Text by Galina Borissova

Self interview 2005

Published at www.cult.bg

Translation in English from Bulgarian - Katerina Popova

photo: Viktor Vlaesku

I entered ballet school by pure chance. The first time I applied I wasturned down for the ridiculous reason that I had a face scar (from aburn when I was three). The second time I was admitted for the just asridiculous reason that I’d had plastic surgery to remove the scar. Ialso hid the fact that in parallel position my legs weren’t exactlystraight, as required of ballet dancer. As a result of all this Ideveloped, perhaps unconsciously, a sense of individuality and apointless ambition to prove myself even while I was a child. Later onthese two things – lies and chance – taught me to recognize realitywhich, at the time I was old enough to finish school (1985), didn’t lookpromising at all.

The subsequent “intentional” specializations in the USand Western Europe fine-tuned my senseof discernment and orientation in the vast [boundless] field oftechniques and styles, methods and dance tastes. I realized that if Ifollowed fashion I’d lose individuality and if I followed myself I’dlose the chance to take the easy path.

After 1989 I had the luck to start teaching at the age of 21 without knowing exactly how to do it, and since I wasworking with a group of actors I could experiment with them. That is howI started looking for my own way of effective movement, at timescomfortable and at times uncomfortable, desperate to free my body fromthe nine-year straitjacket of conditioning by ballet technique deeplyencoded in my mind and body. I wanted to be free and I wanted to beoriginal, to avoid repeating the already familiar.

So, my choreographies could not be identified with any particular dance technique, and in Bulgaria atthe beginning they often upset my colleagues but not the audience,which watched my shows intuitively with an open, unbiased mind. Myindividuality was appreciated eventually in Holland,where I won an international choreography competition and was supportedon several occasions by the Grand Theatre in Groningen. This gave me strength, muchneeded, to fight for a place on the national scene too.

In the last twenty years I have produced, participated in and staged more than fifteen shows, almost all of them with free-lanceartists from Bulgariaand other countries. Dancers crossed boundaries as early as thebeginning of the twentieth century, and have since been traveling andchanging continents nonstop. To speak of Finnish dance or of Bulgariandance is, in my view, a rather limited way of looking at things becauseFinnish dance or Bulgarian dance is made by names and not bynationalities.

The themes I “explore” in my pieces are common, human, natural reactions to myeveryday and private life. I was once paid the compliment that I was a“Chaplinesque actress.” Or that my choreographies have a sense of humorsimilar to Mr. Bean’s.

Those compliments are my biggest reward.

I prefer modern variety and cabaret acts to intellectual experimental pretensions that nobody wants to see.

I am surprised sometimes by people who don’t understand that although there is no text, nonverbal shows also have a script thatcan be very serious. Whether I want to end my show facing or with backturned to the audience is a statement. What is conveyed not by words butby actions has a much more powerful emotional effect than verbalcomments or statements.

Classical dance I associate more with appearance and aesthetics, beauty and vitality,while modern dance gives me more opportunities to rearrange realitybecause modernity means destroying the primacy of external reality.

In my latest shows I notice a distancing from the material I am creating. This enables personal interpretations of the observed andexperienced. I use the immediacy of facts rather than sensationalismthrough their use. I am not interested in concepts of space, time, andmovement because I think they exist in us. I am more interested inintuition, love, hate, risk… The ugly cuts through me deeply, like deeplines and wrinkles on the face, and the beautiful makes me cry, likesomething impossible to repeat.

After music, dance is what can make me open my eyes wide.

I can’t imagine that the future of dance lies in cloning of individuals who meet European standards. I believe in the survival ofindividuality. Sometimes at the expense of the individual.

You need to be very brave to “strip naked” before the audience, to show yourself directly but discreetly expose yourselfunobtrusively. The scene shouldn’t be interpreted. It is perceived as asensation and grasped through this emotion.

I call myself a mutant choreographer. In English, mutant means “changing, altering, something orsomeone that is the result of change.” I don’t know why in everydayBulgarian mutant has negative connotations.

Galina Borissova

Read the whole post here

http://www.tereoconnordance.org/blog/

http://rhizome.org/editorial/3576

By Charlotte Frost on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 11:30 am.

In 2009 the editorial team at Mute (in association with Autonomedia) published a collection of past magazine content under the title Proud to be Flesh: A Mute Magazine Anthology of Cultural Politics after the Net. It was an exercise in content curation, but not, as they point out, an attempt to assemble a greatest hits album. Rather, it reorganises a body of Mute’s diverse output around a selection of themes that are perhaps more apparent (up to) fifteen years later.

In many respects – through the early newspapers, magazines, websites and recent print-on-demand journals – Mute has long engaged in providing content navigation systems for internet-inspired knowledge and the darker side thereof. And they have been doing so in an era defined by its obsession with charting and re-charting the information landscape. What Proud to be Flesh does, therefore, is offer up yet another entry portal to Mute’s rich and important net-knowledge while, in its very book-i-ness, commenting on the current upheaval in text interface products.

