# data[].attributes.headline
The Body As Reference For (R)Evolution - Biotope

# data[].attributes.subject
The Body As Reference For (R)Evolution - Biotope

# data[].attributes.body
Resilience In The Arts

“Art is a vehicle for change and will not be threatened by conventions.”

Creating resilience in the arts and on an international cultural level is a crucial mission of this partnership. This is evident in how the partners of The Body as Reference for (R)Evolution have agreed to link United Cowboys’ Biotope performances to each other by taking along local artists, selected materials and content from each city to the next, and presenting these in relevant, unconventional locations.

The Biotope, the artistic work of this partnership, is a site-specific piece, an immersive, sculptural durational performance. It is a highly inclusive, collaborative format that can be transferred to various contexts. It can morph naturally by including local artistic input, materials, performers, generating a new identity, without losing its artistic methodology at the core.

Body as Reference for (R)Evolution emphasises the human dimension, the physical, in times of technology and digitalised dialogues. It promotes the tangibility of all senses and brings live experiences back into focus. To co-shape the individual Biotopes on location, local artists from various disciplines are selected and invited to artistic working sessions prior to artistic presentations hosted by United Cowboys. United Cowboys will also take input along to the next presenting partner location in order to fuel the transformative character of this travelling Biotope.

This geographically vast partnership includes United Cowboys (The Netherlands), UA Association ‘Contemporary Dance Platform’ (Ukraine TBD), ACT – Association for Independent Theatre (Bulgaria), and the Gothenburg Fringe Festival (Sweden). For most partners, infusing the local ecosystem with a site specific and durational artistic work is something new. The partnership also has very clear and strong values and goals based on openness and generosity to foster solidarity and fair practices.

On a practical level, the partnership morphs around the artistic work and process in a sustainable and innovative way - the first performance will set the snowball of artists and artistic materials rolling, which will grow and change as they tour from Gothenburg to Sofia to Kiev. The artistic input from each individual partner is collected on an online platform in the form of a living map. It is the main shared and open access space where artists can exchange input and co-shape the artistic work, and will stay open and accessible so that artists can look back onto collected impressions and findings and add new artistic input.

The next presentation is on Wednesday 8 June 2022 at 20:00 (CEST) presented by ACT – Association for Independent Theatre in Sofia, Bulgaria. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

______________

This story is part of the June Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practises. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: United Cowboys Biotope © Boriana Pandova

# data[].attributes.body
Wheel by Wheel

The partners of this Perform Europe project - Helsingør Teater (Denmark), Västsvenska Turnerande Sommar Teatern (VTST) (Sweden), Proyecto Colectivo HQPC (Spain), Mozaik (France) - join forces to give more visibility to artists with disabilities, who today are underrepresented both on and behind the stage. The project includes two partners with a strong track record of presenting inclusive works and two partners with little or no experience in this area yet with a well-established presenting context. As such, it is a pilot project.

On the one hand, artistic works such as the one included in this project, Habrá Que Ponerse Cachas (HQPC in short), led by an emerging disabled woman choreographer, are still very rare. In general, disabled artists need more visibility and recognition as valuable professionals in the performing arts field. On the other hand, for the presenters, budgets and lack of know-how are some possible obstacles to programming artists with disabilities.

Step by Step - Wheel by Wheel consists of a tour of the performance HQPC that will start in Denmark and Sweden in early June 2022 and conclude in Montpellier, France. Live presentations will be outdoors, accompanied by an after-talk. In the context of the conference Nordic Street – Sustainability of the arts, which addresses art and sustainability and takes place in Helsingborg (Denmark) on 9-12 June 2022, a digital presentation of the piece will be shown, followed by an after-talk with the artists via zoom.

The pillar of this partnership is to empower and give visibility to artists with disabilities and disseminate knowledge about inclusive works within relevant partnership networks locally. The project is a pilot in engaging and presenting inclusive work in a festival context by building capacity and spreading the knowledge gained during the project. The pilot provides an opportunity to create momentum for more inclusive theatre performances in festival programming.

Focusing on visibility and awareness of inclusive performances within the professional field also adds to the sustainability of the partnership, going beyond a buyer-seller relationship and into a knowledge-exchanging partnership sharing the high-level expertise each of the partners has.

On top of that, the wellbeing of the artists is the highest priority for Step by Step. The partnership is making sure that the performers feel safe all along a physically exhausting tour outside of their hometown, which is also an opportunity and an important experience in their artistic development. Presenting a performance in a public space with disabled artists for the first time requires re-thinking and a change in practice so that the process is as smooth and safe as possible for producers and presenters alike.

Artistic Work

Habrá Que Ponerse Cachas (HQPC) is a playful and powerful inclusive dance-theatre piece. It is a game of meaning, nonsense, charm, and ingenuity. Flying ideas from a song by Bob Dylan in a movie. The family in the film, the roles of the two brothers.

How do relations between siblings change over time, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. What brings us closer to our siblings? What separates us from them? How is family part of our identity? What drives us away from it?

These flying ideas become a celebration of movement. Maylis Arrabit, Artistic Director, worked for more than a year in collaboration with the dancers Xabier Madina and Ebi Soria. This process reflects her vision of creation in inclusive dance. The disabled and non-disabled dancers are equals in the creation of movement. Each has their place in it. HQPC has been touring nationally and internationally since 2018.

More than the technicality and the physicality of the dancing, what artistically makes sense to me in this dance piece is to tell a story and find the quality of movement in simplicity, uniqueness, complicity, wittiness and, above all, the small details that make all the difference and virtuosity. – Maylis Arrabit, Artistic Director

First presentation by Step by Step is on Thursday 2 June 2022 at 16:00 and 17:15 CEST presented by Helsingør Teater in Helsingør, Denmark. Find out how you can participate!

More Information

You can find other presentations by Step by Step on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the June Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © Katrin Aldonondo

# data[].attributes.body
Connecting Cloughjordan Ecovillage to continental Europe via land, sea and dance

For the partners behind SlowMo - Instant Dissidence (Ireland), Ipogia Skini (Cyprus), Fondazione Romaeuropa (Italy), Helsingør Teater (Denmark), In Between Time (UK), Västsvenska Turnerande Sommar Teatern (VTST) (Sweden) - slow travel is not merely a way of traversing geography and saving on carbon emissions: they have turned it into a framework for creating their work.

SlowMo is a participatory work: the presenting partners in destination countries will identify people who, whilst residents of that country, have connections to cities/countries on the routes Instant Dissidence are slowly travelling through to reach presenting destinations. Maybe these people were born there, or they fell in love there, or they studied there. They will be co-creators of the work and the artistic work will be about their memories of those cities, as the partnership travels through them.

Yet as time is money, SlowMo has re-thought the traditional financial model for dance creation and touring because, if one were to operate on a consecutive creative/touring model, the costs of the project would double. So by collapsing the creative process into the travel journey, the cost is cut in half, making the project financially viable.

The partnership will tour with a troupe of six from Cloughjordan Ecovillage (Ireland) by land and sea to destinations in Cyprus, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and the UK. The final presentation is an outdoor promenade performance: the “mapping” of the project’s travel route directly onto a section of the city, and audiences 'travel the project’s journey', encountering the different dance works/cities as they journey through the work.

