DAS THIRD Research project - CLOSENESS OF TOUCH
DAS Graduate School at Academy of Theatre and Dance, University of Arts, Amsterdam
ABOUT THE PROJECTThis artistic research project was initiated in October 2019 within the DAS THIRD Research program at DAS Graduate School, Academy of Dance and Theatre - University of Arts, Amsterdam.
It was funded and supported by: Akademie Schloss Solitude & ProduktionsZentrum Stuttgart, DAS Graduate School & AHK Amsterdam; Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Culture Croatia, City Council of Rijeka, City Council of Belgrade, Tarnby Performance Festival Copenhagen, International Fund for Assistance to Organizations in Culture and Education 2021 of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Goethe Institute; Life Long Burning & Nomad Dance Academy;
Production: Station Service for contemporary dance Belgrade; Kabinet Rijeka, Atelje 212 Belgrade and Clinical Centre of Serbia. |
The artistic research Closeness of Touch is a series of video works, podcasts, texts and dance performances that arose in the period between 2019-2023 on the topic of positions of vulnerability, care, immunity and depression as socio-political phenomena and forms of criticism and resistance to today's capitalist conditions work and life. These positions carry with them principles, means, methods, ethics that call for new forms of community based on asymmetrical and different social and physical powers and abilities of actors. In this artistic research, they were specifically examined through:
- The position of an immunocompromised person during a pandemic crisis;
- The position of women in the patriarchy and at the moment of the holy pandemic;
- The position of LGBTQ+ persons in transnational interaction at the time of the global pandemic;
- The position of artists under the precarious conditions of the art market and during the pandemic;
- The position of non-institutional dance practices as a space for re-examination of local cultural policies of cultural institutions from the Second World War to today;
The artistic and choreographic practice that arose during the research found its place in the digital domain less out of personal desire and need, and more out of the circumstances that conditioned and dictated the flow and dynamics of its articulation, conceptualization, realization, etc. The use of digital media - as (at one point) the only place for artistic expression - opened an important question for choreographic interests about the above-mentioned discourses of care, immunity and depression/negative feelings as socio-political forms of resistance and togetherness, namely: how today in at the moment of various world crises touch the body that touches the screen (telephone, television, computer, tablet, watch, etc.)? The answer was sought through various forms of physical, social, emotional, biotechnological, medical, economic, environmental and other (mostly invisible) vulnerabilities.
These concepts were explored in detail through various choreographic and somatic principles of physical movement of the collective or individual body within the domain: rave-clubbing and punk dancing, silence, exotic dancing, zoocentric and vegetative ways of movement, gathering, protest, then, through spiral drawing, children's collective games, theater of paintings; then, kinetic processes of rest, breathing, standing, touching, voice expression, guided movement and conscious expression of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical processes and systems within the human body (Body-Mind-Centering technique), landscape and feminist dramaturgical structures, video and audio editing as a form of choreography, through podcasts and social networks as digital spaces for receiving choreographic images and interacting with them, etc.
These concepts were explored in detail through various choreographic and somatic principles of physical movement of the collective or individual body within the domain: rave-clubbing and punk dancing, silence, exotic dancing, zoocentric and vegetative ways of movement, gathering, protest, then, through spiral drawing, children's collective games, theater of paintings; then, kinetic processes of rest, breathing, standing, touching, voice expression, guided movement and conscious expression of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical processes and systems within the human body (Body-Mind-Centering technique), landscape and feminist dramaturgical structures, video and audio editing as a form of choreography, through podcasts and social networks as digital spaces for receiving choreographic images and interacting with them, etc.
The works that were created and publicly presented are:
DEPRESSIVE PODCAST (2019)
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CONSTITUENTS (2020)
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MY CORONA (2020)Artistic text written as part of the project Lonely Planet produced by theatre Atelje 212 in Belgrade. This text addresses discourses on immunity, community, vulnerability, depression, and care set within the utopian queer interaction. The text is available was firstly published in Croatian magazine "Movements" in 2021 edited by Nina Gojić - avialble in engl / srp
The first public performance of this text happenned in July of 2020 at the Theatre Atelje 212 in Belgrade
ONE, TWO, THREE, COMRADE COME,
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LANDSCAPE OF DESIRE (2023)
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DESIRE TO MAKE SOLID HISTORY WILL END UP IN FAILURE (2023)
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T H A N K Y O U:
Bojana Mladenović, Ana Dubljević, Milica Ivić, Dimitrije Kokanov, Edit Lazar, Paolo Venecia de Gile, Ivana Kalc, Luka Major, Maja Mirković, Dalibor Fugošić, Olga Dimitrijević, Maja Pelević, Tanja Šljivar, Ana Mandić, Marijana Cvetković, Bojan Djordjev, Sinisa Ilić, Mirjana Dragosavljević, Aleksandar Georgiev, Emilie Gallier, Andrea Božić, Catalina Insignaries, Aron Birtalan, Cecilia Sevalejos, Amanda Pina, Nikita Maheshvari, Sher Doruff, Ksenija Đurović, Jovana Tomić, Milica Ivić, Nikola Pavlović, and all the acting ensembles and dancers I have worked with in recent years at the local scenes.