Indeed, that this archive is presented as a book (both hardback and paperback versions are available as well as a companion book: Mute Magazine Graphic Design, from 2008) symbols more than the fever pitch of the e-age publishing debate – although this is of course an area in which the Mute team has form (see OpenMute, their Print-On-Demand contributions and the – in development – Progressive Publishing System). The fact this particular information interface is a big, weighty block of paper pages (and not web pages, for example) points directly to a theme that has run throughout Mute’s coverage of e-politics (as well as the title of the anthology itself, which is Mute’s regular tagline): a critique of post humanist thinking. Current Mute editor Josephine Berry Slater explains:

“Printed on the Financial Times’ own press [Pauline van Mourik Broekman and Simon Worthington] spliced the austere conventions of 18th century newsprint typography with vector-based computer graphics, wacky fonts and articles on digital art and post-humanism. This retro-futurist gesture of covering the ‘information super-highway’ and its cultures on now historical newsprint was an unexpectedly popular bit of hype deflation. Mute’s ‘Proud to be Flesh’ slogan fired another salvo at the Cartesian/Gibsonian fantasy of ‘jacking into’ cyberspace and leaving the ‘meat’ behind. The spectres of pink paper and flesh were wielded against the rising crescendo of cybermania which would climax in the dotcom bubble of the late-‘90s.” p.16

It is therefore no surprise to discover a chapter of the book entitled: ‘I, Cyborg: Reinventing the Human’ – or that this topic is handled well, here, by the likes of Irina Aristarkova, Maria Fernandez and Suhail Malik, for example.

Beyond this, the nine chapters or categories of content commentate on post-web politics, creativity and economies, with an eye for the disenfranchised and very un-revolutionary aspects of the so-called ‘digital revolution’. Chapters cover ideas of democracy (and the lack-there-of) from web 1.0-version 2; online art, its conceptual cousins and confrontation of commerce; organisational structures and post-authorial collaboration; refracted class divides and the ley lines of online law. If you’ve been reading Mute for the last fifteen years, some of these articles will be very familiar to you: ‘The Californian Ideology’ by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron; ‘The Right Connections: Tea with Kevin Kelly’ by J.J.King; ‘Is It a Commercial? Nooo...Is It Spam?...Nooo-It’s Net Art!’ by Josephine Bosma and so on...

The strongest criticism one could make, given that this, in so many ways, is a landmark publication (which should be standard issue at the very least on all digital art and design courses), is that it might actually be several books disguised as one. Value for money notwithstanding, the breadth of Mute’s canvas is a little overwhelming and I wonder if it is almost too diverse – to live life as a book that is. But certainly, this makes it a meaty reference tome for jogging your cultural memory or installing one in the first place. And of particular benefit to newcomers are Berry Slater’s introductions to each chapter which outline some of the constituent ideas, not to mention her short account of the history of the magazine, which puts the book’s content in some much needed context.

One article that stands out as particularly atmospheric, conjuring up so much of Mute’s early backdrop of ‘90s culture is ‘Bill Posters is Guilty: On the Cultural Logic of Ambient’, by Neil Mulholland, from 2002. He describes this genre of ‘politics by osmosis’:

“As a vague audio representation of the global eco-politics, ambient music gained an authoritative hold amongst anyone who wanted to buy into New Age. Ambient was a polite, well-dressed native who might go unnoticed. It was therapeutic, domesticated and at peace with its surroundings, and hence a favourite of anyone who wanted to present themselves as ‘political, but not in a barricades sense’...It was made for the ‘90s, a decade in which people increasingly expressed their political beliefs through what they consumed while concurrently being uncomfortably with consumerism.” pp.317-318

He then swiftly encounters Marc Augé, pseudo-ambient art and the ‘oxymoronic politics’ of Naomi Klein’s No Logo, all in the same essay (and one can’t help feel his notion of ‘ambicommerce’ comes very close to identifying the late ‘00s culture of ambient credit). It’s a media theory mash-up, with a side of Marxism, and as such is the very essence of Mute.

It is this historical aspect that is defining of the book as a whole. There is a warp and weft to each chapter as the themes cut one way, while the chronological organization of content cuts the other, each time giving a mini-history of Mute’s editorial evolution. The book truly conveys the critical fabric woven of intense ideas in an era of intense ITC innovation. Thus, quite apart from reorganizing and reiterating the central debates that have signified Mute’s theoretical contribution, what this book does by way of representing a view of Mute’s archive and/or the last fifteen years of ‘cultural politics after the net’, is remind us of its own multifarious form-taking.

And there’s a great note of the synecdoche about that.

Charlotte Frost is an arts writer/academic focusing on New Media/Digital arts. She writes the monthly news section: ‘Digital Practices’, for a-n magazine, while currently developing video content for their website, and co-presenting a weekly radio show: Furtherfield.org on Resonance FM. In February 2010 her book chapter ‘Internet Art History 2.0’ was published in Revisualising Visual Culture, edited by Chris Bailey and Hazel Gardiner (Ashgate Press), and she gave a paper addressing web tools and their thematic contributions to art historical discourse at the Association of Art Historian’s Annual Conference (Glasgow). She also recently launched PhD2Published a website providing academic book publishing advice to first timers.

After two dance and motion-design workshops held at Brunel University (West London) and Keio University (Tokyo) in 2009, the third cross-cultural UKIYO lab held at Brunel’s Antonin Artaud Centre ended on June 6, 2010, with the premiere of a new film shot on location during the cross-cultural encounter between artists and researchers from the UK and Japan.

