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After four-years-and-a-half of development, modul-dance arrives to its end. Twenty dancehouses from sixteen countries had the chance to cooperate in a project with the aim to support development, mobility and exchange among dance artists under the umbrella of the European Dancehouse Network.

We are very proud of the work developed in the framework of this project, an example of best practice based on the commitment and the sustainable cooperation of its partners and institutions.

In the project final book we worked to collect, as plural as possible, testimonials by partners and artists participating while addressing many of the key issues that were part and parcel of the project: mobility, community, cooperation, sharing and sustainability at the European level.

Download pdf here.

One of the modul-dance project key elements is the promotion of mobility, so that artists receiving its support follow itineraries across Europe to develop their creative work and present it to different audiences.

Modul-dance presents a collection of modul-dance city guides. Each of the guides in this collection shows a city from the viewpoint of a local artist, who proposes his or her own particular route to artists in transit, seeking to put them in connection with their host city. While these city routes share some basic features, each one is different and in their differences lies a wealth of gazes, aesthetics, approximations to the local and much more. In a word, they form a mirror of the diversity that modul-dance has always fostered. Athens, Barcelona, Bassano del Grappa, Dresden, London, Stockholm, Vienna, Toulouse, Paris and Poznań ready to be discovered.

The ten city guides are available from this link: http://issuu.com/moduldance

Summer 2010, Ljubljana, Slovenia

The end of September 2010, Lyon, France

With the feeling of being taken care of as an artist, even kind of belonging, and more, getting offers for creating a new solo piece we flew back to Ljubljana. I felt very sick on the plane. Never happened before. No worries.

October 2010, Ljubljana

Sun was shining and Clearblue was positive. Checking it up with the doctor. Yes I was pregnant for a month and a half. Tears came out when I had seen a little white spot (heart) beating on the screen. I was happy. Crazy happy. We hadn’t been “working on it”, but I was prepared to have a baby. Though, I immediately started calculating days, months … First child. No clue about whatsoever, what does this mean for a dancer’s body and work and life? Until what month could I work? When can I start again after the child is born? The possibilities I got to create the solo were out for the season 2010/11. My child will be born in May 2011. And the modul-dance contract? I had two years to finish the creation that I proposed. September 2012. Ok. I was more or less sure I could do it. But it felt so very far away. I decided to make the first Modul-research, during the pregnancy. We set the premiere date to June 2012. The first dates were set with Dansens Hus in Stockholm.

February 2011- Stockholm, Sweden

There was another crisis going on – in the studio. Since my work is very body orientated I like to search for physical extremes. My body felt completely alienated to me, I didn’t know my limits anymore.

May 2011

May 2011 – January 2012

I was thinking about the creation a lot. I didn’t have the time and space to read or write at all so I watched all possible performances I could get on video while breastfeeding.

Considering my body, I feel like a grandmother. It is January. I should slowly get in the physical condition. I agreed to work in a short collaborative project to get me starting again and get fit. Six choreographers and dancers were in the show. Work and premiere in Brussels, a quick tour to Zagreb, Ljubljana and Lyon. Everything finished until April. I can work for only a few hours a day but it helps.

February is full of meetings with my team to finalise the theoretical concept for the solo. We were reading a lot of avant-garde theories, from futurist manifests to Valentine de Saint Point and with the topic of revolt to Julia Kristeva.

We set the dates for the residency (second modul) with Hellerau Dresden for April and with Tanzquartier Wien for coproduction in May with a premiere 1st of June.

April 2012- Dresden, Germany

May 2012- Wien, Austria

I don’t know how it was with all the modul-dance artists, but we had a chance to work at three dance houses where the conditions for work were very good and the artistic teams warm and collaborative. We had all the support from them and during these weeks we also got to know each other at least a bit on a personal terms, which makes the experience even more worthwhile. There were times, while organising the moduls, when some misunderstandings occurred, negotiations sometimes took long … but in the end we all managed to get the ideas and realisations straight. And it felt like collaboration.

On the other hand I miss the connection with other modul artists. The first meeting in Lyon was the strongest in this sense.