By creating participatory dance as a travelling gift for audiences, and by presenting via mapping it onto a neighbourhood, SlowMo doesn’t impose work on a place and people. Instead, SlowMo works with the stories, people, and geography of a place. As a work co-created with non-professional artists, the partnership is also empowering voices of underrepresented professionals offering people who might not be considered “creatives” the opportunity to be seen as such, giving visibility to their stories and experiences.

SlowMo is also trialling a digital version with their presentation in Rome to see if it could provide a future model for the touring of SlowMo without any travel.

Artistic Work

SlowMo is a participatory outdoor dance work by Ireland-based company Instant Dissidence, travelling from Cloughjordan Ecovillage (Ireland) by land and sea to destinations in Cyprus, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and the UK.

The initial development of SlowMo was originally commissioned by Buffer Fringe Festival (Cyprus), funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, with additional support by IMPACT (Imagining Together - Platform for Arts, Culture and Conflict Transformation) and additional development funding by the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris). An Instant Dissidence production.

First presentation of SlowMo is on Sunday 29 May 2022 at 10:00, 16:00 and 18:00 CEST presented by Ipogia Skini in Limassol, Cyprus. Find out how you can participate!

More Information

You can find other presentations by SlowMo on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the May Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © Jemma Stein

# data[].attributes.headline
Habitat: Europe - Large Scale, Small Footprint

# data[].attributes.subject
Habitat: Europe - Large Scale, Small Footprint

# data[].attributes.body
Touring large scale artistic works across Europe

Habitat: Europe - made up of MAYK (UK), Rosendal International Theatre (Norway), REDPLEXUS (France), and Something Great / Aires de Sousa Silveira & Wallisch GbR (Germany) - is a Perform Europe partnership that boldly reimagines what touring of large-scale, participatory work across borders can look like. It brings together a celebrated international artist, Doris Uhlich, and local residents in each location, creating radical, inspiring performance work, and fostering new relationships between partners.

The partnership engages and brings visibility to a vast and diverse group of local participants (professionals and non-professionals, people of different ages, genders, races) around the artistic work. These individuals will collectively form the heart of the work, creating a unique picture of the people residing in each location.

This large-scale, ambitious partnership, fully aware of the significant impact their production will have on each location, will hit the road with a small company and travelling will not involve freight or other carbon-intensive travel methods. They will experiment with livestreaming presentations around a city during their tour stop in Trondheim.

Throughout their Perform Europe project, a monthly online forum will also take place. It will offer space for both staff at different levels of each partnership and participants to think, reflect, and share their experiences.

Artistic Work

In Habitat by Doris Uhlich, naked bodies flick, vibrate, and slap against each other to electronic sounds and abstract techno tracks. The performers celebrate their unity in diversity. As individuals and as a crowd at the same time, they conquer the space in a choreography that is captivating, highly energetic and, at times, collectively reposing. The space is transformed into a “habitat” full of unexpected life forms – the audience moves about freely in the available space.

The first presentation from Habitat: Europe takes place on Saturday 14 May 2022 at 20:00 CEST presented by REDPLEXUS in Marseilles, France. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can find other presentations of Habitat: Europe on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the May Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © Theresa Rauter

# data[].attributes.body
Engaging local people to make a powerful statement

The core artistic work of this Perform Europe partnership, WOODS, calls for environmental awareness. It’s a large-scale open air live performance that engages local people to make a powerful and strong statement. Based on research that brings together dance, live performance, and visual arts, the artistic work creates unique landscapes in the cities, pursuing the idea of impermanence and instability of the body, nature, climate and collective practices.

Woods is a Big Pulse Dance Alliance co-production, co-produced by New Baltic Dance (Lithuania), International Dance Festival TANEC PRAHA (Czech Republic), Sismògraf Dance Festival (Catalonia – Spain) and Julidans (The Netherlands), presented by Tanz im August/HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Germany), co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, and produced and managed by Linha de Fuga Associação Cultural (Portugal). In the framework of Perform Europe, the partners join forces with Dance Umbrella Limited (UK), Lietuvos šokio informacijos centras (Lithuania), In Between Time (UK) and STHLM DANS (Sweden) in order to make not only a sustainable performance, but also a sustainable tour.

The choreography and the structure makes the artistic work very minimalistic as there is no need for theatrical lights, sound systems or audience guidance, allowing the partnership to tour the piece with only four artists and to invite and involve local participants. On location, two-day workshops for local participants are being created to discuss the concepts of the piece and to practice and rehearse the choreography with costumes. The partnership also upcycles collaborating with large factories and fashion designers to get donations from textile waste for their costumes. The partnership is also keeping the well-being of participants in mind offering child care and sign language interpretation.

Artistic Work

While upside down, the body inverts space and questions time. For how long can the body resist? For how long can the forest resist? A research by Clarice Lima together with Catarina Saraiva, Nina Fajdiga and Aline Bonamin, WOODS inquires about a collective way for us to resist, to persist, to carry through potentialities against the city concrete, the lack of nature, the climate changes, the missing trees and the forgotten woods.

Next presentation of WOODS is on Friday 13 May 2022 at 13:00 + 15:00 CEST presented by STHLM DANS in Stockholm, Sweden. Find out how you can participate!

More Information

You can find other presentations by WOODS on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the May Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © Patricia Araujo

# data[].attributes.body
Bringing high quality performances to rural areas

Crossing Borders: A European Rural Touring Project brings diverse, high quality work to rural communities with the support of local volunteers. The project enhances community cohesion and gives rural audiences access to performances through a sustainable touring model. Research on rural touring shows that the carbon footprint of rural touring is at least 30% less than that of a show in a town-based theatre with more than 60% of audiences living less than 5 km from a village venue.

This Perform Europe project is being delivered by 11 partners from 8 European countries - Crying Out Loud (UK), Take Art Limited (UK), Art Fraction Foundation (Poland), Creative Association Fish Eye (Lithuania), SINUM Theatre Laboratory Association (Hungary), Nova sit z.s. (Czech Republic), Creative Kernow (UK), Festival Sismograf - OlotCultura (Spain), SA Eesti Tantsuagentuur (Estonia), Pro progressione (Hungary), Teatro 4Garoupas (Germany).

The majority of the partners are part of SPARSE Network (Supporting and Promoting the Arts in Rural Settlements of Europe) and for some this is their first experience of organising rural touring. By building on the experience and research findings of SPARSE, the partnership is developing cross-border touring and presenting performing arts works by utilising the resources of hyperlocal networks and communities. The collaboration and connectedness of the partnership is apparent in the geographic spread of partners and the range of producers and presenters represented therein.

Sustainability weaves through the partnership. The partnership's digital element is a first for the presenting partners. By making the live work available online, Rural Touring maximises the combined features of social media and digital distribution to extend the geographical reach of a live work, deepen community engagement, and raise awareness of contemporary circus. Rural Touring is also exploring how to balance environmental sustainability prioritising overland, slow travel of their small scale artist companies with the well-being of the artists themselves.

Artistic Works

KUUKI is a dance and performance installation that is suitable for babies aged 0–2 years and their adult carers. Kuuki is the Japanese word for air. Japanese script defines it simultaneously as sky, atmosphere and energy. Through gentle movement, sound and images, the artists create a magical space and an inspirational experience.

