LITHIUM FERRUM (2011)
Experimental music, dance and technology collaboration.
The Holy Mountain, The other side of oneself, Lithium, Ferrum.
Music: Joshua Cottam
Choreography/Concept/Visesthetics: Kate Pāvula collab. Ali Brady
University Falmouth / Dartington College of Arts / 2011
LIVE STREAMING : Tonight, 8.30PM and 9PM (+00:00 GTM) (United Kingdom)
LIVE CHAT : Ongoing Tonight, 8.30PM and 9PM (+00:00 GTM) (United Kingdom)
Adobe Museum of Digital Media
The Adobe Museum of Digital Media (www.adobemuseum.com) announces its second exhibition, John Maeda: Atoms + Bits = the neue Craft (ABC), on view March 23–December 31, 2011. The exhibition is a digital representation of Maeda, president of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), leading an interactive lecture on how artists are connecting the worlds of digital creativity and analog (or handcrafted) creativity. Titled Atoms + Bits = the neue Craft (ABC), the lecture underscores the mission of the AMDM to provide an interactive venue for presenting digital media works as well as providing a forum for expert commentary on how digital media influences culture and society.
According to Maeda, "Computers let us imagine digitally what we once could only validate by handcraft in physical form—the infinite malleability and reusability of bits have forever changed the creative process. But just as it took Icarus to first imagine human flight by carefully observing how birds can fly, digital tools have relied on many of the original tools and media used by artists in the pre-digital world." Maeda sees the thread that runs between the tools of physical art making—such as pens, brushes and pigment—and the way new media has co-opted many of the same tools to manipulate bits in digital art. Through the exhibition, he examines the history of linking analog and digital creativity within his own work and the works of others.
The exhibition takes the form of an interactive lecture, with a digital representation of Maeda speaking on a simple stage resembling his office at RISD. Dynamic infographics, video content and audio remarks illustrate Maeda's talk. Scenes from RISD art studios, including wood, glass, metal, and paper workshops, demonstrate the richness of expression Maeda feels must be captured in digital art's next chapter.
About John Maeda
John Maeda is a world-renowned artist, graphic designer, computer scientist and educator whose career reflects his philosophy of humanizing technology. For more than a decade, he has worked to integrate technology, education and the arts into a 21st-century synthesis of creativity and innovation. A recipient of the National Design Award and represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Maeda became president of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in June 2008.
A former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Maeda taught media arts and sciences there for 12 years and served as associate director of research at the MIT Media Lab. Maeda's early work redefined the use of electronic media as a tool for expression by combining skilled computer programming with sensitivity to traditional artistic concerns. He has published four books including The Laws of Simplicity, now translated into 14 languages. His new book written with Becky Bermont, Redesigning Leadership, expands on his micro-posts on leadership and innovation as @johnmaeda on Twitter. In 2008 Maeda was named one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire magazine and in 2010 he was called the "Steve Jobs of academia" by Forbes magazine.
A native of Seattle, Maeda earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT, followed by a PhD in Design Science from the University of Tsukuba Institute of Art and Design in Japan and a master's in business administration from Arizona State University.
About Adobe Museum of Digital Media (AMDM)
The Adobe Museum of Digital Media (www.adobemuseum.com) is a one-of-a-kind online museum and interactive venue designed to showcase and preserve groundbreaking digital media works and provide a forum for expert commentary on how digital media influences culture and society. The AMDM is open 24/7, 365 days a year, free of charge. Visitors are invited to sign up for free membership to enjoy special benefits including advance viewings of exhibits and exclusive events.
The AMDM launched in October 2010 with inaugural exhibition, The Valley, a specially commissioned work from renowned American artist Tony Oursler. Exhibitions are curated by leaders in art, technology and business, changing regularly throughout the year. A permanent exhibition archive remains indefinitely accessible at www.adobemuseum.com.
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.
Join La Mama for these experiential workshops for professional directors, playwrights and actors at La MaMa Umbria International in Spoleto, Italy during 4 Programs this summer.Dance, Politics, and Co-Immunity
Go to the complete video archive of the lectures
The international symposium “Dance, Politics & Co-Immunity“ is
dedicated to the question of how dance, both in its historical and in
its contemporary manifestations, is intricately linked to
conceptualisations of the political. Whereas in this context the term
“policy” means the reproduction of hegemonic power
relations within already existing institutional structures, politics
refers to those practices which question the space of policy as such by
inscribing that into its surface which has had no place before.