Goran Bogdanovski, the initial link to modul-dance was supportive and understanding through the whole process. Kino Šiška organised the modul-dance festival as part of Co-festival in Slovenia where we pre-premiered the solo performance 27^th May. Large stage. The next day we were back in Vienna.

We premiered Ballet of Revolt on the 1st of June in TQW. Just as planned. Successfully! Just as we’ve wished.

We began the creation of Home for Broken Turns at Station Zuid in Tilburg. We had two weeks in their fantastic studio. It was a new group of dancers so it was a time to meet and explore ideas. To begin a process in a residency situation like this is, I find, invaluable. The process of getting to know each other is accelerated when you are removed from your usual environment and living together in a bungalow in the Dutch woods. I had an idea about a group of women waiting for a friend/fellow/outcast to return but those two weeks in Tilburg made it clear to me that this was a piece about a family and the dynamics of that family formed in the Station Zuid studio.

Our second modul-dance residency was more familiar to us. We spent a week at the Place Theatre in London. It was a privilege to have so much time in a theatre space and to work with the technical elements of the show.

We then spent some time rehearsing the show in the English countryside before beginning our tour with a premier back where we started in Tilburg. That was a hard day for me as there was a sense of a circle but I hadn’t finished my journey with the piece and found it hard to share with such a high profile crowd. I became very aware on that evening of being part of a marketplace – I had a product and here was a room full of people who could buy it if they liked it, but because I didn’t feel the product was ready to go on sale yet it was not a comfortable feeling. Like a greengrocer selling unripe bananas – I couldn’t do it with conviction but I knew that given more time what I had would be amazing.

Being a modul-dance artist showed me that there is a bit of a problem in the dance world, not just in the dance world. We left Station Zuid and found out a few weeks later it was going to be closed due to funding cuts. We performed to a fine audience at Mercat de les Flors but the artists we spoke to there were very worried about the situation in Spain and there is a similar anxiety in the UK. It feels like the aim of modul-dance is an excellent one as it offered an opportunity to meet with the dancehouses to discuss work to feel like there was an interest in each other as people and it seemed to me that in this particular economic climate artists and dance houses need to work even more closely together to generate the best work we possibly can and ensure there is an audience for that work. The reality for me was not quite as coherent as that and I wish I had found a way to make the opportunity of being a modul-dance artist work better for me. In effect I just wanted more! More residencies, more time, more cities, more chance to meet other modul-dance artists, more artistic support, more audiences… But I learnt a great deal and hope that my connections made through modul-dance will continue for many years and I am sure the benefit of being a modul-dance artist will be felt by me for a long time. I sound a bit like I’m saying goodbye and I’m not quite sure if I am. Am I allowed to hang around at the modul-dance party for a bit longer, and try and improve my dance house chatting up skills?

So in conclusion – it’s been good but it could’ve been better. No blame. Things I have learnt: people called Elen or Elena are brilliantly helpful and wonderful company; and Keren – maybe it is the ‘en’ together – although there were also some wonderful people who didn’t have any of those names; working with 5 women is not something to be undertaken likely and, probably like working with 5 men, should have some kind of guide book; the dance world is small and vibrant; and half a cookie from the smoke filled Tilburg Coffee house is definitely enough.

For more than 20 years, the International Theatre Festival Malta has been a melting pot of traditions, themes and forms. The distinctive feature of the festival is the fusion of concerts of international stars, experimental shows, small projects in the city space and discussions with scholars.

Poznań will host from the 24th of June to the 20th of July a new edition of the Malta Festival, where contemporary dance is always present. A representation of the modul-dance project will be concentrated in a few days of the most innovative choreography. Anne Juren will present Tableaux Vivants (25 June) and Magali Milian and Romuald Luydlin, members of La Zampa their Spekies (27 June). Polish audience will have the chance to discover one of the artists selected in 2012, An Kaler who will perform On Orientations/Untimely Encounters twice in the same day (26 June).

Marie-Caroline Hominal and Sofia Dias & Vítor Roriz, modul-dance selected artists, are too part of the programme with other titles, Bat (26 June) and A gesture that is nothing but a threat (28 June), respectively.

