IF I CAN’T DANCE

Reading session with Book Bloc Brigade

Tuesday 30 June, 17:00–19:00

Reading session with Reading Vigil for Free Palestine

Thursday 2 July, 17:00–19:00

Translation session with Learning Palestine (English to Dutch)

Wednesday 8 July, 18:00–21:00

Card game night with Sobhi Khatib/BeSaraha

Friday 3 July, 19:30-21:30hr

*For Arabic speakers only!

Venue: noon coffee & culture

Kruislaan 259A, Amsterdam

Workshop with shy*play

‘for the listen to live here’: dis/orienting the archive

Friday 10 July, 16:00–19:00hr

Intergenerational workshop with Oo(y)ster Mums

Saturday 11 July, 14:00-17:00

Frictional Conversations – The Script

Open Call

For a new iteration of her ongoing project Frictional Conversations, yasmine habib is looking to borrow carpets. These carpets will become co-hosts of a gathering and listening space which will be active from 20 June to 11 July 2026. During this period the space will host collective listening sessions, reading circles, and conversations engaging the complexity of Palestinian life and memory through the stories of Burj al-Shamali, a Palestinian refugee camp located southeast of Tyre, Lebanon. The carpets will become part of this space of connection, reflection, and resonance, shaping how we gather, sit, listen, and spend time together. All the details in the PDF attached.

Image description

A very large room is filled with a multitude of carpets of different colours and styles. Spread around are also straw cushions and white paper cards. The space has white concrete ceiling with visible beams crossing it. Two arches descend on the ground, gently dividing the room. Two of the four walls are covered with long greyish/purple curtains. In the corner opposite the camera a drum set and a grand piano are visible.

Acknowledgements

Frictional Conversations – The Script, presented within the context of If I Can’t Dance Edition X – Body as Memory, was commissioned as part of the Consortium Commissions—a project initiated by Mophradat. The presentation is further supported by the Mondriaan Fund, AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts), het Cultuurfonds, and the DOEN Foundation.

Full open call here

Josephine Sales

Josephine Sales works across sculpture, moving image, and performance. Through sound, light, duration, and preexisting forms and conditions, Sales follows entry, exit, delay, and refusal within systems built to accumulate value through the organization of time––proceeding somewhere between rehearsal and emergency.

PLOT

Film screening

PLOT (2026) is a site-specific video work made with a camera on wheels and produced in relation to the architecture of If I Can’t Dance’s home. Filmed in a single take, the camera moves from exterior to interior to exterior, attempting not to leave the same way it came in. Departure is understood as a condition of entry. Drawing on Amsterdam’s historic rope-and-block mechanisms used to move objects in and out of buildings, the work experiments with cinematic movement through vertical transfer, traversal, and suspension. PLOT is produced in the Women’s Clinic of the former WG Hospital and projected in the chapel of its Pathological Anatomy Lab.

Accessibility information

– The chapel is located on the lower level of LAB111

– A wheelchair accessible entrance is available. Please write to office@ificantdance.org to get the directions to this entrance.

– All-gender bathrooms, including a wheelchair accessible bathroom, are located on the same floor as the chapel.

– For any other access related inquires please write to office@ificantdance.org

Acknowledgements

PLOT is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance as part of access: practices and habits, an artistic research programme in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary Arts in Limerick and Bulegoa z/b in Bilbao. There’s a Tunnel Under Ballybrit Business Park is commissioned by Askeaton Contemporary Arts.

Access: practices and habits is co-funded by the European Union.Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Creative Europe. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

PLOT is presented on loop over three days at cinema LAB111, in the former chapel of the WG Hospital:

Friday 5 June, 20:00–22:00

Saturday 6 June, 10:00–22:00

Sunday 7 June, 10:00–13:00

Tickets sliding scale: free, €2, €5, €10

RSVP is not required, but is appreciated!

There’s a Tunnel Under Ballybrit Business Park by Iarlaith Ní Fheorais

Book Launch

A pale pink background with bold blue text covering the full image, mentioning the author and the title of the book.

There’s a Tunnel Under Ballybrit Business Park critiques the continuing rise of Ireland as a key location for the global medical technology industry. As multinational corporation revenues soar, state bodies tightly regulate access to publicly-funded healthcare. Ní Fheorais investigates the land-use techniques, landscape aesthetics and architecture of MedTech as an inheritance of the colonial regime of the British Empire and dogma of the Catholic Church that create these conditions. Through her account of the barriers encountered in accessing prosthetic care, it becomes evident that infrastructure plays a crucial role in shaping the politics of healthcare, and how access to medical technologies is managed.