Thinking politics as the absent political within policy is therefore by
definition linked to the idea of choreography in the truest sense of
the word: The art of choreography consists in distributing bodies and
their relations in space. It is a distribution of parts that within the
field of the visible and the sayable allocates positions to specific
bodies. Yet in the confrontation between bodies and their relations, a
deframing and dislocating of positions may take place. This ongoing
distribution and reconfiguration of the sensible (Jacques
Rancière) which structures the body and its parts and links
it to the existing symbolic order of any given society can be
considered a site of resistance allowing for interventions into
hegemonic discourses, traditional distributions and fixed framings. In
the public space of theatre, whose characteristic feature is the
separation of stage and auditorium, dance may not only distribute its
bodies, but also split and to share that which is separated and yet
united: The community of bodies as well as their words and the objects
they produce.
Go to the complete video archive of the lectures
Over the past years the term “policy” has undergone
a renaissance in political philosophy. On the one hand there are those
who bemoan the disappearance of politics (Alain Badiou), on the other
hand others welcome its return and relational integration into
sociability (Nicolas Bourriaud). Inbetween these extremes there are
those who accuse political philosophy itself of playing into the hands
of the powers and of thereby sacrificing the idea of politics for a
universal process of administration (Colin Crouch, Chantal Mouffe,
Jacques Rancière). In the course of this discussion the
question of what constitutes a democracy becomes more and more virulent.
Recent developments in the world economy suggest that Michel
Foucault’s concept of “governmentality”
of self, other and society, which he developed in his lecture series
between 1977 and 1979, is more pertinent than ever.
Whereas the citizens of the one world have involuntarily become bearers
and sharers of incalculable risks, the frontiers to the other world are
protected more and more rigorously. Examples of this are the
overflowing refugee camps e.g. on the southern Italian shores as well
as international airports that resemble high security tracts searching
and registering masses of bodies in their microstructures with new
technological devices. While one part of the world population
deterritorialises itself voluntarily, the other part is forcibly
prevented from entering this space defined by its increasing mobility,
acceleration, and high speed communication highways. Neoliberal
dispositives of power are linked with technologies to secure and
enclose territories, discourses and bodies whose general health is
cared for while they are deprived of a possible shared way of life.
Go to the complete video archive of the lectures
The renaissance of the political goes together with the rebirth of a
long discredited term: That of community. In the German political
tradition of Ferdinand Tönnies, community - in a Romantic
understanding - opposed to society. In the works of Jean-Luc Nancy and
Roberto
Esposito, however, community no longer appears as a simple opposition
to political developments, but rather as a contested space of
discussion that risks community in a dialogue between equals. Although
contemporary developments in world politics and world economy establish
increasingly asymmetrical relationships between people, it is the idea
of a community of equals that may subvert these developments.
Viewed against this background, how did dance and how does dance, then,
do politics with the body in the public (theatrical) space? How can it
become political? The symposion looks for theoretical models,
historical constellations, contemporary experiments and practical
consequences that elucidate the relation between dance, politics and
policy – which, in Jacques Rancière's terms, might
be called ”police” as well. What does the
structuring and distribution of bodies and their parts look like in
historical formations of dance such as the court ballet of the 17th
century, the Romantic ballet of the 19th century or the German Dance
tradition of the Weimar Republic? What historical departures of dance
where linked with political contexts and how? Which political contexts
provoked dance as a critical intervention? Which contexts suppressed
dance or, contrary to that, teamed up with dance in order to change and
rearrange the distribution of bodies in the social and theatrical
arena? What does a critical bodily practice look like in the age of
genetic engineering and reproduction by the mass media? Does the
relation between body and text have to be redefined? Are there
choreographic practices that may subvert the dominant powers? How do
the artists themselves think about their aesthetic practice and how
does that influence the choices they make? What are the consequences of
these choices for their institutional working conditions and practices?