All the shows will take place at Stary Browar, home of the Art Stations Foundation Poznań, one of the modul-dance partners.

http://malta-festival.pl/en/

Zoi Dimitriou, greek choreographer based in London will be working on her new piece this April. She will be working on The Chapter House, a new interdisciplinary dance piece with intricate choreography by Zoi Dimitriou and video design by Mark Coniglio.

This new work looks at the act of documentation and of performing. It aims to expose the processes and mechanics of making, and uses digital media to document, re-construct and re-enact a live performance.

In The Chapter House, Zoi Dimitriou looks back at the body of her own work and questions how meaning gets revealed and transformed in an attempt to subject the ‘personal’ to another’s viewpoint.

Zoi Dimitriou' Bio

Choreographer and dancer Zoi Dimitriou was born in Athens. She graduated from

the Greek State School of Dance, received the Onassis Foundation Scholarship to

study at Trisha Brown in New York and in 2005 completed with distinction her MA

in European Dance Theatre Practice at Trinity Laban in London. As a dancer she

has collaborated with artists such as Yvonne Rainer, Kirsty Simpson, Felix Ruckert,

Shiobhan Davies among others. Based both in London and Athens she launched

her choreographic career in 2006. Works of her company have been featured in

internationally renowned venues and festivals and have brought the choreographer

major UK choreography awards like the Robin Howard Foundation Award

2008, the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund Award 2009 and the CfC Award 2010

(Choreography for Children). In Greece she has been commissioned to make works

for the Onassis Cultural Centre, the National Ballet Company of Greece, the Athens

Festival and in the UK for the Laban Theatre, The Place, Sadlers Well’s, Company of

Angels, Shift Company and Focus Company.

Zoi Dimitriou has participated in the European Network Aerowaves and in numerous

other European projects for research and exchange. She teaches at Trinity Laban in

London, Impulstanz Festival in Vienna, Marameo in Berlin, Duncan Research Centre

for Dance in Athens among others. Her work is supported by Arts Council England

and the Hellenic National Centre of Theatre & Dance.

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The Chapter House is commissioned by Trinity Laban and supported using public funding by Arts Council England with further in kind support from dancedigital, Duncan Research Center for Dance (GR) and dance-tech Berlin/ Lake Studios.

On September 2011, Frauke Requardt wrote this text about her experience as modul-dance artist.

Creating Episode was an incredible rich learning experience to me. It has been the first piece of work as the sole director following on from three collaborations of different kinds. To be the only one who calls the shots, to be the one who's vision is the centre motivation is a responsibility and a joy much different from sharing this position. It was a great reminder of what it is that I deeply care for in my art and also a pleasant surprise as I acknowledged the growth from these previous joined experiences coming into play when directing solely.

We had a residency in Dublin at Dance Ireland and a residency in Tilburg at Station Zuid as part of modul-dance. Each of those residencies brought out a surprise or an unusual perspective onto the work. There seems to be a 're-shuffling' of the things you 'know' when placed into an unknown environment. The questioning of what I usually take for granted then seem to be what brings the new insight. There are a number of other important aspects to being away from your usual stomping ground: Firstly, there is an undivided focus for the work as interruptions from daily life are taken away. Secondly, there is an intense and intimate exchange between the people you work with. It has been a real joy and a great benefit to the work to get to know each other in this way. In which other profession do you spend three weeks in a packed house with each other, cook and eat together and share thoughts and, well, the bathroom? The residencies definitely provided for personal growth on an interpersonal level -meaning there was a learning process in the way we communicate with each other. Communication seems to be any way at the core of the creative process somehow.

We had a premiere in June at The Place. As always there were last minute concerns. Part of our set is a big beautiful salmon-coloured austrian curtain which reveals and hides the pianist, singer and various other scenes. This curtain turned out to be incredibly difficult to control: The first time it worked was in fact the premiere.