Routine by Company Zid performed by Said Mouhssine is an acrobatic comedy show suitable for audiences of all ages from 5 years plus. It tells the story of a man stuck in a room, with nothing to do. Sleeping is a fight against boredom but no matter what he does, he can’t even sleep. Routine is about hope and pushing personal boundaries in order to bring about change.

The first presentation of KUUKI is on Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 15:30 CEST presented by Teatro 4Garoupas in Martfeld, Germany. Find out how you can participate!

More Information

You can find other presentations by Crossing Borders on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the April Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: Magnitudini by Michela Paolini

© Stefano Baioni

# data[].attributes.body
Rewriting the topography of cities with boundaries and apps

Cities by Night Across Borders centres on Valentina Medda’s ongoing, participatory project Cities by Night, which deals with women’s perception of danger in the urban environment. The project, conceived specifically for each city, bridges the gap between arts institutions and the surrounding communities through the involvement of local women who represent a broad demographic.

Made up of Associazione Culturale Immaginare Orlando APS (Italy), ARTPOLIS (Kosovo), Rosendal International Theatre (Norway), and Valentina Medda (Italy), the partnership is creating a model for learning, research, and policy-making, with Medda’s project as the case-study. The nature of the artistic work offers a viable economic model for touring and distribution as the artistic work has different iterations: it’s an exhibition, a series of guided walks, an experiential workshop with a performative lecture, and a delegated performance making it easy to tour and adapt to any context and the needs of a presenter.

The project is environmentally responsible as only Medda travels without a set, and the work produces very minimal production waste. The partnership also honours the process of spending time and engaging with the local community to develop the artistic piece.

On top of that, a digital app, a digital archive of sorts, is being developed to help both realise the project and present its outcome. The hope is to make it possible for Cities by Night to travel alone in the future through remote supervision without the artist being present, which would make the project replicable and more sustainable.

Artistic Work

Cities by Night is an ongoing site-specific, participatory project dealing with women’s perception of danger in the urban environment. Women of different ethnic backgrounds and of various ages are invited to explore the streets of their city after sunset, avoiding crossing areas where they feel uncomfortable. In doing so, they subjectively rewrite the topography of the city, drawing new borders that are physical, emotional, and political.

Although the explored city is the same, each woman’s map is different, showing eventually the biases behind our notion of danger and how shared beliefs, social belonging, and cultural background contribute to creating the roles of victim and aggressor, unawarely endorsing conservative politics of control through bio-politics. The project results in either a series of maps where the “unsafe areas” are covered with black ink or in a guided nocturnal walk led by a woman along the border of the “dangerous” zone and meant for one member of the audience at a time. The performative iteration of the project can also happen as a delegated performance, with the artist coordinating remotely the group of participants through the help of a digital app.

The first presentation is on Thursday 28 April 2022 at 18:00 CEST presented by Associazione Culturale Immaginare Orlando APS in Bergamo, Italy. Find out how you can participate!

More Information

You can find other presentations by Cities by Night on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the April Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © Valentina Medda

# data[].attributes.body
Boosting regional talent through touring in the CEEC

The risk of touring regional works within Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) is still considered high as resources in some parts of the region are still scarce and local audiences are more eager to attend works of internationally acclaimed dance artists. So regional talent continues to go unnoticed. The East is Best informal network was established in 2020 to develop connections, increase the visibility of regional artists, and uncover new projects.

As part of Perform Europe, the East is Best partnership - made up of Exodos Ljubljana (Slovenia), Pekinpah - Spider Festival (Slovenia), UA Association “Contemporary Dance Platform” (Ukraine), Kulturanova (Serbia), Dance Week Festival | Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance (Croatia), Workshop Foundation (Hungary) - has taken the opportunity to elevate the visibility of local talent by building a bigger network, including more partners from the region, touring 13 performance art works, and further developing its digital platform.

The nature of the partnership is rooted in balance and equity between the partners as they symmetrically share their know-how, experiences, and resources, to enhance live communication between regional producers, artists, and audiences. The partnership is also implementing inclusive principles of social justice and commitments to human and societal well-being while promoting sustainable artistic practices.

The digital platform is an experimental, non-hierarchical space for exchange that connects and bolsters dance art professionals, fosters new projects, and grows the CEEC market glocally.

The selected performances are scheduled to tour physical and virtual venues in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Budapest, Riga, and Kyiv.

13 Artistic Works

The essential artistic aim of the East is Best project consists of touring productions of various performative artistic projects from the region. 13 performances were selected by the project partners from a pool of artists.

Selected artistic works, also presented simultaneously and archived on the partners’ digital platforms, will be on tour in spring 2022, accompanied by invited artists’ workshops aiming to further develop and empower local dance communities and to create new collaborative opportunities. A guest critic/journalist will also join each tour to study, reflect and promote local dance scenes in various countries.

The project, with its mirrored extension in the digital world, is designed to support and enhance the touring of regional works through the established East is Best network, thus contributing to new shared experiences, discovery and promotion of fresh and innovative regional talents.

The road to the moon by Rade Obradović and Katarina Bućić (Kulturanova, Serbia)

Inter-view by Žigan Krajnčan (Exodos, Slovenia)

Poslukh by Khrystyna Slobodianiuk (AU Contemporary Dance Platform, Ukraine)

Love will Tear us a Part by Saša Božić / de facto (de facto, Croatia)

Drift by David Somló (Workshop foundation, Hungary)

Together by Leja Jurišić and Marko Mandić (Pekinpah and Via Negativa, Slovenia)

Healers by Jasna Vinovrski (Croatia)

Love me tender by Žigan Krajnčan (Exodos, Slovenia)

Don’t touch my eyes by Adrijana Danchevska (Skopje Dance Theater, North Macedonia)

Our family garden by Smirna Kulenović (Bosnia)

Shamebox by Willy Prager and Iva Sveshtarova (Brain Store Project, Bulgaria)

Annihilation by Yaroslav Kainar and Totem Dance Theatre (AU Contemporary Dance Platform, Ukraine)

In Horizon by Gundega Rēdere and Association PARTY (Dance festival LAIKS DEJOT, Latvia)

The next presentation is a physical and a digital presentation of Poslukh on Monday 18 April 2022 at 19:00 (CEST) presented by Dance Fest Skopje in Skopje, North Macedonia. Find out how you can attend!

More Information

You can find other presentations by East is Best on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the April Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

====================

# data[].attributes.body
The ecologically and somatically sustainable circus tour

In this project, Acting for Climate (Norway) is joining forces with Festival Sismògraf - OlotCultura (Spain), Pepe Arts (Germany), and DYNAMO Workspace for Circus and Performing Arts (Denmark) to bring the forest performance BARK on tour to Catalonia, Germany, and Denmark, and set new standards of sustainability (and improve them along the way) and experiment with how art can continue to be a catalyst of change. The partnership explores how international touring can be made sustainable in terms of ecology, remuneration, and mental and physical health, and what is actually required to rethink the existing structures.