Go to the complete video archive of the lectures
Participants of the symposion are invited to think about the multiple
connections between politics, community, dance, and globalisation from
the perspective of Dance and Theatre Studies, History, Philosophy, and
Sociology. One focus of "Communications” will be the
discussion of recent developments in contemporary dance and the
production of new spaces for collaboration and exchange. In how far do
they help to reformulate what economists call the “becoming
immanent” of the world”? On an artistic level the
conference wants to look for possible answers by presenting pieces by
dance makers dealing explicitly with the issues raised here. Apart from
more established artists like Xavier Le Roy or Mette Ingvartsen a
younger generation of artists shall use the conference as their
platform. This is why the organisers are planning to draw on artists
and their work from institutions that have been supported by Tanzplan
Deutschland over the past years. They are invited to explore the
relation their work undergoes with social or political developments.
The title of the conference paraphrases on purpose a text by Roberto
Esposito. In his trilogy Communitas-Immunitas-Bios Esposito describes
the reciprocity of opening and closure of social systems and of bodies
alike. He tries to make this movement productive for a rethinking of
the political in terms of an interweaving of communitas and immunitas -
in a space where life is given a form in order to grant all bodies
survival.
Organized by Gerald Siegmund and Stefan Hölscher
www.dance-politics.de
Go to the complete video archive of the lectures
Thinking - Resisting - Reading the Political
What perspectives and methods does advanced cultural theory offer for our attempts to grasp political discourse and analyze aesthetic
treatments and performances of resistance? The international conference
THINKING – RESISTING – READING THE POLITICAL brings
together scholars from the fields of theatre, literature, art and media
studies, from cultural theory, sociology, and philosophy, to discuss
possibilities and limits of current models and attempt new approaches.
The deliberately ambiguous German title exemplifies the bidirectional
design: ‘widerständiges denken’ refers both to manners
of thinking resistance, and to the search for a quality of resistance
in manners of thought. Similarly, ‘politisches lesen’
intends both the search for a political element in dispositions towards
reading, and that for an adequate disposition to read for an element of
the political as understood in recent conceptions by Jacques
Rancière, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau. The conference
assembles a set of thinkers from the fiels of theatre, literary, media
and art studies, from cultural theory, sociology and philosophy, to
discuss consequences that follow from these models: In what
theoretically describable forms of thought can resistance appear, and
how can resistance be thought of as an object of theory? How can the
political mark certain texts, and what procedures are available for a
reading that is marked by an appropriate sensibility for the contents
and orders of the political?
Go to the complete video archive of the lectures
In recent years, theory, art and feuilleton have all seen a recurrence
of notions hailing from ethics and politics, including the
controversial concept of an ‘ethical’ or ‘political
turn’, but also an increased interest in ethical evaluation and
political engagement, and new studies into social preconditions, as
well as into reflections of the juridical and legislative influence on
the shape of art’s production and reception. These movements join
a by now well-established discourse on topically related objects within
post-colonial and gender studies, and not least a renewed attention for
politically engaged positions of previous theoretical discourses, which
are now often read in new ways that are quite removed from their
original and immediate political intentions.
At the same time, we find – often in different places, contexts
and traditions – an increasing attention for far-reaching
conceptions that entertain new claims to universality or an autonomous
weltanschauung or agenda. What these contributions in the context of
radical democracy theories and recent philosophical interventions
concerning politics share despite their differences is an emphatic
valorization of concepts of the political, the event or of truth, taken
in the sense of a radical interruption and re-constitution of
historical aprioris; a tendency that recurs in as different a manner as
those of Badiou and Rancière, of Critchley and Esposito.
Go to the complete video archive of the lectures
With an aim to better understand, clearly describe and critically
discuss such concepts of a political dimension in aesthetics, the talks
at this conference will look at those facets of the
‘political’ that are problematized in their discourses: At
phenomena, that is, that depend upon their fundamental
incommensurability with representations and institutions, with stable
notions of political order and uninterrupted political discourse. Such
interpretations distance themselves from a simple equation of political
reading with an interest in politically engaged, appellative texts and
literatures that support or accuse specific party politics or
revolutionary programs; nor does their focus rest on purely literary
treatments of categorical de- and re-differentiation in established
political discourse, as they are discussed in postcolonial, gender and
minority studies among others. Rather, following La Mouffe and Laclau,
the political is here intended as a complementary and opposing concept
to that of politics, confronting that incoherence that balances the
politics of coherent commonality and communicability in favor of
conflicting political autonomy and enouncement.