The UKIYO project was directed by choreographer and media artist Johannes Birringer and involved collaborative experimentation conjoining artistic and techno-scientific disciplines. Based on a design libretto for the composition of a mixed reality installation – Ukiyo: Moveable World – Birringer’s DAP-Lab ensemble has developed innovative performance concepts for linking physical spaces with online virtual worlds, mediated by a diverse range of innovative wearable designs and intelligent sensing.

The Japanese team visiting Brunel University included researchers from Keio University and a group of butoh dancers from the renowned Maison d’Artaud led by Hironobu Oikawa, a master teacher and director who had studied Artaud’s visionary theatrical ideas in Paris in the 1950s and later taught his own method alongside Japan’s butoh founders Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. The DAP-lab members had been received at Oikawa’s studio last December, and a lively process of cultural exchange was initiated.

It was a sad coincidence that the visiting dancers, Biyo Kikuchi, Yumi Sagara, and Jun Makime learnt of the death of their 103-year old master, Kazuo Ohno, on the day of their arrival in London, whereupon the lab decided to create a special film as a tribute to Ohno and incorporate the filmed dance in the creation of UKIYO.

In a remarkable historical convergence, the Japanese dancers from the Maison d’Artaud (Tokyo) thus featured in the creation of a new installation staged

at Brunel’s new performing arts centre named after Antonin Artaud. The building was inaugurated in 2009 under the tutelage of Steve Dixon, the former head of the School of Arts.

The DAP ensemble is now taking the new work to Slovenia, with public exhibitions of UKIYO and a workshop held at KIBLA Media Arts Centre in Maribor. In the winter of 2010-11, the new production and wearable designs will have their London premiere, with the participation of the Maison d’Artaud performers and Yoko Higashino (Baby Q Contemporary Dance Company), one of the rising stars of Japan’s contemporary dance scene. The full version of the UKIYO butoh film dedicated to Kazuo Ohno, directed and edited by Birringer and featuring the Japanese dancers with conceptual fashion design by Michèle Danjoux and music by Alexander Finlayson, will be released this summer.

Website: http://people.brunel.ac.uk/dap/ukiyo.html

For further information, call +44 (0)1895 267 343

Or email: Johannes.Birringer@brunel.ac.uk

The UKIYO project is supported by a PMi2/connect British Council research cooperation

Watch interesting interviews with Balkan dancers, choreographers,

organizers, theorist and activist participants in the Balkan Dance Platform 09

Novi Sad, Serbia

http://www.dance-tech.net/video/video/listTagged?tag=balkan09

Interviews at the Balkan Dance Platform 09 were made possible by a grant
from Dance Theater Workshop, with major support from the Trust for
Mutual Understanding, New York USA

The host of Balkan Dance Platform 2009 was Per.Art www.perart.org

dance-tech.net interviews are produced by marlon barrios solano

ETP European Teleplateaus_Final Presentations_June 2010

ETP in dance-tech.net

• DISORIENTATIONS – Abstract telematics, amorphous presence and proximity without identity
• AMORPHOGENESIS - Post-anatomical architecture, real virtuality
  and, non-carthesian body-spaces

Two environments for interactive telematic dance installations and performaces in 4 netconnected european cities

25th, 26th and 27th June - 15’00 to 21’00

· Installation from 15’00 to 19’00

· Dance Performances
at
20’00

In CaixaForum Madrid - Auditorium Foyer - Paseo del Prado 36, 28014 Madrid – conected to
environments in Dresden (Germany) Telc (Czech Republic) and Norrköping
(Sweden).

DISORIENTATIONS – Environment 1:

Concept and Coordination: Jaime del Val_REVERSO and ETP Group-Madrid: Francesca Mereu,
Montfrague Fernandez, Carmela Saro.

Graphics: Kalypso-Frieder Weiss and Matthias Härtig

Sound: REVERSO

Dancers: Muriel Romero & Jorge Tieffenberg

AMORPHOGENESIS – Environment 2:

Concept: Jaime del Val

Coordination:CIANT

3D Graphics: CCclient-Stephane Kyles

Sound: Michal Marianek

Project Partners: TMA (Dresden), CIANT (Praga), Bitnet (Norrköping), Reverso (Madrid)

Media Partner: Dance-tech.net – Technology partner: Frieder Weiss

ETP is a european project in which physical interaction spaces in 4 cities (Dresden,
Praga, Norrköping y Madrid) connect through he internet in
order to generate a common
interactive audiovisual environment for interactive dance performances
and
installations. On this occasion the two concepts produced by the project

partners from Prague and Madrid will be jointly presented in what is the
last
official public presentation of the project, that finishes in June 2010.

DISORIENTATIONS – Abstract telematics, amorphous presence and proximity without
identity is an
environment for installation and performance that develops a sense of
abstract,
amorphous telematic presence, of intimacy and proximity without
identity,
working on the limits of the legible or recognisable: ilegible bodies
that
generate chains of data without meaning, a datamining of the absurd. A
system of
body de-visualisation, a machine for the disorientation of desire,
produced by
ETP Group- Madrid, and Jaime del
Val_REVERSO, in collaboration with the group Common Body, from the
laboratory of
Social Commons in Medialab Prado.