In a scene where programming favours men, BARK is a forest-specific circus performance with a majority female cast that deals with climate change, and invites the audience to physically connect with the forest. The partnership is emphasising social, physical, and financial sustainability throughout their entire tour across Europe using bikes and trains as much as possible.

A major part of sustainable touring for Bark is the well-being of artists. Circus artists are used to performing while injured, simply because they often have no other choice. Not only must the show go on, but they are also often dependent on carrying on for financial reasons. The partnership is ensuring that tour planning happens and is implemented in a way that takes the physical and mental health of the artists and crew into account, and they will gather and share best practices from what they’ve learned.

Having more time in each place to create deeper connections, planning the tour with the time to travel by land in mind, and aiming for fair wages for the artists, including the preparations; these are all elements that come into play for BARK when making new norms of sustainability.

All the performances are free, and one presentation will be filmed, recorded and live streamed to ensure a wider visibility of the partnership and to make the presentations accessible to all.

Artistic Work

BARK is a poetic, spectacular, and thought-provoking contemporary circus performance for a forest, an audience, and five performing artists. Played site- specifically in and with your local forest, BARK is about reconnecting with each other and with nature. The forest, the soil and the trees are the main characters of the performance; they co-create the piece together with the performers, climate scientists and outside eyes.

The performance combines a physical expression of group acrobatics, vertical dance, dance and theatre with live music and poetic text, all performed up in, between, with and around the trees. Through being nature, reconnecting, and living utopia, BARK aims to convey a sensory experience that can change perspectives on our human natures, as a part of the biosphere.

BARK deals with climate change and the possibility of social change. Sustainability is essential in the whole process and working methods. The show is site-specific and is adapted and individual to each forest.

The first presentation of BARK is on Thursday 7 April 2022 at 17:30 CEST presented by Festival Sismograf - OlotCultura in Olot, Spain. Attendance is free. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can find other presentations by BARK on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the April Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © Cosmin Cirstea www.yourphotostory.dk

# data[].attributes.body
Empowering producers for bespoke touring

At a time when we are emerging from a pandemic and into a state of human displacement and climate emergency, the partners of Performing Futures are bringing people together in local neighbourhoods and inspire them to imagine better futures, and also meet remotely, through interactive, online performance, to consider what should be passed down from our cities, times and cultures to future generations.

The artistic works in this partnership, Billennium and To Those Born Later, both reflect on the present through the future and use technologies to enable participation. Billennium is an Augmented Reality tour of the future of a place. To Those Born Later is an online show in which people from different countries discuss what should go into a time capsule to be opened in 150 years.

Billennium will tour 3 cities, with new versions adapted for BBK OFF Festival, Bilbao, International Theater Days in Belgrade, and PLACCC Festival, Budapest. To Those Born Later will be performed online 3 times, hosted once by each festival and promoted locally. This will test 2 new approaches to international touring: Billennium explores deeper engagement with communities, leading to a work that is re-made with and for specific neighbourhoods and shown outside in public spaces; To Those Born Later engages local audiences without travelling, facilitating meaningful exchanges across these European contexts.

With the presentation partners of this project, IKUSEEARTE in Spain, Students’ City Cultural Center in Serbia, and Hungary’s Artopolis Association/PLACCC Festival, producers Uninvited Guests, Duncan Speakman and Fuel Theatre aim to establish strong connections between people and places, both locally and internationally.

Artistic Work

Billennium is a theatrical guided tour, not of historic sites, but of a city’s futures, on which you walk through time to the locations of utopian and dystopian science fictions. Future architecture appears before your eyes, and you hear what different worlds might sound like. Accompanied by archaeologists of the future, you carry mobile devices that interpret and visualise traces of what’s to come. The tour concludes with an opportunity to design tomorrow’s city together and see the buildings you imagine layered onto the architecture of today using AR (augmented reality). Livestreamed, multichannel audio immerses you in sci-fi location sounds and speculative architecture is drawn in real-time over the existing buildings.

Billennium is different every time it is performed, re-made uniquely for specific places. It continues Uninvited Guests’ exploration of how technologies can facilitate the co- creation of performance with participating audiences, who are invited to share in the work’s authorship, shape its outcome, and do some social dreaming together. Utopian and dystopian thinking are used as critical tools, enabling participants to reflect on local changes or plans for redevelopment and to imagine preferred futures.

Made with creative technologists Michele Pannegrossi and Luca Biada (Fenyce) and animator Sam Steer. Originally commissioned by Watershed Media Centre and University of Bristol’s Smart Internet Lab, for their Layered Realities Platform, 2018.

To Those Born Later (International Collection) is an interactive online event, which brings together groups from different countries to discuss what should go into a time capsule to be opened in 150 years. What do you want to save for our children’s children’s children’s children? What do you want to pass down to future inhabitants of the world?

Join Uninvited Guests and Fuel in preserving something of you, your community and culture, for those who are yet to be born. Every show will be different, made with and for its audience. The content of the time capsule is chosen by those in each meeting and added to a growing online archive. Covid and the climate crisis have made us more conscious of how we live in one world and how our problems and our dreams for the future need to be looked at on an international basis. In response to this unique moment in history, To Those Born Later (International Collection) will bring geographically distant people together for live connection and debate, about our legacy and what matters. The aim is to enable exchanges between people in different cities and countries, around what personal objects should be passed down and what from our cultures we should take care of.

The first presentation of Billennium is on Thursday 7 April 2022 at 13:00 CEST presented by IKUSEEARTE at BBK OFF in Bilbao, Spain. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can find other presentations by Performing Futures on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the April Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © Boudewijn Bollmann

# data[].attributes.body
Trailblazing cross-border touring in Central-Eastern Europe

In the current European landscape, the voices of underrepresented artists from and within Eastern and Central Europe are scarce and while the interest to tour east to east is high, it is hard to do. In these regions, funds for international mobility are barely available and collaborations to tour cross-border is usually possible within larger European projects and less so between Eastern European, Balkan and Eastern Partnership countries. Therefore, in preparation for the 2nd step of Perform Europe, SÍN Arts, Hungary, sought to enlarge their cross-border connections beyond their relatively small network and deliberately reached out to potential partners within the Central-Eastern European region.

The result of this is East Goes to East, a Perform Europe partnership that is breaking the mould. The partnership is exploring touring east to east and is made up of seven relatively small partners of producers and NGOs that work closely with artists:  SÍN Arts and Culture Centre (Hungary), Zavod EN-KNAP (Slovenia), UA Association “Contemporary Dance Platform” (Ukraine), Association of Theater Pedagogues (Poland), Fundația Tranzit Foundation (Romania), Association for Independent Theatre (Bulgaria) and Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance (Croatia).

Within this Perform Europe project, the choreography, the performative-participative walk, and movement workshops will be taken to five different locations in Central-Eastern Europe, with the primary aim of strengthening the network of the region through physical presence and collaboration with the partners by recreating the interdisciplinary artwork in each city.

The project offers non-hierarchical participation to the viewers. The project abolishes the gap between performer and viewer; the performance allows for a high level of freedom of experience whilst the participative-performative walk enables participants to experience contemporary dance themselves. With this, the aim is to mitigate the general idea that contemporary dance is an elitist, highbrow genre, to bring performers and the audience closer.