So far, the demands and possibilities of these concepts have rarely
been fulfilled or even systematically considered in cultural studies.
Faced with a large number of almost positivistically empirical studies
focusing on particular phenomena on the one hand, and ambitioned
speculative designs on the other, we find a vast array of possible
links, each of which has proven itself productive, and yet each of
which threatens to oversimplify the ‘application’ of single
terms and ideas taken from overarching theories by turning them into
tools for highly specialized disciplines. At the same time, it is the
political ambitions and presuppositions of many superficially adopted
theories that seem to be insufficiently reflected, sometimes even
hardly made aware, in such ‘applications’.
Go to the complete video archive of the lectures
We want to attack both deficits. Both, we suggest, are owed not least
to the difficulties engendered by the very idea of an
‘application’, a ‘use’ that is in itself often
foreign to the main tenets of the original discourses. A naïve
concept of method in the sense of established philosophy of science, or
even following traditionally hermeneutical, descriptive, e.g.
structuralist, and most poststructuralist approaches sometimes
misrepresents theory as a toolbox, its instruments readily separated
from their originating beliefs and turned to the screws and nails of
otherwise unconnected objects of culture and art. But this stand in
stark contrast to the central observation that political, social,
conceptual conditions and artistic practices are incontrovertibly
interlinked. Similarly unconvincing are those adoptions of radical
theory that avoid discussing any consequences from the positions they
adopt, omitting the necessary reflection of their own view of
scientific and scholarly practice in contemporary cultural studies.
Returning to an interest in the political, we thus propose to accompany
such interests with an intention towards theoretical conceptions, and
to openly examine if and how that intention might translate into
specific analytic or descriptive measures: The conference will discuss
the problematic ‘consequences in methodology’ attributed to
these theories from a number of different vantage points. The
interdisciplinary setup will hopefully provide opportunities to
productively discuss theories of various provenience and to grapple
with works of art and individual analyses, examining, defending or
rejecting the possibility of a methodology informed by advanced theory.
The conference will aim not only to continue a critical reflection upon
the proposals offered by current theories, but to constantly accompany
that reflection with a conscious question as to the specific
consequences that flow from these theories to the practice of cultural
study and the analysis of individual and concrete pieces of art; a
question that might well have to be answered in the negative, but
deserves an explicit answer nevertheless. Can there be methods for a
scholarly sound reading of the political? Is the activity of dealing
with always already elusive and thus doubly resistant categories at all
graspable in terms of methods or techniques? And whatever the answer
may be, can it in turn help us to better understand common suppositions
of methodology and contribute to a productive argument on what a method
is?
Organized by Anneka Esch-van Kan, Philipp Schulte, and Stephan Packard
www.thinking-resisting.de
Mercat de les Flors, a venue -located in Barcelona, Spain- devoted to the arts of dance and movement, celebrates its 25th anniversary this season. And the active participaticion of audiences play a fundamental role in this celebration. How? Recovering their memory and becoming participant and protagonist of the celebration:
BE PART OF THE MERCAT'S MEMORY. You have lived unforgettable moments in the Mercat... you have been in the best shows... you have been moved by artists and companies you met... Share your memories with the rest of the Mercat's audience, in video or in text. WE ALL ARE MERCAT.
To accomplish this, Mercat de les Flors has just launched a site that will bring together 25 years until the end of the season all the memories -in video and in writing- of those who have enjoyed the shows at the Mercat de les Flors and want to share them with the other spectators. These memories can be sent using the Mercat profiles on facebook and twitter, email, and also in the lobby of the venue, which also has installed a webcam platform to collect public testimony.
Do you also want to share your memories...?
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/
Train under the best dance instructors at one of the most acclaimed academies at no cost to you.
To find out how to get your scholarship, go to:
Festival Némo au Cube / Performance
"L'HOMME TRANSCENDÉ" SUGURU GOTO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVkv_7X-5mY
http://0141712186.free.fr/Contents2/L'hommeTranscende/L'hommeTranscende-f.html
Date:
Le jeudi 31 mars 11, 2011
20h30
Lieu:
Le Cube
20, Cours Saint Vincent 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
Tél. 01 58 88 3000 Fax. 01 58 88 3010
http://www.lecube.com/fr/accueil-tout-public/horaires-acces-tarifs_71
Suguru Goto (Artiste multimédia compositeur, concepteur, inventeur de BodySuit)
Shu Okuno (BodySuit I Performance, Dance, Mime, Chorégraphe)
Miki Tajima (BodySuit II Performance, Dance).