So I sat in the audience sweating and hoping... I am so pleased to be able to say that the two shows we had at The Place were a complete success. It was sold out on the first night and almost full on the second and there was a fantastic response afterwards. Episode got good reviews and some really great ones. This show is a very personal one and I wasn't sure if it would be accessable or entertaining enough- both things I care for. What had been created was still too new to myself to be able to reflect on it in regards to these factors as the focus had been on creating meaning in new ways. It was basically a bit of a ride!

Picture: © Chris Nash

Lil’dragon has been performed about a dozen times, in Vienna and on national and regional stages in France. What comes to my mind above all with this piece is the impact of working with children... the impact on stage (which is something we expected even before getting down to work) and the impact on the creative process.

In fact, there have been as many different creations as groups of children. We knew it and we were looking forward to it but experiencing it was something else. So that is what I would most like to tell you about today.

Children, a living material
Children are a living material for the stage: they bring reality to it. Each group was also a social material that gave a different colouring to the stage, which is something that greatly inspired us.

In Vienna, for example, the children were already aware of what dance involves. We had our fears because we didn’t want any formatting. One of the little girls had already adopted the ballet posture and she even came on tiptoes to the rehearsals. In this case, however – just as always – we quickly saw that children are children in their childish bodies. They hadn’t anchored other people’s gazes within themselves and we were quickly able to work on their interiority and their interiority’s expressivity, which is what we actually want to deal with. In fact, with these Viennese children, we were even surprised to see that this task was easier than usual on certain levels: they were more familiar with learning a choreography but they preserved this quality of spontaneous bodies that we wished to present.

With the children, however, there was no “ideal configuration”: each group had its own strength and we based our work on it. In Evry, for example, this strength was a more mixed, dynamic and maybe even raw culture: the children’s bodies were more mobile and their “copy” of the older people’s dance was more personal. On stage, the group of children, who were more detached from mimicry, revealed however a greater overall coherence, with individual precisions that it was not our job to define.

In short, the children have been a continuous source of inspiration. In one of the groups, the duet with Meah Savay was performed by a little Cambodian girl who had been adopted. For us, and perhaps for her, it could not be otherwise.

The teaching experience
In the parent-children teaching workshops that we held the teachers were a tie, a medium and a precious help. We answered all the questions – they were curious above all about the mata children’s tattoos: Why are tattoos forbidden? Why do they wear them? I found this to be an interesting approach to a different reality and to the conditions in which children live.

A real-time creation
We had a few misfortunes: one of our two dancers was injured just a couple of weeks before the debut performances and we had to arrange to cover her role with someone else. Then the robots used for the digital projections were delivered late and, on top of it all, we were affected in all respects by budget cuts in this complicated production. The preview in Vanves was one of the most difficult.

Crowdfunding experiments
The reduction of our budget led us to try out the crowdfunding system. While crowdfunding calls for a big effort (communication, reciprocations…), it allowed us to raise a little over 5,000 euros directly from the public.

The Meah Savay experience
Meah Savay, a one-time ballet star in Cambodia, hadn’t been on stage since 2008. It was her first contemporary creation. She didn’t speak much French and the presence of the children was like a resurgence of the time in her life when she ran the dance school of a refugee camp. Meah showed a maternal attitude. She also told us that some traditional dancers found her manners strange, that is to say, they found some of her gestures, like putting her mask on the ground, to be almost sacrilegious.

An evolution
This was for everyone, I think, an important experience, a time of exchange and discoveries, and also an experience of accepting difference. I often had the impression that the children understood what was happening better than anyone else. One of the children from Toulouse wrote to us after the production: “I saw two of my friends in judo class who made me think of Augustin and Morgan. I had a dream. I was going to go on a trip with the group and all of a sudden we were taken hostage by some people. We had to get away at all costs (...) Then we found ourselves in a little village with two people who taught us to expand our imagination by dancing and they were called Eric and Gaetan. Thanks for the good time I had at the CDC. Antoine”. In just this way, I hope we will all be long remembering this project as a highly positive experience.

Last october, during a modul-dance meeting in Tilburg, we had a conversation with Irish choreographer Fearghus Ó Conchúir. He talked about his modul-dance project Tabernacle and his view on choreography.