The choreography focuses on positioning static and moving bodies in space, cramming matching and mismatched systems, and examining the distance between bodies. The participative-performative walk recreates the nine stages of the choreography with local, non-professional participants.

Although the focal point is a physical presentation, the partnership uses digital tools to involve a wider public. In some locations, panes will be part of the artistic work so that audiences will be able to experience the performative walk on their own after the event has left with Google Maps and QR codes. Participants in all locations will also be able to use a QR code to publish their photos of their experience and, over time, the impressions from seven different locations will accumulate on a dedicated website.

Slow touring is top-of-mind for this partnership as only five people are travelling and by road or train on at least half of the tour. Additionally, the artistic work in and of itself has a small carbon footprint as technical equipment needs are minimal, cutting the partnership’s environmental impact even further.

Artistic Work

Mechanics of Distance focuses on positioning static and moving bodies in space, cramming matching and mismatched systems into it, and examining the distance between bodies. The piece presents encounter-variations of bodies in space, stimulating free interpretation. Episodic events drawn from social and personal contexts represent emotional, moral, or intellectual situations.

In the choreography, the direct, tangible togetherness and closeness meet a more elevated, solemn dimension. Supplemented by a more political dimension with the aim of finding an answer to the question of how far the limits of dance can be extended, what are the endless dimensions of experimentation, and the open space waiting to be explored? The performers from three very different backgrounds (a classically trained ballet dancer, a dancer with a folk dance background, and a dancer trained with contemporary techniques) and the musician interfere with each other’s personal spaces, the space around them, and that of the viewers.

The choreography of Máté Mészáros titled Mechanics of Distance took another form during the time of the pandemic. It started off as a plan B to be able to share the work while spaces are closed, gatherings are prohibited, whilst preserving the physical experience of arts. He developed a participative walk to enact nine stages of the choreography. The series of movements and constellations of the piece has been translated into nine pictograms, drawn by a Hungarian visual artist.

The participants can follow a route – on their own or together – and recreate movements, become dancers themselves, get familiar with the collaboration of moving bodies thus stepping into a quasi-performative role from that of a viewer.

The first programme series of Mechanics of Distance is starting on Friday 1 April 2022 at presented by Fundația Tranzit Foundation in Cluj, Romania. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can find other presentations by East Goes to East on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the April Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © László Bellai

# data[].attributes.body
Amplifying experiences and points of view of first generation immigrant artists

Becoming [...] is a long term project that utilises performance workshops and presentations in an exhibition setting to talk about national identity through the lens of first generation immigrant experiences. Part exhibition, part documentary theatre, it is adapted and transformed to different nations and their local context using a project/creation model that works locally with different communities and builds on common themes of immigration and nation building.

Made up of Lora V Krasteva Ltd (UK), Terén, Center for Experimental Theatre (Czech Republic), REPLIKA Educational Theatre Center (Romania), and Oyoun Kultur NeuDenken gUG (Germany), the timely partnership is testing Becoming’s framework internationally for the first time. At the centre of the partnership is a residency style touring that allows for local connections between first generation communities, migrant artists, and the producer.

To make the work relevant to local contexts, the partnership is commissioning local migrant artists, creating a common evaluation framework and exchanging skills, in order to build relationships where there might not exist any yet. Lora will also share her knowledge of working with community organisations, as well as professional artists; her experience in advocacy and engaging with policy making and her work with cultural spaces wanting to better fulfil their civic role.

The residency style also means that the travel cost and carbon footprint are minimum, with only the lead artist and her producer as well as a few artefacts travelling abroad each time. There are no sets and the public presentation of work is adapted to the spaces available and the technical equipment on location.

Becoming [...] raises questions on how artistic concepts and frameworks that respond to local contexts and communities can be toured in a sustainable way. How can they ensure local, long-term legacies for artists, audiences and communities alike? How can they both be reactive to the world outside the artistic space, whilst creating a sense of Belonging within? How can they build meaningful transnational collaborations?

The first leg of the tour has already shown tangible outcomes and the first presentation hasn’t even happened yet - the open call has put 30 new, first generation, local artists on the venue's radar, artist collective meetings have taken place in Prague and Brno, and 12 writer’s from Ukraine, Russia, and  Belarus were offered writing commissions to reflect on the themes of ‘Becoming’.

Artistic Works

Becoming Czech: An exploration of national identity and belonging is a co-created project combining different art forms and exploring the relationship of the first generation of migrants in Brno and the Czech Republic to the themes of national identity, belonging and the broader issues of migration.

Artists Lora Krasteva, Sonya Darrow, Alma Lily Rayner, Maa Ry Nguyen and the team at Teren invite you to eat, rest, talk and create together. Over 36h, including a sleepover, Teren’s studio is transformed into a cosy space of sanctuary for all. Food will be provided and cooked communally, there will be semi-structured discussions and spaces to react, share or sit together. Everyone is welcome to drop by, come and go or stay for longer. Families and children are welcome. Activities will be in Czech and English.

Becoming Romanian will run as a co-created performative exhibition in April 2022. Co- produced with Replika, it will explore the relationship of first generation migrants in Bucharest with ideas of national identity, belonging, and wider questions of migration. Over a week, the project will centre the voices of migrant artists and community members, culminating in a sharing that will educate, entertain and inform. Currently open are two paid opportunities to participate with a deadline for 25 March 20:00 (EET): https://www.lorakrasteva.com/becoming-romanian

Becoming Alman will run as a co-created performative exhibition in May 2022. Co- produced with Oyoun, it will explore the relationship of first generation migrants in Berlin with ideas of national identity, belonging, and wider questions of migration. The residency and performance will include the commission of 3 first-generation migrant artists, and paid community engagement which will be unique to the location and experience of those contributing. Centering the voices of migrant artists and community members it will educate, entertain and inform. It will specifically look at ideas of citizenship, identity, and belonging. The commission call out is live until Wednesday 30 March https://www.lorakrasteva.com/becoming-alman

Becoming Czech will take place on Monday 21 March 2022 from 10:00 (CEST) at Studio CED in Brno, Czech Republic. All activities are free.

Find out what is happening when

You can find other presentations by Becoming [...] on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the March Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practises. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in banner: © Hannah Zeffert

# data[].attributes.body
Touring performing arts in virtual reality

Nothing beats a live experience but what if something could? What if you could go to your local community centre, put on a VR headset, and experience dance as you experience dance in a theatre? Springback Ringside is testing how to present and tour a performing arts work with the aid of virtual reality and all its practical implications.

The geographically diverse partnership consists of Aerowaves (UK), Croatian Cultural Centre (Croatia), EN-KNAP Productions (Slovenia), Tanec Praha (Czech Republic), Institution Student Cultural Centre in Novi Sad (Serbia), Workshop Foundation (Hungary), Igor & Moreno / S’Ala Spazio (Italy). What is unique about this project is that the venues/presenters are embracing and supporting the artistic work as the artists themselves do not travel. The project also does not sacrifice the audience’s experience as the event itself is a hybrid one as a live, interactive talk with the artists is part of the presentations.

This project practises a new economic model according to the common conditions that have already been agreed with the dozen artists of the current Aerowaves’ catalogue. They are remunerated not only each time the VR recording is played to an audience, but also with a fee to appear live after that showing to engage in Q&A dialogue with the audience moderated by a Springback writer, who also receives a fee.