Hajime Sato（Assistant technique）
Yukari（Lumière）
Higaki Kozumi（Photo & Vidéo）
http://www.lecube.com/fr/espace-pro/l-homme-transcende-suguru-goto_1463
http://www.arcadi.fr/rendezvous/calendrier.php?seance=339&Arcadi=93a1af85f13c259531327bc03d0926d1
Information:
Le Cube
http://www.lecube.com/fr/espace-pro/contact_72
Tél: 01 58 88 3000
Arcadi
http://www.arcadi.fr/
info@arcadi.fr
Tél. 01 55 79 00 00
Fax 01 55 79 97 79
Photo: Higaki Kozumi
Call for entries: videodance, documentaries
The International Festival VideoDanzaBA opens its call for
videos and papers
for its thirteenth edition, to be held November 2011.
Entries must be registered online at www.VideoDanzaBA.com.ar
Videos have to be delivered until May 16, 2011 to:
FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL VIDEODANZABA
CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION CINEMATOGRAFICA
Benjamín Matienzo 2571 (C1426 DAU) Buenos Aires – Argentina
Jury for videos: Rodrigo Alonso, Diego Terotola, Silvina Szperling
International Symposium of Videodance Coordinator: Susana Temperley
We are waiting for your piece!
From artist and friend Keiko Uenishi (based in NYC) I share with you:
We've had alot of requests to extend the call for proposals to be included in our first Contemporary Performance network publication titled Contemporary Performance TXTS. So we have extended the deadline to March 21, 2011.
A little more about the book and how to apply:
This will be a network produced book about how we as contemporary performance makers prepare, road map, document, and archive our work. In essence, what does the contemporary script look like? This book will have bios, interviews and examples of performance creators and their performance TXTS. To propose your work, please log in to the network and post a blog. Then follow these directions
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was a British writer whose criticism holds up over time. His depiction of "A Midsummer's Dream" reveals such a fresh perspective with an acute sense of how Shakespeare "catches the atmosphere of a dream. The personalities are well known to everyone who has dreamt of perpetually falling over precipices or perpetually missing trains. ... The author contrives to include every one of the main peculiarities of the exasperating dream. Here is
the pursuit of the man we cannot catch,
the flight from the man we cannot see,
here is the perpetual returning to the same place,
here is the crazy alteration in the very objects of our desire,
the substitution of one face for another face,
the putting of the wrong souls in the wrong bodies,
the fantastic disloyalties of the night, all this is as obvious as it important."
Chesterton continues "But yet by the spreading of an atmosphere as magic as the fog of Puck, Shakespeare contrives to make the whole matter mysteriously hilarious while it is palpably tragic, and mysteriously charitable, while it is in itself cynical. He contrives somehow to rob tragedy and treachery of their full sharpness, just as a toothache or a deadly danger from a tiger, or a precipice is robbed of its sharpness in a pleasant dream."
He writes of "the mysticism of happiness." ... " We cannot have a midsummer night's dream if our one object in life is to keep ourselves awake with the black coffee of criticism."
Thank you GK!
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.
The editor Daniel Kontz for THE CAMERA BETRAYS YOU submitted by Liz Staruch and Mark O'Maley from West Chester University is a young talent to follow. Daniel transformed the team's flip-book idea into a dynamic, graphically pleasing jaunt, taut with tension. Shot on the High Line in NYC, THE CAMERA BETRAYS YOU makes you grin and wonder, as it draws you into its go-go/freeze rhythm. The video was created with 10,000 photographs of action and celebrated by the High Line on their website. See http://www.thehighline.org/blog/2011/02/07/video-the-camera-betrays-you
The video was one of nine from six colleges submitted to American College Dance Festival's 2011 Northeast Regional Conference at Muhlenberg College. Joshua Phillip Gleason's black and white cinematography and editing for SPOTLIGHT submitted by Maria Claudia Jaen from Towson University is also astounding.