Visit www.fearghus.net.

Could you talk a little bit about the work you have developed as part of modul-dance? My modul-dance piece, Body and Forgetting, premiered on January 29^th 2013 at The Abbey Theatre on The Peacock stage in Dublin. Through the structure of modul-dance and other partners such as the Dublin Dance Festival, The Abbey Theatre and Dance Ireland, I was able to lengthen my creative process and develop the piece in stages over a 14 month period. Through modul-dance specifically I had a residency with my dancers and musician at DeVIR/CAPa Faro in Portugal and also at Dance Ireland Dublin.

The work was influenced by Milan Kundera's atmospheric and unsettling novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and presented an abstracted account of the themes, moods and characters from the book in movement with the constant accompaniment of a film and live score. I collaborated with Irish documentary and film maker Alan Gilsenan.

What connections have you been able to establish through modul-dance? In general modul-dance has helped me to become more familiar with the current prevailing European production trends, put faces to names within a European context and make new relationships that have afforded me useful feedback.

What were your expectations when you joined modul-dance and what is your experience insofar? When I joined modul-dance I was mostly interested in making new connections with European dancers, designers and collaborators. To be honest, this has yet to materialize but it may be more to do with my approach as opposed to the modul-dance structure. I originally assumed that meetings would occur organically through residency or performance opportunities but now after some time in the network I am beginning to understand it better and see that my initial expectations may have been too vague.

How do you think modul-dance has helped you and your new project and/or how would you like it to help you further? I think modul-dance has helped my project through residency opportunities, advice, feedback and time. In the future I would of course appreciate opportunities to further the life of Body and Forgetting through further performance opportunities in Europe, but also as I begin to make a new solo work this year I look forward to seeking dramaturgical advice from the modul-dance framework of supports. In the long-term I would hope to achieve my initial expectations and emerge from this modul-dance experience having gained new insight into my working process and making better work with inspiring artists from my field and associated fields of expression.

Do you think European mobility projects like modul-dance influence the way the work is created and, if so, how? Yes, I do think that European mobility projects influence the way the work is created. I'm not sure that it is always the ideal structure in which to make work. It depends on the subject matter you are exploring. Body and Forgetting, although inspired by a Czech writer, was very much to do with an Irish perspective and relationship to the body. The embodied reserve, loss and confusion of that perspective can only really be reflected on from a point of stillness. I realized early on in my process that my subject matter conflicted in someways with the sense of mobility in the modul-dance project but that was the way it turned out and I'm sure it created some interesting tensions in the process.

If it's true that the way in which people sit, swim or eat depend on how certain culture passes on these skills - as French sociologist Marcel Mauss stated - then our body (and dance?) is influenced and formed in a culturally specific way. Do you feel that this is true or is it true what John Ashford provocatively says that "borders in dance are dissolving and increasingly what we find on the other side is pretty much more of the same"? This quote by Tom Waits came to mind as a rather extreme response to the question above, “If two people know the same things, one of you is unnecessary”. I wondered if this is what the question is really asking? In some ways I believe personal culture to be embedded and inescapable though more and more we find ourselves living out similar situations; maybe it is just economics and not culture.

I am not sure that this issue should be so important for artists but I think it could become more of a problem for presenters and producers. However it progresses, the importance must remain with the artist at the centre of their own experience, whatever that may be.

As an Irish artist, where would you position yourself within the European dance context? Although I have done many residencies and had my work performed in Europe during the last 10 years, I have a relatively low profile as a choreographer there. Throughout this time I have been building my own company with a group of dancers and creative collaborators in Ireland. It was important to develop this relationship to my work steadily and over time. Having been through this period I now look to the possibilities for interaction, dialogue and connection in Europe and hope in the next 5 years I can grow opportunities for my work, embrace new influences and expand artistically.

Mala Kline's Eden is getting excellent reviews.

" [...] her distinct sense of creating an invisible but firm connection with the auditorium, in which the unhindered flow of energy conditions the main purpose - sensing a common mental and emotional engagement"

"Eden is a complex project that in one swipe lucidly explores raw aspects of the subconscious and collective dream images while expressiong the exquisite originality of the author's ideas and their intriguing realization".