While Idiot-Syncrasy is the main artistic work that is touring, partners are showcasing at least one other work from the catalogue. In doing so, the partnership hopes to be sustainable and achieve its long-term goal where the only item that needs to travel is a digital file. For now, this Perform Europe project will care for the environment and foster awareness about ecological concerns while travelling by electric vehicle, train or boat.

Yet the partnership does not seek to replace live experiences. Some presentations are happening in remote or marginalised communities and, by offering such experiences to people living there, Springback Ringside hopes to intrigue imaginations and push audiences towards live experiences.

Artistic Works

Idiot-Syncrasy by Igor & Moreno (Italy) was first presented by Aerowaves in 2015. In the piece, Igor and Moreno started with wanting to change the world with a performance. They felt like idiots. Then they danced a lot. They jumped. They called on the folk traditions of Sardinia and the Basque Country. They sang. They jumped some more. They committed. Now they promise to stick together. They promise to persevere. They promise to do their best.

Inspired by Mary Wigman’s Witch Dance, a “masterpiece of strangeness” as Judith MacKrell put it, in Babae Joy Alpuerto Ritter examines inherited dance vocabularies to embody her own witch character. Bringing together her roots in Philippine folk and classical dance with movements from hip hop and voguing; she reimagines what it means to summon the power and mystical practices of a female dancer as a witch. BABAE, which means ‘woman’ in Tagalog (Philippine language), is a one-woman dialogue between the animalistic and sensual qualities of ritual and power.

In Masterwork, cultural references and whimsical movement unfold through a set of vignettes, exploring ways in which the body sheds cultural meanings and symbols projected upon it over the course of time. By using objects as costumes that block movement, the body reshapes its autonomy in a flurry of functional obstructions. Each and every body is a masterpiece in its own right, created by the self and the environment. By modifying the body, Cuhorka and Molnár manipulate the surroundings and summon the freedom to redefine.

The first presentation of Idiot-Syncrasy will take place on 21 March 2022 at 17:00 (CEST) presented by SKCNS Fabrika in Novi Sad, Serbia. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can find other presentations by Aerowaves - Springback Ringside on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the March Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in the banner: © Andrej Lamut

# data[].attributes.body
Making Theatre Arts inclusive and accessible for young audiences

Across Europe, it is a challenge to present and tour inclusive shows meant for young audiences as the financing and financial returns are limited whereas the demands on the performers’ are considerable. The interactive nature of the performance requires the performers to be in constant improvisation mode and be responsible for maintaining physical and emotional safety of their audience. So how can we encourage the programming of inclusive performances for children and young people to become a regular practice?

IIAN Making Waves looks to do exactly this. Made up of Dansema Dance Theater (Lithuania), Mind the Gap (UK), Segni d’Infanzia Associazone Culturale (Italy), Teatro 4Garoupas (Germany), Assitej Cyprus (Cyprus), International Inclusive Arts Network (Denmark), Fundacja Teatr 21 (Poland), AREAL - Space for choreographic development (Romania), this Perform Europe partnership is presenting two inclusive artistic works for children and young people: World Without Eyes by Dansema Dance Theater, a dance performance for Blind and partially-sighted children; and the film A Little Space by Mind the Gap and Gecko, which, led by an inclusive cast, explores what happens when five people living together connect and disconnect from each other.

What is unique about this partnership is that by taking theatre to young people with disabilities and their carers through an inclusive network of European presenters they are essentially building the infrastructure for future collaborations across Europe. The partnership raises visibility of underrepresented artists and audiences while offering an opportunity to develop an audience database from scratch. Additionally, the project employs digital tools for one of the artistic works as a means to reach their audience.

The partnership is also practising fair payment for the producers (dancers, choreographers, etc.) and for presenters seeking sustainable collaboration between the countries, where living costs and state financial support for touring differs greatly.

The sharing of skills and resources has already made a practical impact - some presenters have had to reconsider how accessible they are and adapt their venues to the needs of audiences with disabilities. More is sure to come as a compact team of three tour the partnership and collaborate with local dancers on the various tour stops.

Artistic Works

World without Eyes is an interactive dance performance for diverse sighted (Blind and partially-sighted) children; where each performance is part of ongoing research into this area of work. World Without Eyes invites young audiences to become active participants and, together with two dancers, explore the world around them through movement and movement only. Dansema Dance Theater seeks genuine inclusion with their audiences who may also be d/deaf and/or neurodivergent and proposes the idea that all people are different in their abilities and should be recognised as such, regardless of the origin of differences – genetic, inherited by birth, acquired by trauma, etc.

The performance is constructed to allow the child audiences to join the exploration of the dancers’ movements, costumes, and scenery when they feel ready to. They can stay in the process for as long as they wish to and leave the action when they feel the need to. Dance in this project is presented through touching and sensing movement vibrations instead of hearing instructions or descriptions. Dansema Dance Theater believes that dance, as a non-verbal communication and expression form, should be perceived and expressed nonverbally.

A Little Space is a film for neurodivergent and neurotypical teenagers alike. Set in an apartment block, the film follows the lives of five people and explores what happens when they connect and disconnect from each other, whether through choice or through isolation. Drawing on the performers’ own experiences, A Little Space uses movement, imagery, sound, and lighting to portray the needs, desires, and fears of the characters. Originally a theatre show, Mind the Gap and Gecko worked with award-winning Newcastle-based Meerkat Films to bring the piece to the screen and promise that audiences can expect ‘an exciting mash-up of theatre and film’. The making of the film was made possible with funding from Arts Council England and The Space.

Artistic Director Joyce Lee and two performers from A Little Space will run a live, online workshop on inclusive practice and improvised storytelling to accompany the film.

First presentation of World Without Eyes will take place on Sunday 20 March 2022 at 11:00 (CEST)  presented by Fundacja Teatr 21 in Warsaw, Poland. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can find other presentations by IIAN Making Waves on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the March Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practises. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in the banner: World Without Eyes - Dansema Dance Theater © Laura Vanseviciene

# data[].attributes.headline
Horse In Love / The Absurdity Of Love – Connecting Europe

# data[].attributes.subject
Horse In Love / The Absurdity Of Love – Connecting Europe

# data[].attributes.body
Inclusivity Through Art

The partners behind this Perform Europe partnership – En Dynamei Ensemble (Greece), Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre (Poland), Teatro com (Portugal), CUARTZ LTD. (Bulgaria), Ipogia Skini (Cyprus) – share a common vision for inclusion in how art is created and experienced, overcoming any disability, of any kind. Horse In Love focuses on empowering voices of underrepresented professionals and giving them visibility, especially artists with disabilities, as well as being relevant and inclusive to the communities they tour.

Horse in love / The Absurdity of Love is the outcome of En Dynamei Ensemble’s research and exploration of universal aspects of human individuality, love, and sex. It’s a big, complex production usually only possible to be put on at large festivals. The collaboration that Perform Europe is fostering gives both the En Dynamei ensemble, made up of 28 artists and technicians, and presenters of smaller venues the opportunity to bring this inclusive work to international audiences for the first time.