As is sadly so often the case, the choreography was the least notable aspect of these videos with the exception of BENCHMARK, an improvisation by Katie Fierro and Jeremy Arnold from Muhlenberg College. Katie and Jeremy slump, slide, and confront each other with an organic grace and wit making the viewer feel like a wistful voyeur. They had their moment, a sweet if fleetingly honest one, and we were the witness. If only the camera left its frontal position in the end to zoom into the bench, still warm from the heat of their encounter.
Hats off to Corrie Cowart, dance professor at Muhlenberg for giving dance on camera a strong presence in this year's conference. She featured an installation of Tiny Dance Series, which DFA had celebrated in its 2010 Festival at the Walter Reade Theatre, a video of Allen Fogelsanger's movement interactive installation CANVAS & TRIGGERS_ SUITE mounted at the Varmlands Museum in Karlstad, Sweden, a lecture and workshop by myself, a marketing workshop and 48 Hour Challenge judged by Anna Brady Nuse.
Hello Dance-Tech.Net World!
My name is Nadia Lesy. I currently work as a freelance videographer and editor in New York City. I often shoot dance performances at Dance New Amsterdam. I currently own professional High Definition video equipment and edit on Final Cut Pro.
I am available to shoot a your next dance performance or edit a reel showcasing your company's best work. I can also convert your old vhs or dvd copies into almost any format you wish.
My rates are reasonable and I also work as a dancer and choreographer. So unlike some media professionals, I understand the specific needs of dancers and choreographers.
You can view my reel and learn more about me here http://www.nadialesy.com/
Hope to hear from you soon!
Russian (Moscow-based) Dance Agency TsEKh started in 2000 when several Moscow independent dancers and choreographers created an artistic association "TsEKh" thus opening the space for experiment and innovation. The association launched the project "Saturdays in TsEKh" which for the first time was regularly presenting dance theatres' works to Moscow audiences.
In 2001 with the support of the Ford Foundation the association developed into the non commercial partnership Dance Agency TsEKh. The agency is dedicated to establishing fertile artistic environments and an efficient infrastructure for contemporary dance in Russia. In the 10 years of its existence TsEKh has managed to develop high standards of professionalism, established national and international cultural links, and become an expert, and highly regarded consultant in the Russian contemporary dance field.
The agency is the member of a number of national and international networks. In 2002 TsEKh was an initiator of Russian Dance Theatres Network, listing cities such as Arkhangelsk, Ekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, Saransk, S.-Petersburg, Yarolsavl and Moscow.
The agency TsEKh represents the interests of Russian dancers, choreographers and performers at local, regional and international levels. The activities run by TsEKh emphasise the independent and innovative character of Russian dance theatre today, an art form which is an important and integral part of Russian culture.
The agency has its own performing space at the outskirts of Moscow city historical center - Aktiviy Zal, where most of our projects take place. Aktoviy Zal is a unique place for Moscow-based and touring contemporary dance choreographers to rehears, to direct and to perform.
This edition of Test_Lab will showcase new technology-inspired modes of live musical performance that radically transform the performer’s relationship with the audience.
March 31, 2011. 20:00 - 23:00
V2_, Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam
http://www.v2.nl/events/active-listeners
The lyrics to Daft Punk’s “Technologic” – “Touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it, turn it, leave it, start, format it” – allude to the omnipresence of technology in our daily lives and the many different ways in which we engage with it. At a Daft Punk live show, however, it’s predominantly the artists themselves that interact with technology, through musical interfaces. The audience, by contrast, passively observes or dances but rarely touches, brings, starts or formats any of the technology involved in the performance. Yet there are artists who explore technology’s potential to radically break with the traditional performer-audience relationship.
According to Chris Salter, the concert hall has shifted “from a passive arena of listening to an interactive zone of improvisation between sound-making technical apparatuses and their players” (Entangled, 2010). The exciting new modes of performance resulting from this shift have recently gained much attention in publications and conferences. Exactly how these new performance modes affect the performer-audience relationship has however hardly been explored. What does it mean to be an active listener in an “interactive zone of improvisation”? And what does the audience gain from it all?