Picture: ©Damir Zizic

Beyond our experience with respect to this European programme itself, which could be summed up by exclaiming “Fantastic! Encore! Encore!” in connection with the residencies, the welcome and meeting the different partners, here we would like to look at our experience from the standpoint of having had the chance to “get away from our own territory”.

Getting away from one’s “territory” does not only mean travelling.

In our case, leaving our territory entailed some big changes:

- In our creative habits, since our creation process usually unfolds in a single quintessentially French context – whereas with modul-dance the separation, the distance, allowed us to return home invigorated and lighter in weight.

- In our time-management habits: we usually stay longer in each place. In this project, however, between the discovery of the venues and of the working hours, which were always different, we had to constantly adapt ourselves.

That allowed us, from the beginning to the end of the creation of our piece, to remain in a state of continuous questioning, in a condition in which nothing was immovably established with urgency, thanks especially to the chance we had to present our work in distinct stages in three different places (Ljubljana, Barcelona and Dublin).

In some cases we felt we would have needed to stay longer on a residency, to anchor our work in a place and to feel secure before changing venues and questioning everything all over again. As things were, however, we went from a 15m x 20m stage under a glass roof to an 8m x 8m dance studio with mirrors and barres to a fully-equipped theatre stage and then back to a white studio… That affected the project’s aesthetic dimension and made its stabilization difficult.

A hybridization of aesthetics

In our discussions with the people in charge of the venues that welcomed us, we were also able to size up the aesthetics advocated by each one and, more broadly, we were able to take the measure of their territory.

The diverse expectations and the various ways of approaching the stage and of putting the body into play sketched, in a certain sense, a national choreographic outlook. This multiplicity helped us in some way to refocus ourselves on our work since it was impossible to meet all the demands posed by these many differences.

Consequently, our vision of our work became calmer.

In hindsight, it may be said that this phenomenon had a positive influence on our confidence in the project and in the method of dealing with it. We sought to make a statement on stage even if it differed from everything we had done before.

The economy

The economy of each country and each venue influences these sites’ relationship to the artist and has an effect on the artist’s way of creating. Indeed, the context affects the creation, scenography, number of performers and many other aspects. It is perhaps a gauge of the “national choreographic signature” that we all bear.

One can only pose the question, however, of whether this signature is actually something that is chosen by artists or whether it is above all imposed by the economy itself?

Even though we felt this financial pressure, we didn’t suffer from it very much since ours was a solo number and our scenography could fit in a suitcase. Nevertheless, if Spekies had needed a more elaborate scenography, more performers or more time to create the lighting, what would have become of it?

The making of acquaintances

By its very nature, this programme threw us directly into the “paws” of the directors of the venues concerned, with whom we couldn’t have imagined that we would be dealing since we are little accustomed to international commitments. This was an aspect that was absolutely wonderful (there is no other way to put it). One thing nagged us all the same: modul-dance comes to an end in 2014.

What will become of these opportunities to make new acquaintances without the European subsidies? Will we be falling back on the long lists of unanswered e-mails or will our future projects receive special attention? In other words, are these lasting relationships once outside the modul-dance framework?

Just as we said at the beginning, “getting away from one’s own territory” does not just mean packing one’s bags and departing. It’s true that we are nomadic by nature and that we enjoy meeting people. We couldn’t have been luckier: we found this dynamic, this movement to be exhilarating, like something indispensable to our way of creating.

It has reorganized and posed a new space of reflection for us. It has drawn us out of the “paralysis” that we may sometimes have felt. It has already projected us on what is to come... because we want to continue along these lines.

How can this be achieved? Everything remains to be invented.

Artistically speaking, we are at the end of a cycle and we can feel how another cycle is beginning.

This European experience allows us to ask ourselves the right questions about our artistic and structural future, including:

- Our relationship to the stage and to language.

- Our relationship to an economy that is steadily more insistently demanding “extra-light” forms. How can this constraint be linked to a performing dimension that will uphold each artist’s intimate personal universe?