The presenting partners of this project vary in many ways, from facilities to audiences, from their wider context to good practices of engaging the local (and other) communities. Because the artistic work is big in scale, the partnership has also embraced digital solutions to explore how to present a complex work in unconventional venues or smaller facilities whilst not compromising the production of the work. These hybrid presentations will also help audiences to access high quality artistic work, which would otherwise be hard to reach or afford.

The performance is a mixed ability production exploring and enabling inclusivity through art by inviting viewers to really think about love, to witness commonalities everybody shares, and bridge the perceived gap between people with disability and people without, when it comes to love. The post-performance discussions and workshopsin each context serve to create a safe space for open communication, allowing audiences to openly question love, sex, and what it means to be inclusive.

The ultimate goal of this partnership is to create connections between presenters, artists, and audiences to engage in more creative and inclusive practices and artistic endeavors.

Artistic Works

Love is a smoke made from the fume of sighs. – William Shakespeare

What is love? How do we experience it? Does everyone have access to love? How can such an extraordinary moment lead to an endless fantasy, to a thought that drives us mad? And how can love equate people – as different as they may be – in one and only condition, of being in love?

Horse in Love / The Absurdity of Love, after extensive research, attempts to record the course of an “... Ah!”, an exclamation that accompanies love at first sight, rejection, pain, and pleasure. It is a performance about love, this “disability”, that dominates, torpedoes, motivates, and drives people crazy. A homage to real vitality, libido, a celebration of all senses suppressed by a rigid perception of life. A show that overcomes social barriers, hindering obstacles to talk about instinct, imagination, the forbidden, the soul. A performance that insists on the search for mutual love.

Horse in Love / The Absurdity of Love is the third part of a theatrical trilogy titled The Other Normal, which emerged from En Dynamei Ensemble’s crushing need to share their personal stories openly, and explore the personal and universal aspects of human peculiarity through the light of an artistic event.

The next presentation will take place on 18 March 2022 at 18:30 (CEST) in Sofia, Bulgaria by CUARTZ LTD.

Find out more

You can find other presentations by Horse In Love / The Absurdity Of Love on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the March Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in the banner: © Dimitris Chondropidas

# data[].attributes.body
Tracing The Memories Our Bodies Hold

What memories do our bodies hold? What can our bodies tell us about our past and future selves? Embodied Temporalities is a research, archiving, exhibition, and performance partnership under the artistic direction of Madhumita Nandi. The partnership gives visibility and recognition to artistic works of minorities and issues relevant to identity, non-normativity, participation, class struggles, migration, local and European border policies, and their impact on people’s lives.

Made up of Oyoun (Germany), Birmingham LGBT (UK), Dafa Puppet Theater s.r.o. (Czech Republic), Play Perform Learn Grow (PPLG) (Greece), Föreningen LiveGreen (Sweden), Embodied Temporalities invites cultural practitioners to explore identities, belonging, and embodied memories through diasporic, decolonial, and queer perspectives. What makes Embodied Temporalities unique is the diversity of its infrastructure, the lightweight collaboration model, and the way the artistic work adapts to each new context when touring.

The touring process is rooted in community engagement thereby not imposing values but rather empowering and addressing the needs of the local community. Whether it is in the shape of a residency and workshops in the UK, artistic mediation and live performances in rural/semi-urban neighborhoods in the Czech Republic, or curating nurturing and powering exchanges between performers and refugee audiences through trauma-informed artistic workshops in Greece, it all comes together in an immersive virtual reality at LiveGreen’s Festival Planet. It is clear the partners purposefully chose one another.

Even more so, the artistic works mainly consist of the artists themselves and use a waste minimising approach (using local infrastructure, repurposing materials, energy resources, social wellbeing for a safe and healthy work environment, etc.). As a result, such a collaboration model is bound to leave a positive impact on the environment and economic sustainability as it can be easily repeated and reproduced in times of scarcity.

Artistic Works

Under the artistic direction of Madhumita Nandi, Embodied Temporalities includes two touring projects:

Ilk tracks the roots of tolerated queer practices that go back centuries in Arabic and Muslim societies, basing the performance on 13th century manuscripts, bridging it to all the erasure of modern times, and understanding how queer Arab and Muslim identity can emerge from reclaiming times where queerness and homosexuality were accepted, tolerated and studied. It aims for a queer Arab Muslim futuristic vision that starts with healing through rewriting histories. The social artist and dance movement therapist Ahmad BaBa practices critical collective workshops and emphasises empowerment of bodies of colour and queer affirmative care.

Ancestral Body Noise is a project linking individuals with their own ancestral technology, embodied memory in performance practice, activism and cultural work. These are explorations of how culture, inheritance and archival of rituals in the body continue to transform themselves over time. They continue to open the process to the public, negotiating concepts of home, and the (re)construction of ritual for radical empathy in their political and psycho-spiritual practice. Future-folk musician and life- long psycho-spiritual student Gugulethu ‘Dumama’ Duma takes poetry, movement and sounds as tools of social transformation and healing to migrant communities.

The first presentation of Ilk from Embodied Temporalities takes place on Saturday 26 February 2022 at 18:00 (GMT) at Vivid Projects, Birmingham, UK. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can find other presentations by Embodied Temporalities on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the February Series, a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

# data[].attributes.body
A partnership based on time and curiosity

Time is one of our most valuable, non-renewable resources, and the partners of Beyond Touring - Terén, Center for Experimental Theatre (Czech Republic), Tranzit Foundation (Romania), and Tatwerk (Germany) - have put it front and centre of their project. For this Central-Eastern partnership, sustainability within cultural production can’t be reached without time being valued as a major resource, as time builds connections and helps to develop performances. Time is a big privilege in the contemporary performing arts scene. Therefore, all partners have agreed to invest and share not only their financial resources and know-how but also their time.

One might wonder: How can such focus on time bring innovation to the touring landscape? Well, the producers of the partnership will spend a week with the presenters to adapt to the new environment, meet and engage with local organisers and art scene, present their work, receive feedback and further develop their art piece; in turn, presenters will help producers to get to know the local scene and introduce them to the local art field players.

In practice, this means that the way of presenting the production is never final. The producers and presenters will discuss which presentation options and production models work best in each context where the artistic work will be presented. This allows the partnership to find new ways of using the current infrastructure and adapt to local realities.

Even more so, Beyond Touring is testing the limits of the productions and exploring new ways to present artistic work. They are bringing curiosity not only about the presentations, but also about the environment in which the productions take place.

The goals are to strengthen the Perform Europe partnership that has flourished, share resources and knowledge of specific contexts, develop better forms of presentation of particular productions, and increase the possibility for future collaborations.

The Artistic Works

Reality Surfing by art collective PYL is a non-narrative visual performance, which proposes to the audience to experience an alternative model of coexistence of people and inanimate entities. It uncovers new relations between daily objects through their materiality and presence in a space, acquiring an equivalent value as the presence of a human body. The scenography of the piece comprises a system which exists and functions according to its own rights. It serves and requires a service; it absorbs and triggers; its geometry is meaningless as well as it conveys a feeling of destruction.