This edition of Test_Lab will showcase new technology-inspired modes of live musical performance that radically transform the performer’s relationship with the audience. While some of these projects and performances, such as CrowdDJ - Tom Laan, and Nomadic Sound System - Ben Newland; turn the audience into co-performers, others, like Microscopic Opera -Matthijs Munnik, Evolving Spark Network - Edwin van der Heide and SPASM 2.0 - V2_Lab; give rise to entirely new modes of listening. As always at Test_Lab, you can touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it, turn it, leave it, start, format it…
This event will be streamed live on v2.nl from 20:00 to 23:00 CET.
Include hashtag #dancetechtv in your tweets!
About Ordinary Witnesses:
Creation in Bonlieu - Scène Nationale d'Annecy on May 27th 2009
Rachid Ouramdane, by Rosita Boisseau
« The choreographer Rachid Ouramdane likes to hide his face behind his masks. Whether under a clown’s make-up, behind a metallic sculpture or inside a motorbike crash helmet, the face, the mystery of the person, is concealed to focus the gaze elsewhere. According to the choreographer, though the mask is a way to display the myriad facets of his fragmented personality, he also maintains that one’s identity is a bottomless pit, an illusion to which the face gives a single interpretation. By altering the appearance, the mask enables the body to develop new strategies to exist in other ways and erases the contours that are too easy to read. Since the creation of the company ‘Association Fin Novembre’, cofounded with Julie Nioche, Rachid Ouramdane, who for many years interpreted the works of choreographers Odile Duboc, Hervé Robbe , Meg Stuart and Emmanelle Huynh, has tried to lift the veil of obviousness that covers everything. For this discreet man, the son of Algerians who sought refuge in silence, the words denied to his parents’ generation on the Algerian war of independence in an open wound that the stage allows him to soothe. In ‘Au bord des métaphores’ (2000), video was used to pulverize identities with the risk of becoming lost in surface effects. For ‘+ ou – là’ (2002), inspiration came from television and its icons, from the narcissism of the new media. Directly connected on the internet, in Les Morts pudiques (2004), a solo self-portrait fuelled by research on youth and death, life blood flowed through plastic tubes of pure medical beauty. The play on images, on signs, and on their ambivalence electrifies Rachid Ouramdane’s performances, often comparable to secret ceremonies for mutants who’ve broken free. For example, in Cover (2005), a precious monochrome created after a series of visits to Brazil, men painted from head to toe in gold paint circle the stage, contemporary idols sucked into the twilight with no return. »
Panorama de la danse contemporaine, Editions Textuel, 2006
Prior to founding the L’A. association in 2007 – a site for artistic exploration of contemporary identity – choreographer Rachid Ouramdane had collaborated with artists such as Emmanuelle Huynh, Odile Duboc, Hervé Robbe, Meg Stuart, Catherine Contour, Christian Rizzo, Jeremy Nelson, Alain Buffard, and choreographer Julie Nioche, with whom he co-founded the Fin Novembre association in 1996. From the start, Rachid Ouramdane’s projects have exemplified the conceptual upheaval taking place in the realm of dance since the mid-90s. Following in Ouramdane’s footsteps, artists have been reassessing the definitions of “performer” and “choreographer”, and questioning modes of producing and circulating artwork. The nature of his work has led to collaboration with institutions that traditionally focus on the visual arts (the FRAC Champagne/Ardennes in 2001 within the framework of his residency at the Manège de Reims from 2000 to 2004), and to a residency from 2005 to 2007 at the Ménagerie de Verre in Paris, a multidisciplinary space dedicated to contemporary artistic output. Very quickly, Rachid Ouramdane’s shows integrated video as a springboard for thinking about body-memory. The key element of each show is a unique encounter, resulting in an original artistic approach. Founding L’A in 2007 was a turning point for his work, which now aims to blur the boundaries between dance and documentary. It was in this period that he began his residency at the Théâtre de Gennevilliers, in parallel to his ongoing association with the Bonlieu-Scène Nationale d’Annecy as of 2005 and become associated to Théâtre de la Ville de Paris in 2010.
What can dance do that history books can’t?
"History books may supply documents and facts, but this has nothing to do with our experience." Rachid Ouramdane hears this statement time and again when pursuing the traces of military violence. What is the nature of the gap between personal experience and official history? What can dance do that history books can’t?
