International Women's Day

Name: Nadja Raaba
Age: 41
Location: Berlin, Germany

I am  a professional dancer and dance teacher (contemporary dance, ballet and Jazz).  I freelance as a choreographer, dancer and  dance teacher, as well as as an administration/ office manager for film and Internet companies, and in the event management field.  I also took a further course in teaching English for preschool children and children in elementary school.

In 1984, I started to go on my own "journey," learning, acting and dancing, and started to choreograph between the age of 16 and 18 years.  Ever since then I have been doing many projects, events and travelled a lot. Mostly with dance (my first twenty years as an adult), then later on, when my kids were born I founded "mothersfinest" and have done events as a clown, open dance days, bilingual courses for kindergarten kids and street dance choreographies with school kids. Lately I have been teaching at the Jewish Chabad Center, at an Italian European school, at several Helen Doron Learning Centers and I will mainly teach at a bilingual Activity Center (besmartacademy) from April '09 on. Coincidentally I have also started to find and administrate vacation rentals in Berlin and currently I am working on my Web site at-home-in-berlin.de, which will be online soon. I live with my two kids, Frida (8) and Carl (6) in Berlin Charlottenburg; my partner Kurt Mundahl lives with his two kids in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg.

What's a typical day in your life like?

At the moment I still have to drive my kids to school by car. So my day starts at 6.00 a.m. Since I am building my new business and at the same time spend some hours teaching, I might be going off for a viewing to an apartment late morning/noon, work in my office at home and then teach two hours, getting the laundry, grocery shopping done - in between -  and getting my kids from school around 4.00 p.m. and then we probably have an after school activity like sports or a play-date with friends. At the moment we have a guest from Norway at our house, he goes to high school to learn German and he is like a big brother for my kids. He plays the guitar with them, while I prepare dinner, and then we sit down for dinner at 7 p.m. Then the kids go to bed, we might read a little bit and after they are asleep, I will answer e-mails and work for another 2-3 hours.

What's the biggest challenge you face?

TIME - there are not enough hours in a day.

How do you relax / unwind?

From time to time, my partner and I go to the Sauna, take a little trip to Italy, I read magazines, watch TV or go to a movie, at least once a week.

3 things you always have in your bag:

Lipstick, my mobile, handkerchiefs.

What do you dream about?

To have my own dance company with young adults again, a house by the ocean.

What women do you admire / who are your heros?

Women, I do admire: Virginia Woolf, Tilda Swinton. I admire their sense of freedom and self-esteem, I call them "Amazons."

Heros: André Breton, Joseph Beuys, Nijinsky, Mary Wigman, Pina Bausch, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and John Cage. I admire the passion with which they prosecuted their ideas, I love their ideas and how they enriched our world/ the ART world.