Insider: Unwrapping Reality by Cristina Maldonado, Eva Rosemarijn, Lea Kukovičič, Keya Singh is a performance for one audience member that navigates between virtual and physical reality. In our daily life, technology enables us to exist simultaneously in multiple places. We are immersed in a continuous negotiation with things, processes, and people that are not physically present. We commonly identify them as a “virtual presence”, as a sort of representation of an original that exists somewhere else. We place this “copy” at a lower level on the scale of reality as it cannot fully affect us. It cannot be touched and therefore cannot be considered truly real.

The first presentation of Reality Surfing from Beyond Touring takes place on Wednesday 26 January 2022 physically at OC Dornych (in Brno, Czech Republic) from 12:00 CET and online at 19:30 CET. Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can also find further presentations of Beyond Touring on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the January Series, the first of a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Image in the banner: Reality Surfing © Denisa Römerová (Archive of Terén)

# data[].attributes.body
Towards antiracist and intersectional stages

Feminist Futures empowers and raises visibility to the works of Cameroonian-Finnish dance artist Sonya Lindfors and Somalian-Finnish artist Maryan Abdulkarim. Eight European organisations of varying sizes make up the collaboration seeking to turn their Perform Europe partnership into an alternative performance network across Europe. They include - Sonya Lindfors – UTT ry (Finland), Rosendal International Theatre (Norway), RE:LOCATIONS – Digital festival by WILDTOPIA ApS (Denmark), CODA Oslo International Dance Festival (Norway), Oyoun Kultur NeuDenken gUG (Germany), LIFT Festival (UK), Independent Dance (UK), and H2DANCE/Fest en Fest (UK).

Feminist Futures reflects a diverse, BIPOC, women-centered partnership innovating practices for the future. Their long-term strategic aim is to platform and promote together queer, feminist, decolonial, migrant and human-centered artist-led initiatives across Europe.

Both artists focus on questions around Blackness and Black body politics, feminism, representation and power structures, speculative futurities and decolonial dreaming practices.

Feminist Futures also reimagines the link between solidarity and fair collaboration models directly linking the well-being of the artist to a slower, sustainable model, providing space and time to connect to local artists and audiences. By doing so, the artistic work becomes deeply embedded in the local community.

With the live locations being 1000km from the artist’s base in Helsinki, ecological concerns have also been taken into account and mitigated through carbon offsetting, reducing team sizes to a minimum, and reusing and recycling wherever possible.

Besides the live presentations, the partnership is innovating how they reach audiences that have limited access to live arts (money, location, backgrounds and experiences, accessibility of arts spaces) by using the digital works of the artist in their digital presentations.

Collaboration beyond Perform Europe is already in the works planned for Autumn 2022.

Two Artistic Works

Feminist Futures will present two artistic works - We Should All Be Dreaming (WSABD) and Cosmic Latte.

We Should All Be Dreaming focuses on the radical potential of dreaming as a restorative and subversive practice. It comes with a straightforward suggestion: we should all be dreaming radical utopian dreams of common futures. Situating itself somewhere between a collective think tank, choreographed gathering, a performance, and a lecture, the project gently invites the participants to spend time together, listen together and dream together.

Sonya Lindfors’ Cosmic Latte plays with the idea of an utopian future where present, future, and past are present in a boundless, mysterious in-between space. The logic of our thinking has changed, black and white are no longer opposites, but contain one another. The borders are malleable and the meanings mix with each other like liquids. Afrofuturism, contemporary art, West African cosmologies, Sun Ra, and Bach coexist on a stage that is porous, diverse, and beige.

Feminist Futures will host live presentations of WSABD in London (UK), Trondheim (Norway), Oslo (Norwy) and Berlin (Germany), as well as a digital screening at the RE:LOCATIONS Digital Festival (Denmark). The film version of Cosmic Latte will be presented digitally at the RE:LOCATIONS Digital Festival (Denmark).

The first presentation is on Saturday 22 January 2022 online at 13:00 (CEST). Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can also find further presentations of Feminist Futures on the Perform Europe Live map.

______________

This story is part of the January Series, the first of a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Picture in banner: We Should All Be Dreaming. Photo: © Essi Orpana

# data[].attributes.headline
The Art of Conflict and Restorative Dialogues

# data[].attributes.subject
The Art of Conflict and Restorative Dialogues

# data[].attributes.body
Where Choreography And Conflict Resolution Meet

If you had asked us a year ago “What does conflict resolution have to do with new ways of touring?”, we probably would have said “Nothing”. Fast forward to now, The Art of Conflict and Restorative Dialogues has changed our minds. Bringing together a collective of artists, two internationally renowned festivals, and a non-governmental organisation working in the field of restorative justice, this partnership is kicking off the Perform Europe Live programme of 2022.

A geographically balanced partnership, The Art of Conflict and Restorative Dialogues consists of the MichaelDouglas Kollektiv (Germany), the Bucharest Fringe Festival (Romania), the Malta Festival Poznań (Poland), and EFRJ - European Forum for Restorative Justice (Belgium/Italy).

What makes this partnership unique is that it steps away from the “parachute model” of presenting performance art works. Instead, it invites local communities to continuously create, collaborate, and participate by sharing inclusivity practices and restorative skills through the artistic work as well as workshops and masterclasses.

This partnership wants to reimagine public space as a platform for interaction and participation to create opportunities to share newer and more diverse narratives of the social ecology. It innovates traditional touring models by recreating the artistic work on location and involving a lot of people in the process: an audience of artists, restorative justice professionals and wider citizens participates in a public dialogue around the wisdom of conflict (within oneself and with others) as an opportunity for community building.

“The Polarity Party” is an immersive, participative event on polarisation, created by the MichaelDouglas Kollektiv, in collaboration with conflict specialist Dana Caspersen (USA). The artistic work supports community reflections on harm and injustice in different conflict areas, such as justice, education, peacebuilding, families, organisations, schools, communities.

The public event uses movement, senses, and dialogue to enable a process of collective thinking on polarisation and other challenges which are key in our societies. Large groups of participants (max 120) will step into a field of action where choreography and conflict engagement meet. This event is shaped by collective creative processes, in line with other practices, such as restorative justice, meant to create more just, safe, and connected societies.

This partnership also opens up possibilities to engage a wider audience in addition to the festival participants by having access to ERFJ’s local venue network of universities, schools, cultural centers, prisons, and public squares.

The four partners are sharing time and their different yet complementary knowledge in the fields of participative performance arts, social change, creating sustainable and safe spaces for artists and audiences, international events management and cooperation, research, and networks to ensure that the collaboration continues beyond Perform Europe.

The sustainability of the partnership has also been infused with planned events beyond Perform Europe in Autumn 2022 when they will promote their short film and hold virtual public discussions about the project and future cooperation.

The Art of Conflict and Resolution will travel to the Bucharest (Romania), Sassari (Italy), and Poznań (Poland), as well as online. The first presentation is on Saturday 15 January 2022 online at 19:00 (GMT+2). Get your tickets today!

Get Tickets

You can also find further presentations of the Polarity Party on the Perform Europe map.

This story is part of the January Series, the first of a monthly series of stories about Perform Europe partnerships as they test their innovative practices. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive updates about partnerships and their upcoming presentations near you.

Picture in banner: “The Polarity Party”