AMORPHOGENESIS – Post-anatomical

architecture, real virtuality and, non-carthesian body-spaces.
Produced for ETP by CIANT (Prague) in collaboration with Jaime del Val
is a
performance and installation environment based upon a concept of digital

interactive or generative architecture in which amorphous 3D structures
are
transformed through the movement of bodies in physical installation
spaces of
four netconnected european cities. Four human and posthuman 3D
characters (a
female, a male, a transsexual and an alien) are being inteactively
deformed and
transformed into abstract architectures, each one relating to one of the
four
european cities. The project proposes the developmet of liquid amorphous
spaces,
far away from the aesthetics of simulation: not a virtual reality, but a
real
virtuality for a relational collective architecture across the EU. A
laboratory
for embodied experience, for redefining sensation, relationality and
presence
beyond identity and form in late-capitalist digital
culture.

Contact: Jaime del Val - REVERSO : 687 558 436

_________________________________

Tel: 687 558 436 _-_ email: jaimedelval@reverso.org - www.reverso.org

RELEASE OF THE BOOK

”TERPSICHORE IN ZEROES AND ONES.

ESSAYS ON VIDEODANCE”

THURSDAY 27^th MAY, 7PM

at CCEBA (Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires),

Paraná 1159

"Terpsichore in zeroes and ones. Essays on Videodance" is the first collection of articles published in Spanish about this particular art form, questioning its own and complex grammar.

The book will be presented to the public on Thursday 27th May at 7PM at the Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires (CCEBA), Paraná 1159. Jointly co-edited by Guadalquivir Publishing House, the CCEBA and the International Festival VideoDanzaBA, and compiled by Susana Temperley and Silvina Szperling, this publication is the result of the first two editions of the International Symposium on Videodance (2007/2009), also featuring some other essays, yet unpublished in Argentina.

The presentation will be complemented with the interactive performance

S P E A K 3. 0, by Alejandra Ceriani, Fabián Kesler and Fabricio Costa Alisedo.

Authors: Prologues by Silvina Szperling and Rodrigo Alonso.

Authors of the essays (in order of appearance): Oscar Traversa (Arg); Ivani Santana (Br); Alejandra Vignolo (Arg); Claudia Sánchez (Arg); Alejandra Ceriani (Arg); Laura Papa (Arg); Paulo Caldas (Br); Simon Fildes (UK); Alexandre Veras Costa (Br); Erica Koleff (Arg); Gabriela Tropia Gomes (Br- UK); Douglas Rosenberg (USA) Susana Temperley (Arg); Ladys González (Arg); Ellen Bromberg (USA); Sandra Mathern-Smith (USA); Graciela Taquini (Arg).

more info at www.VideoDanzaBA.com.ar

available online at http://www.libreriaguadalquivir.com/libros/10/Terpscore-en-ceros-y-unos-Ensayos-de-videodanza/

About “Terpsichore in zeroes and ones. Essays on Videodance”

The richness of this publication is founded in its diversity of views, including those from scholars specialized in disciplines close to Videodance who have made important contributions from the fields of Semiotics, Philosophy and Art Criticism, as well as the practice of video, cinema, digital art and dance. And even reflections upon the use of the Internet, the Interactive Systems in relation to Education, AIDS and social movements. Thinkers and artists from Argentina, Brazil, the USA and the UK converge in this book. These essays will begin to cover an increasing need and curiosity from researchers, students and artists, supplying information and reflections in Spanish which dialogue among them, in the way of a rich and bright mesh.

Terpsichore, our Muse of the Dance, keeps on getting transformed in the 21st Century. She dances in the cyberspace as well as in the street, on the videotape and at the museum, in the theatre and on the screen, in the paper as well as in life.

Other news of the International Festival VideoDanzaBA

| Call for entries 2010. Videodances and Documentaries on Dance

DEADLINE: JUNE, 15th 2010

Pieces must be registered online at www.VideoDanzaBA.com.ar

They must be sent by regular mail up to June 15^th, 2010 (postmarked date valid) to:

FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL VIDEODANZABA

CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION CINEMATOGRAFICA

Benjamín Matienzo 2571 (C1426 DAU) - Buenos Aires – Argentina

Additional press material

WHO ARE WE?

Since 1995, VideoDanzaBA, founded as Festival Internacional de Video-danza de Buenos Aires, is a platform for divulging, learning, discussing, and developing networks about the artistic work around the axis body-technology in the broadest sense.

With a strong accent on the exchange with the Latin American countries, that lead to the establishment of MERCOSUR Videodance Circuit (CVM) and the Latin American Videodance Forum (FLV), VideoDanzaBA has also developed residency plans with foreign organizations such as South East Dance (RU), among others, to increase the research opportunities and the artistic exchange, in a frame that encourages diversity.

In 2008, at its tenth edition, the festival widened its range to a broader arch of artistic forms linked to videodance: installations and performances that involve new technologies and interfaces in real time.

In 2009, thanks to the support of Iberescena, the festival presented again multimedia live performances, with companies from Spain, Chile and Argentina. Also, the Second International Symposium on Videodance (SIV) “Thinking Videodance II” was held with scholars from Brazil, Argentina and USA, among other countries.