Iarlaith Ní Fheorais will be in conversation with artist Josephine Sales and artist, writer and musician Rouzbeh Shadpey.

Iarlaith Ní Fheorais (b. 1995) is a curator and writer based between Galway and London. As the curator of the 21st edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts she staged exhibitions, public programmes and a publication responding to the legacy of mass psychiatric incarceration in Ireland entitled honey, milk, and salt in a seashell before sunrise. She has an essay on John Broderick’s 1965 novel The Waking of Willie Ryan in the forthcoming Abolish Europe and is currently co-directing the film Going to Ballinasloe with artist Sarah Browne.

Accessibility information

– The conversation will take place in English.

– The chapel is located on the lower level of LAB111

– A wheelchair accessible entrance is available. Please write to office@ificantdance.org to get the directions to this entrance.

– All-gender bathrooms, including a wheelchair accessible bathroom, are located on the same floor as the chapel.

– For any other access related inquires please write to office@ificantdance.org

Acknowledgements

The research and publication There’s a Tunnel Under Ballybrit Business Park is commissioned by Askeaton Contemporary Arts (Limerick) as part of access: practices and habits, an artistic research programme in collaboration with Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao) and If I Can’t Dance.

Access: practices and habits is co-funded by the European Union.Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Creative Europe. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Sunday 7 June, 13:00–15:00

LAB 111

Arie Biemondstraat 111

1054 PD Amsterdam

Tickets sliding scale: free, €2, €5, €10

Ongoing Collaborations

Shy*play

Amsterdam-based collective co-initiated by Aion Arribas and antje nestel, focusing on doing neurodiversity not as a process of explanation, but as a relational practice in difference. They use art-as-process and (un)learning techniques with the aim of creating socialities with their own values, outside the workings of normality and identification.

dis/orienting the archive

The flyer image has a pink background with white lines scribbled, almost scratched, across its surface, forming a dense, white nucleus in the middle of the flyer. The words 'for, shy*, to, the, live, listen, play, here' are written in black in a dispersed manner across the flyer. The title and date of the workshop are clearly printed in black in the centre over the white nucleus: dis/orienting the archive with shy*play, 10 July.

The beloved series on neuroqueering socialities by shy*play gathers one last time this year to approach the question of archiving from a dissident perspective, while also learning from the methodologies developed by yasmine eid-sabbagh through Frictional Conversations. Rather than treating traces of past events as repositories of what has been, this session

explores how traces from past sessions of the series can continue to generate new encounters and set new events into motion.

Image description

The flyer image has a pink background with white lines scribbled, almost scratched, across its surface, forming a dense, white nucleus at its centre. The words ‘for, shy*, to, the, live, listen, play, here’ are written in black in a dispersed manner across the flyer. The title and date of the workshop are clearly printed in black in the centre over the white nucleus: dis/orienting the archive with shy*play, 10 July.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is on the second floor, unfortunately without elevator access

– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

– Please take a Covid test before the event; if you have symptoms, please do not attend, and let us know so we can offer your spot to someone else. Tests and masks will be available.

Acknowledgements

Series initiated by shy*play (Aion Arribas and antje nestel) with Rajni Shah, Kai Hazelwood, Raoni/Muzho Saleh, and Angelo Custodio.

The project is supported by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst. This session is additionally supported by Pictoright Fonds.

Friday 10 July 2026, 16–19hr

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

for the listen to live here: languaging

Shaped by “man of autism” Adam Wolfond’s conception of the embodied concept, languaging is approached as language in movement across the limitations and exclusivity of signification alone. It attends to the many languages that gather around words, into sentencing and beyond, those that move vibrantly between and below words while remaining in relation. The workshop is structured around a text by artists and architects Arakawa and Gins, which will be transformed into a playful score to activat multiple performativies through it, such as rhythm, vocalisation, spacemaking, movement, affect, sense and nonsense in intertwinement.

Image description

Flyer with a white background and brown scribble-like lines in the central area. White text placed in the middle announces: “language in play with shy*play, 23 May.” At the top, bottom, left and right edges of the images the words “for,” “to,” “the,” “live,” “listen,” “play.”

