getting to know herself better. “I enjoy being with people who surprise and inspire me and who bring different experiences with them.” She is also increasingly making attempts as a solo dancer, at weddings, birthdays or events such as the ‘Tanzfest St.Gallen’. But “not as a professional dancer,” she notes. What is important to her is: “I no longer hide and I no longer wonder whether these sometimes rather unusual dance styles seem strange to others.” Instead, she wants to do what gives her pleasure. She wants to do things where she can be “completely herself.”

Diversity as enrichment

Anna-Katrin Heydenreich has been a specialist in diversity and inclusion at the University of St.Gallen for five years. The Diversity, Equality & Inclusion Office provides support for issues related to gender equality, LGBTIQ+, racism or work/study-family compatibility, she explains. She also advises on “violations of personal integrity” and inclusive language. “Diversity is a social fact, and that includes a business and management school,” she emphasises. Just like in dancing, she also values the intensive contact with a wide range of people and their stories in her work at HSG.

“We want to contribute to a culture that actively balances the power gap and gives everyone the opportunity to feel a sense of belonging,” says Heydenreich. She explains that the aim of Switzerland-wide projects in which HSG is involved is to focus more on diversity issues. These include the “Day Against Sexual Harassment” organised by the Swiss university association swissuniversities and the “Action Days Against Racism”.

Anna-Katrin Heydenreich originally wrote her doctoral thesis at HSG on sustainability. But in the course of academic exchanges with her colleagues at the Research Institute for Organisational Psychology (OPSY-HSG), she became more familiar with gender studies and eventually immersed herself in the social dimension of sustainability. “The building blocks fell into place 'step by step' as if by magic.” One thing was always important to her: “I never wanted to be on just one track.”

Similarities and differences

Dance and diversity. The connection may not be obvious at first glance. But anyone listening to Anna-Katrin Heydenreich will realise that it is clear to see. Whether dance or diversity, both require a keen sense of differences and the ability to harmoniously combine them. Both offer the opportunity to question and redefine roles. Both embrace people in their diversity, in their mobility. Finally, dance contributes something from which the discussion of social diversity can also benefit: joy and attentiveness. In his 1795 letters 'On the Aesthetic Education of Man', the German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller wrote that man is, “only fully human when he plays.” Anyone who talks to Anna-Katrin Heydenreich comes to the conclusion that man is fully human when he dances.

Dr. Anna-Katrin Heydenreich, born in Stuttgart in 1973, studied economic and social sciences at the University of Augsburg. In 2008, she completed her doctorate at the University of St.Gallen on the topic of dilemmas in multi-stakeholder processes. Since 2008, she has been a lecturer in sustainability and climate psychology at the Research Institute for Organizational Psychology (OPSY-HSG) and, since 2019, a specialist in diversity and inclusion at the University of St.Gallen. 

Main picture: Anna-Tina Eberhard