This year 2010 –our 15^th birthday- we continue with the same line. The publishing of a book, two residencies, a project development LAB, workshops for professionals and for members of the community, scholarships and internships -from our Education Department-, will add up to our usual screenings (open call, work-in-progress, retrospectives and special screenings).

The audience access, the artistic communication and the development of the regional production are our major priorities.

The festival VideoDanzaBA 10 has support from:

INCAA (National Film Institute)

INT (National Theatre Institute)

CCEBA (Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires)

British Council

CIC (Research Centre on Film)

ABOUT Silvina Szperling – Director of the Festival VideoDanzaBA

• Choreographer, video artist and curator, dance journalist.

• Director of the International Video-dance Festival of Buenos Aires.

• Coordinator of Mercosur Videodance Circuit and Latin American Videodance Forum.

• Curator and artistic co-director of Buenos Aires Contemporary Dance Festival in 2008.

Graduated from the First School of Body Expression, directed by Patricia Stokoe (1979) and from the Dance School of Margarita Bali (1986), Silvina Szperling has been a choreographer for both conventional and non-conventional stages since 1985. In 1993 she started to make video-dance, documentaries on dance and collaborations in multimedia pieces as a video artist. Her formation in video-dance includes the First Video-dance Workshop for choreographers by Jorge Coscia (1883), the six-week video-dance school by Douglas Rosenberg as a grant holder at the American Dance Festival (1994), in addition to Director of Photography (1995, SICA, by Rodolfo Denevi), Documentary Video (1994, Ricardo Rojas Cultural Centre, by Andrés Di Tella), and master classes by Thierry De Mey at the Experimental Centre of Teatro Colón (2006).

Her work in Video-dance initiated this art form in Argentina. Her pieces Temblor, Bilingual duetto, sistersister, SZiS and Chámame have been screened at many festivals in her country and abroad. Temblor won the Best Editing Prize from the National Secretariat of Culture, and has been included at the New York Public Library’s Dance Collection at Lincoln Center, as well as at the Argentine National Museum of Fine Arts’ Video Collection. Her documentaries Danza argentina en los 60 and Escrito en el aire have been produced through grants from the National Fund for the Arts. Between January and March, 2000 she produced and directed the weekly TV program Videodanza, nationally broadcast by Channel 7 Argentina. In July, 2002 she made a residency as a guest artist at the Video-dance Summer Workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her video-dance SZiS was awarded a grant from Dance Film Association NYC and was premiered as part of the competitive screening at the III International Jewish Film Festival of Buenos Aires (Hoyts General Cinema, November, 2005). It was screened at Tandil Film Festival, Oberá en Cortos (Misiones, Argentina, 2006) and IDN Festival - Imatge, Dansa i Nous Mitjans (Barcelona, 2007). Chámame was premiered at Alliance Française in Buenos Aires, and has been screened at moves09 (Machester, UK), FRAME (Porto, Portugal), agite y sirva (Puebla, Mexico), UFBA (Salvador de Bahía, Brazil) and Dance Camera West (Los Angeles, USA).

She is the founder and director of the International Video-dance Festival of Buenos Aires, which has developed eleven editions between 1995 and 2009. The Festival has been supported by public institutions such as the National Fund for the Arts, the National Secretariat of Culture, the City’s Secretariat of Culture and the University of Buenos Aires, the National Theatre Institute (INT), the National Film Institute (INCAA), as well as private institutions such as Fundación Antorchas, the Research Centre on Film (CIC) and Channel á, among others. Its International supports have included the embassies of France, Canada, USA, Holland and Brazil at Buenos Aires, the Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires (CCEBA), the Goethe Institute, the Cunningham Dance Foundation, the American Dance Festival, the Cinémathèque de la danse of Paris and the Filmmuseum Netherlands. The Festival is partner of MERCOSUR VIDEODANCE CIRCUIT, within the frame of which in 2005 a double DVD was edited containing pieces by 20 artists from the region. It has been distributed both regionally and worldwide (Dance Camera West/Los Angeles, VideoDance/Atenas, Dança em Foco/Río de Janeiro, Dança em foco/Berlin, Danscamdanse/Belgium, FIVU/Montevideo, Andanzas/La Paz, El Cruce/Rosario, among other Festivals). In 2007 a second compilation was edited in DVD -CVM2- which is distributed through the website www.VideoDanzaBA.com.ar

In 2006 Silvina coordinated the Exchange of Artistic Residencies Argentina-UK,

Festival carried out with the South East Dance agency from England, patronized by the Arts Council of England and the British Council. The first phase of the exchange, held in Brighton and London, included the Postgraduate Course in Videodance at The Place. The closing phase took place in Buenos Aires with the Laboratory in Videodance, in which Argentine and English artists took part, within the frame of the Festival. In 2007 she coordinated the Exchange of Artistic Residencies of the Mercosur Videodance Circuit, with artists from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay in the cities of Río de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Szperling has also curated and produced the video-dance section at Festival Buenos Aires Danza Contemporánea (2000 and 2002).

She was commissioned by UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) to write an article about Argentine and Latin American video-dance (Taking tools into my own hands) included at the book Envisioning dance on film and video (Routledge, New York - London, 2002).