These questions are pivotal for someone bent on conveying the collective by way of the individual. They are questions that have been kindling Rachid Ouramdane’s choreography over the past 13 years and spanning 15 shows. The same questions propelled the association Fin Novembre, co-founded with Julie Nioche in 1996, and are now being developed through the company L’A., founded in 2007. Whether dealing with recent geographic upheaval, population movements or changes triggered by new technologies, the focal point of Ouramdane’s work is contemporary identity. He creates onstage transformation of live testimonials, for the most part gathered beyond the confines of dance studios: such as in the 2001 show De Arbitre à Zébra with the community of wrestlers and boxers from the city of Reims, or in the 2007 show Surface de réparation with 12 young athletes from the city of Gennevilliers. Ouramdane concocts series of “choreographic portraits” that delve into the undercurrents between individuals and their practices. The aim is not to beautify the practice at hand, but rather to “dancify” it by offering a new “montage”.
The term “montage” aptly describes an approach to dance that encompasses sound-space, lighting design and video tools. The show Au bord des métaphores (1999) launched this onstage friction between bodies and their video-captures. Next came + ou – Là (2002), which questioned “TV grammar”, followed by Les morts pudiques (2004), which explored youth and death based on history fragments culled from the Net. All of his shows share similar underpinnings: depiction of a body pierced by other people’s history, bodies that bear the imprint of history’s spasms and the living memory of adjacent tremors. Each of these bodies grapples with space by way of video screens, much like windows onto the outer world, bodily extensions or glimmers of absence. Rachid Ouramdane probes the polyphony of body-archives, where bodies are often faceless – via helmets, hoods, clown makeup and other sorts of identity-blurring masks. The recurrence of the identity issue - whether social, geographical or cultural - echoes the second-generation immigrant experience. Ouramdane’s Algerian born parents immigrated to France, and this “third identity” imbues his work and has yielded the 2008 semi-autobiographical solo Loin...
In his recent projects, Rachid Ouramdane has been joining forces with documentary-makers, and radicalizing his examination of the boundaries between dance and documentary.
Partners
L’A. / Rachid Ouramdane receives the support of Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication / DRAC Île-de-France, of Conseil Régional d’Île-de-France and of ’Institut français for its international projects
The main theaters in which we perform...
Théâtre de la Ville - Paris, Bonlieu-Scène Nationale - Annecy, Festival d’Avignon, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Théâtre de Gennevilliers, Festival d’Athènes, Biennale de la danse de Lyon, Festival Montpellier Danse, Tanz im August - Berlin, Kaaitheater - Bruxelles, Halles de Schaerbeeck - Bruxelles, Festival Panorama - Rio de Janeiro, Centre National de la Danse, MC2 Grenoble, Southbank Center Londres, Centre Georges Pompidou, Festival de Liège, Opéra de Lyon, Festival Latitudes Contemporaines, Pôle Sud - Strasbourg, Théâtre Forum - Meyrin, Teatro Central - Séville, Festival Crossing the Line - New York, DTW - New York, TBA - Portland, Springdance Festival - Utrecht, Tanzquartier - Vienne, Theater der Welt, Dublin Dance Festival, TU Nantes, Sadler’s Well - Londres, Wexner Center for The Arts - Colombus, Le Quai - Angers
Association and residency
France:
Association with Théâtre de la Ville de Paris since September 2010 (first choreographer associated to Théâtre de la Ville since 1991).
Ménagerie de Verre à Paris from 2005 to 2007.
Residency in Théâtre de Gennevilliers from 2007 to 2010 (first choreographr in residency in a "Centre dramatique national").
Association with Bonlieu, Scène nationale d’Annecy since 2005.
Residency in Scène nationale - Le Manège de Reims from 2000 to 2004.
International :
Participation in the frame of Intradance, Europe-Russie collaboration programm : creation in situ in Kirov (Russia).
Participation in the frame of «Colaboratorio» international residency in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil.
Regular participation in internationals events of french dance (FranceDanse Nouvelle Zélande, FranceDanse Europe, FranceDanse Asie 2007, Focus Danse 2008, French Move 2005, La Francia si muovo 2004...).
Artist associated to Festival Klapstuk in Belgium in 2005.
http://www.rachidouramdane.com/?id=1&lg=en
Thanks to Rachid Ouramdane for his willingness to participate in this project and continue researching contemporary identities with dance
This piece is presented by courtesy of Rachid Ouramdane and partially supported by dance-tech.net 2011 partners:
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