All articles tagged: Dancehouse Diary

Critical Choreography: Embodying a safe, democratic space

We all know and recognise the pattern: strong alpha male in powerful position vis-a-vis a young female just stepping into the scene, hoping to carve a path of her own. My investigation into this delicate issue addresses a specific context – Indonesian contemporary dance practice – and asks to what extent is this disturbing misconduct conducted in the name of – and embedded within – current forms of choreographic practice? Read more...

The Labour of the Many – Staging the Few

Whose bodies are we seeing today in mainstream spaces? Whose aesthetics are dominant? Whose history occludes and makes invisible the labour of immigration and the absence of certain racialised borders that helped consolidate modern and contemporary dance practices today? How can those in power share the spaces and resources with the many in the margins? What can an attention to the historical assembly of all these flows, stoppages, and movement invite us to consider as we move forward? Read more...

Protest as Practise

In 1973, political scientist, Gene Sharp, published a list of one hundred and ninety-eight methods of nonviolent action as a reference list for engaging in transformative civil acts. The list reveals the power of the body (especially in collectivity) to obstruct, declare, withhold, disappear, dismantle, deliver and perform. It contains commonly practiced methods such as sit-ins and strikes, as well as more niche ideas, such as lysistratic non-action and mock funerals. Read more...
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The Art of Being Many

The Art of Being Many was initiated by geheimagentur in cooperation with a research network of sociologists, activists and philosophers (initiated by Vassilis S. Tsianos) from Greece, Italy, and Spain, who examine new approaches to cities in crisis in the current age. These two groups also cooperated with the Hamburg postgraduate research program. Running from 2012 to 2015 at Hafencity University, Fundus Theater and K3 – Centre for Choreography, this program fostered art-based research into assemblies and political participation. In addition, activists, academics, and artists (including Martin Jörg Schäfer) with interests in the political dimension of theatre and performance studies were also included. Read more...

Choreographies of Protest

We are not throwing power off or away in order to be free. Nor do we believe, cynically, that nothing can be done. Our very presence as protestors is evidence of our belief in the possibility of instigating change. Of the 189 different methods of protest surveyed in The Politics of Nonviolent Action, pacifist Gene Sharp identifies twelve varieties of “physical intervention.” As distinct from strikes, boycotts, and symbolic public acts such as marches and theatricals, Sharp categorises sit-ins, walk-ins, pray-ins, and occupations as varieties of intervention “characterised by the interference created by people’s physical bodies.” Read more...

Bodily Activism

Bodily activism works on two fronts: it puts the body at the service of the political but it also activates the body. In so doing, the body becomes a political force. Activating the body is specific to each political context, which differentiates different kinds of body, the black body, the vulnerable body, the silenced body, the demonstrating body, the conspiratorial body. In each case, and in each activist situation, the body foregrounds itself, motioning towards social and political change. Such a body acts in concert with other bodies, with other like-bodies more often than not (but not always). Read more...