- Our relationship to places: how can an increased mobility be combined with continued ties to the dance structures in our own territory?

Magali Milian and Romuald Luydlin – La Zampa – France

Romuald Luydlin talks about "Spekies" and the artistic collaboration with Magali Milian, both members of the company La Zampa.

Interview done during the residency done at Graner (Mercat de les Flors) in Barcelona in November 2013.

La Zampa is one of the modul-dance artists. Proposed for the project by CDC Toulouse, the company was selected in 2011 to develop a project named "Spekies". The piece was premiered a few days ago at CDC Toulouse.

More modul-dance videos on www.numeridanse.tv.

Exhibition: May 26, 27 + 28th

Entry Deadline: April 18th

About the Exhibition

Rise Up, Fallen Angel is an Integrated Media Performance that will involve live improvised music accompanying images projected on three large screens. The curator will group the images so they will be displayed to create a non-linear narrative relating to the theme.
The exhibition will be different each time it is shown, but documentation of the event will be available for viewing. We are seeking images and video that do not contain text or language, but connect with the viewer on a primal, emotional level.

Full Details: http://vix.ca/blog/rise-up-fallen-angel/

LOW LIVES 3

INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Deadline: March 20, 2011

About Low Lives:
Now entering its third year, Low Lives is an international exhibition of live performance-based works transmitted via the internet and projected in real time at multiple venues throughout the U.S. and around the world. Low Lives examines works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. These networks provide a new alternative and efficient medium for presenting, viewing, and archiving performances. Low Lives is not simply about the presentation of performative gestures at a particular place and time but also about the transmission of these moments and what gets lost, conveyed, blurred, and reconfigured when utilizing this medium. Low Lives embraces works with a lo-fi aesthetic such as low pixel image and sound quality, contributing to a raw, DIY and sometimes voyeuristic quality in the transmission and reception of the work.

Low Lives is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Chez Bushwick, an artist-run organization based in Brooklyn, New York dedicated to the advancement of interdisciplinary art and performance, with a strong focus on new choreography. Chez Bushwick is co-producing Low Lives 3 and is instrumental in extending the platform’s international reach. Low Lives 3 will feature a ‘spotlight’ on Contemporary Choreography throughout the exhibition program.

Artists working in any media are invited to submit proposals for live performance-based works.



Selection Process:
Each Presenting Partner (see list below) will follow their curatorial process to select one performance to take place at their venue. In addition, 30 artists will be selected from artist proposals responding to this Call for Artists, and will be invited to present their work across the Low Lives network. These performances will be transmitted through the internet from a location of the artists’ choice. The Selections Committee will be comprised of Directors and Curators from each of the Presenting Partner institutions. A full-color catalog and companion DVD with information and an image for each participating artist will be produced for Low Lives 3 after the exhibition takes place.

Artists selected to participate in this exhibition will be instructed on how to transmit their performance through a live online broadcasting network. Performances will be projected in real time across the Low Lives 3 network of Presenting Partners and venues. The exhibit will also be available for online viewing, both in real time as it unfolds across political boundaries and time zones, and on the Low Lives website after the event.

MORE INFO AND HOW TO APPLY HERE-->

Call for artists/collaborators

Les Manouches theater company is looking for artists [visual,music,dance,performance], scholars and cultural workers based in NewYork who

-are originally from the Mediterranean

-who belong to the Mediterranean diaspora,

-whose work is informed by or interested in contemporary Mediterranean identity and culture

-who have a keen professional interest in Mediterranean culture

to join us for the creation of the MedInitiative. The MedInitiative will be a network and database that will provide information on the participating artists and their work andwill serve as a platform for the exchange of ideas, information and interests.Through the MedInitiative we seek to find artists and collaborators for theorganization of Between The Seas, a festival of Mediterranean performing artsin NYC. For more information and if you are interested in the project pleasesend your resume, and a letter expressing your interest and background to: lesmanouchestheatre@gmail.com. Forinformation on Les Manouches please visit www.lesmanouches.wordpress.com