Szperling was invited as a panelist and curator to idat99 (International dance and technology conference) at Tempe, Arizona, to the Dance for the Camera Symposium at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA, 2000), to Mostra de video-dansa in Barcelona (1999) and to the Festivals Dance screen 2002 (Monaco) and 2005 (Brighton, England), among others. She has given Video-dance Workshops at Ricardo Rojas Cultural Centre/University of Buenos Aires, at the Research Centre on Film/CIC (Buenos Aires) and in numerous cities in Argentina (Córdoba, Rosario, Mendoza, San Martín de los Andes, Corrientes, Santa Fe, Paraná, Jujuy, Oberá), as well as in Dança em Foco (Río de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil), FIVU (Montevideo, Uruguay), Andanzas (La Paz, Bolivia), UArcis (Santiago, Chile) and at the International Film and Television School (San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba).

Szperling has been a free-lance dance writer for the newspaper La Opinión in Los Angeles and for Dance Magazine, USA, and she has collaborated with Argentine press media such as Página/12, Balletin dance and Funámbulos. She was a part of the Journalists’ Comitee of the Nijinsky Awards at Monaco Dance Forum (Dec, 2002-04).

She has worked at Buenos Aires Festival de Cine Independiente-BAFICI as an Assistant to the Artistic Director (1999-2000). She has also worked as a Coordinator of Workshops, tributes and special events at Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata (2000, 2001, 2006, 2007) and Festival de Cine para Niños y Jóvenes (Nov, 2001).

Silvina has been the Technical and Video Director at SZ Danza Company. She has collaborated in the creation of the multimedia pieces Las hijas de Rosita (1995), La InComodidad de los Cuerpos, Paseo inclinado (1996), Croquet en el living (1997) and Inflamable (2000).

Dance USA “Crossing Borders” Conference was held in Washington,DC at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Arlington,Virginia (suburb of Washington, DC) June 16-19, 2010. The following comments are written by Maida Withers and submitted to Dance Tech-net blog, June 18, 2010

Day One (Wednesday): The opening night.

Maida Withers Dance Construction Company performed a site specific work, Collision Course, for the opening gala for the Dance USAConference, Crossing Borders, at the House of Sweden on the PotomacRiver, Washington, DC. The dancers, Anthony Gongora, Giselle Ruzany,and Nate Bond wore pillows secured on various parts of their body withpackaging tape. Many free pillows werescattered on the lawn. Dancers proceededup the grassy knoll to press themselves along the full-wall glass windows ofthe beautiful House of Sweden. Conference participants were inside the building watching as the dancerspressed their bodies like graffiti along the glass wall. Dancers proceeded to dance freely once theymoved off the glass wall and tumbled down the grassy knoll. The dance concluded with dancers diving ontopillows as they were thrown into the air and crashing to the ground. Collision Course is a site dance that takeson different aspects based on intention and location. Jane Franklin and Daniel Burkholders groupsalso performed.

The food was excellent and the company for the gala very nice and diverse with people from all parts of the USAand abroad. Severalartists/managers were there from Ireland.

Day Two (Thursday):

Attendees broke up into discussion groups/forums in the morning. I attended the session withArtistic Directors with budgets under $300K. It was a very diverse group from directors who had no staff positions toorganizations with budgets over one million dollars. Each member stated what concern they had atthis time. The group leader directed us,then, in our discussion to issues suggested: staffing, boards, touring, and many other management issues related tosurvival. It was a productive meetingwith a somewhat limited agenda that seemed to center on management valuesprimarily. The larger budgets seemed tobe related to schools connected to the Companies or education programs. Compared to the 1960s there seems to be agreat deal of money available to the dance companies (beyond tickets at thegate) such as $30,000 or more from cities or county arts agencies, etc. Several commented on the challenge tomaintain artistic focus on the dance works in this survival process ofdiversification. Dancers always have a good time when they get together....certainly that was true in this case.

It was my pleasure to attend two session on International aspects of dance today.

During the first session, Frank Hodsoll, chaired a committee with cultural representatives from Japan,UK, Mexico,and the USA. Each panelist presented the governmental/nongovernmental approach to international exchange. As a USAcitizen/artist who is mostly interested in international culture exchange, I am hopeful that there will be some development in culturaldiplomacy supported by the US Government/Embassies soon. With the demise of the USIA the USAcontinues to struggle with a systematic way of engaging American artistsabroad. More direct discussion ofparticular programs (Cultural Envoy, etc). will take place on Friday at theconference.

The second international session raised the question of the view of American (United States, actually) dance from abroad. There was a panel led the Chair of the National Endowment for the ArtsInternational Programs with panelists from Mexico,Germany, and Spain. The topic is a worthy one but also achallenge. Mexicospoke about the extensive influence of Limon, Sokolow and others in Mexico. Mexicohas a formalized international program with four regions where a company isable to apply to tour there. Spainand Germanyindicated the recent lack of interest in dance in the USAand the inability to bring companies/dancers from the USA(costs/aesthetics). The United States isa long way away when European countries are so close. However, in Europe it seemed there is also about a lack of interestin what American (United States) dance is doing, it appeared to me. In addition, if the U.S. Embassies do notsupport American artists, there is not much chance of selection in Europe. One audience member indicated “the elephantin the room” was the rude treatment that many American artists receive whenthey are in Europe. Some agreed that this was present for them as well. I thought the conversation in total was toooriented toward Europe/U.S. exchange and not global enough. Also, I feel the idea of an individualcreating new/original work in a democratic process that is free of governmentalcontrol has been embraced globally. Perhaps this means there is not a “dominant” nation in modern orpost-modern dance at this time. Whyshould there be? I recognize this is asomewhat “democratic” perspective, but if there is a U.S. value,individual freedom of expression in dance with no government intervention wouldbe expected. There were many differentvoices heard in the brief one and one-half hour discussion. What was lacking was a two-way perspective ofhow dancers and governments are viewing each other. There was an edge of volatility in the topic I felt.

I am unable to attend the next two day sessions, but there are more discussions/presentations planned with international focus.

The Dance USA Conference was successful in my opinion for day one and day two. There was a great deal of opportunity for people to express opinion and to learn and broaden perspectives. Congratulations to Dance USAstaff and local artists who donated time and energy to receive guest to ourcity. I look forward to reading others blogs covering the final two days.

Maida Withers

Maida Withers Dance Construction Company

Professor, The George Washington University

PROCESOS DE LO INNOMBRABLE

Acercamiento a las prácticas artísticas ligadas al cuerpo y la tecnología

Si bien el cuerpo mismo podría ser entendido como “Interfaz” entre el mundo subjetivo y objetivo, es en la era de la computación que el término se utiliza de manera popular para denominar el dialogo que se establece entre usuario y máquina,conjuntamente con esto, el concepto de Cyborg acuñado por la ciberfeminista Donna Haraway (1), entendido como cuerpo compuesto de una parte orgánica y otra artificial, se ha reproducido en una serie de investigaciones y prácticas interdisciplinarias ligadas al cuerpo y a la tecnología en el contexto histórico actual.

La inclusión de las nuevas tecnologías en el campo del arte, ha venido a reformular distintas cuestiones en su sistema de producción ya sea en el proceso de realización, de ejecución, de autoría, de temporalidad y espacio expositivo. Desde esta noción transformadora intentaré poner en reflexión la producción artística de la Danza como reconfiguración de principios, pretensiones y discursos en su diferenciación estratégica de los marcos de producción coreográfica tradicional-oficial.

“Medio y mensaje funcionan en pareja puesto que uno puede contener a otro: el telégrafo contiene a la palabra impresa, que contiene a su vez a la escritura, que contiene al discurso... “(2)

¿De que manera las aproximaciones o metodologías en las prácticas artísticas ligadas al cuerpo y a la tecnología se han reconfigurado?

Los aspectos metodológicos tradicionales de la obra coreográfica se han desplazado y la danza ya no es solo en si misma, sino que se ha situado desde los márgenes operando en distintas direcciones, cuestionándose y estableciendo relaciones interdisciplinarias.

CQ chapbook 1, Vol. 35 no. 2, is a unique small-format 32-page piece, packed with dynamic photos and drawings, featuring collaborations between dance and new media:

• Darkling: enter technology - where is the body? an essay on a performance work-in-progress by Hélène Lesterlin
• Jonah Bokaer: moving toward an embodied technology an interview with this experimental choreographer by Nancy Wozny
• The Choreographic Resource: technologies for understanding dance based on a lecture by researcher-consultant-collaborator Scott deLahunta
• interview with choreographer William Forsythe on his interactive online project: Synchronous Objects by Marlon Barrios Solano of dance-tech.net

Wifibody Independent Contemporary Dance Festival 2010 will start on June 25 atthe Greenbelt Ayala Malls in Makati City and will migrate to twoother venues.

The Wifibody festival has been organized annually by Contemporary DanceNetwork Philippines (CDNP), currently chaired by AngelLawenko-Baguilat, since 2006, and features dance shows in variousvenues as well as photo and video exhibitions, plenaries andworkshops that all focus on contemporary dance.

CDNP is the group behind the recent "Moving Dance @ The LRT DanceExpress," where more than 20 dancers staged contemporary dancepieces at the stations and inside the trains of the Light RailTransit (LRT) 2 for International Dance Day.

Festival director Myra Beltran says, "Wifibody is distinguished by itsinnovative use of traditional spaces and its exploration ofnon-traditional spaces." After opening in Makati City, thefestival continues at Dance Forum Space in Quezon City and concludesat the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in Pasay City.

"Wifibody aims to engage the public by allowing everyone to access contemporarydance," she adds. As part of this year's theme, "Body andMemory," there will be a photo exhibit with video portraitsfeaturing ten choreographers who have been influential in thecrafting and direction of the festival.

"It is when the body remembers that one proceeds to create. When thebody remembers, there is dance," notes Beltran. "Thisfestival allows those involved in contemporary dance to 'remember'how we grew, how we got to where we are, and trace where we aregoing."

In IndepenDance, one of the major shows featuring new choreographicwork, participating groups include Ava Maureen Villanueva and RhosamPrudenciado Jr. of Airdance, Gerardo Francisco of Ballet Manila,Herbert Alvarez of U.P. Dance Company, and Christine Crame of SevenContemporary Dance Company.

As part of the festival's objectives to encourage new talent, the NewChoreographers Competition allows up-and-coming regionalchoreographers and dancers who have not yet created any majorfull-length work to premier solos or duets.

Emerging Talent Showcase gives performing opportunities to young talents fromvarious independent groups and school-based groups. The festivalalso features Dance-on-Site, performances choreographed specificallyfor unusual venues, such as the driveway in front of the CCP MainTheater lobby.

The Uncensored Bodies Dance Video Competition will showcase entries thatuse dance in film or films created specifically for dance. Entrieswill be posted on Youtube.com and online voting will be conducted.

Wifibody 5 runs on June 25-27 at Greenbelt Ayala Malls, June 26-27 at DanceForum Space and culminates at the Cultural Center of the Philippineson July 2-4, 2010. Dance Forum Space is at 36e West Avenue, WestTriangle, Quezon City. For details, visitwww.contempodancenetphil.org or call 0917-576-0212.

Word Cloud made with all the words of the descriptions of the plenaries and work sessions from MOVS10

SEE in wordle

body

context

text

connections

relational

communication

exchange

sharing

information

life

art

time

space

process

product

research

real

virtual

memory

storage

imagination

creativity

center

periphery

up

bottom

power

politics

person

structure

organization

strategy

local

global

biology

culture

borders

architecture

freedom

free

access

democracy

horizontal

interaction

place

user

player

gamer

patient

client

spectator

amateur

participant

consumer

viewer

visitor

actor

subject

receptor

member

public

student

performer

apprentice

disciple

aficionado

enthusiast

citizen

professional

Models of mind/body/life/environment

Systems?

Designed experiences?

Engineered exchanges?

Infrastructures of Generosity?

Socially Augmented?

SITUATED ACTIONS: performances

CHANGES

BOUNDARY

INTERFACE

STATE/Behaviors

RULES (open relationship)

WHAT IS CHANGING??

CHANGE

VARIABLES IN A SYSTEM:

CONTROL

AGENCY

AUTONOMY

EMERGENCE OF

ACCUMULATION IN TIME = PACE

ACCUMULATION IN SPACE = PLACE

hubs, nodes and relations

INTENSITY/FLOWS/

SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS

KNOWLEDGE: MEMORY AND IMAGINATION/IS ALWAYS SHARED/ALWAYS EMBODIED

COMMUNITY/COLLECTIVE/crowds (artists, community and institutions)

INNOVATION: ALWAYS COLLABORATIVE AND LINEAGE BASED

SOCIAL AUGMENTATION OF THE COGNITIVE PROCESSES

COGNITIVE AUGMENTATION OF THE SOCIAL

Individuals/community

communication Infrastructure

Dynamics

Knowledge

Articulation

Metabolic

Evolutionary

Adaptive

Re-designable

Re-engineered

META and self

ECOSYSTEMS...

HYBRID SYSTEMS:

TECHNOLOGIES OF TRANSMISSION AND CHANGE

PERFORMANCE TECHNE

AUGMENTED STORYTELLING

distributed...performance

La Ribot Distinguida

For the past 10 years, the flame haired artist La Ribot has toured the world with performances that straddle the world of dance, visual arts and performance. La Ribot’s humorous and provocative performances
make use of the body’s endless expressive possibilities – political,
neutral, minimalist, simple, complex, sexual. In between performances at
the Tate Modern in London, La Ribot talks candidly about her working
methods and of her passion for dance and art. Peter’s film captures La
Ribot’s highly individualistic personality and is an intimate portrait
of one of the most vibrant and important artists of recent years.

Piezas Distinguidas shown:

• 01 Oh! Compositione No. 22, 1997
• 02 Outsized Baggage, No. 28, 2000
• 03 Another Bloody Mary, No. 27, 2000
• 04 Capricho Mio, No. 8, 1994
• 05 Manuel de uso, No. 20, 1997
• 06 No. 14, No. 14, 1996
• 07 !Ya me gusteria a mi ser pez!, No. 6, 1993
• 08 de la Mancha, No. 31, 2000
• 09 Eufemia, No. 5, 1993
• 10 Zurrutada, No. 32, 2000
• 11 No. 26, No. 26, 1997
• 12 Chair 2000, No. 29, 2000
• 13 Narcisa, No. 16, 1996

Luc Peter

Born in 1963. 1986 Degree in Political Science from University of Geneva. 1989 Research into communication during political campaigns, University of Geneva. 1994 Diploma in directing from DAVI (Département
d'Audiovisuel de l'École Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne, Bussigny). 1991-98
Assistant director for various films, artistic director at the UNHCR
visitor centre in Geneva, producer of a video installation at the
Galeries Lafayettes and cameraman for German Swiss Broadcasting Service
(SF DRS). 1995 Founded the Belle Journée association for producing and
directing his own films. Since 2001 associated with Intermezzo Films SA.

2007 MAGIC RADIO
2004 LA RIBOT DISTINGUIDA

2002 GILLES JOBIN - LE VOYAGE DE MOEBIUS

2001 BRAINDANCE
2001 VOILA - MINIBAR, ASTRID REGARD
2001 VOILA - VOYAGE LAUSANNE-EVIAN
2001 VOILA - ELVIS
2000 RECORD PLAYER - CHRISTIAN MARCLAY

2000 A L'EST DES REVES
1996 DANIEL, CHRISTOPHE ET LES AUTRES
1993 COMME UN NUAGE FLOTTANT
1993 PORTRAIT DE NATACHA

Internet

• Website La Ribot
• Critique Le Courrier