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is on the second floor, unfortunately without elevator access

– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

– Please take a Covid test before the event; if you have symptoms, please do not attend, and let us know so we can offer your spot to someone else. Tests and masks will be available.

Acknowledgements

Series initiated by shy*play (Aion Arribas and antje nestel) with Rajni Shah, Kai Hazelwood, Raoni/Muzho Saleh, and Angelo Custodio.

The project is supported by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst. This session is additionally supported by Pictoright Fonds.

Saturday 23 May 2026, 14-17hr

(doors open at 13.50hr)

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, spaces limited

RSVP online

for the listen to live here: moaning with/through textile bodies

Flyer with a black background and bronze scribble-like lines in the central area. White text placed in the middle announces: “moaning with/through textile bodies with Raoni/Muzho Saleh, 25 April.” At the top, bottom, left and right edges of the images the words “for,” “to,” “the,” “live,” “listen,” “play.”

Through his ongoing practice Mourning Sociality, artist and performer Raoni/Muzho Saleh creates ceremonial gatherings where grief is expressed collectively through moaning and listening. In the session, the artist provides a structured container to listen and receive the moan calls of others while enveloped in fabrics. The emphasis lies in playing and play-acting with the experience of grief, and participants are encouraged to take responsibility for what arises for them. Participating in this session requires no prior experience with movement and sound. Sweet snacks and a light dinner offered after the session.

Image description

Flyer with a black background and bronze scribble-like lines in the central area. White text placed in the middle announces: “moaning with/through textile bodies with Raoni/Muzho Saleh, 25 April.” At the top, bottom, left and right edges of the images the words “for,” “to,” “the,” “live,” “listen,” “play.”

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is on the second floor, unfortunately without elevator access

– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

– Please take a Covid test before the event; if you have symptoms, please do not attend, and let us know so we can offer your spot to someone else. Tests and masks will be available.

Acknowledgements

Series initiated by shy*play (Aion Arribas and antje nestel) with Rajni Shah, Kai Hazelwood, Raoni/Muzho Saleh, and Angelo Custodio.

The project is kindly supported by AFK.

Saturday 25 April 2026, 14-17hr

(doors open at 13.50hr)

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, spaces limited

RSVP online

for the listen to live here: diverging polyphonies

Saturday 4 April 2026, 14-17hr

A session exploring diffractive practices of polyphony in which composition, through difference and relation, is guided by voice and sound artist, researcher, and performer Angelo Custodio. Each voice carries its own worlds, creating a multivocality that follows no hierarchy and seeks no unity. Through various scores, a range of different possibilities of participation will be prompted, from the use of the voice for humming, murmuring, stuttering, etc., to engaging in spatial movement or stimming practices such as rocking and circling. The space is arranged with hanging fabrics to avoid the need for facial centering and other neurotypical conventions.
Those who feel marginalized or silenced in mainstream spaces are especially warmly invited. Participants require no prior experience. Drinks and snacks will be offered throughout.

Image description

Flyer with a white background and turquoise scribble-like lines in the central area forming waves. Black text placed in the middle announces “diverging polyphonies with Angelo Custodio, 4 April.” At the top, bottom, left and right edges of the images the words “for,” “to,” “the,” “live,” “listen,” “play.”

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is on the second floor, unfortunately without elevator access

– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

– Please take a Covid test before the event; if you have symptoms, please do not attend, and let us know so we can offer your spot to someone else. Tests and masks will be available.

Acknowledgements

Series initiated by shy*play (Aion Arribas and antje nestel) with Rajni Shah, Kai Hazelwood, Raoni/Muzho Saleh, and Angelo Custodio.

(doors open at 13.45hr)

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, spaces limited

RSVP online

for the listen to live here: meeting inside

Flyer design: nor akelei

Drawings created by participants in a workshop led by Sam Metz at ATD, Amsterdam, as part of the “What If… Neurodiversity” symposium, January 2025.

Workshop

A quiet session about meeting each other from the inside guided by shy*play together with performance maker and researcher Rajni Shah (they/them). Including a guided listening session, participants will explore how it feels to co-create a gathering without relying on presentational modes. Much of the afternoon unfolds without speech with no requirement to speak or make eye contact. Those who feel marginalized or silenced in mainstream spaces are especially warmly invited.

Drinks and snacks will be provided, and the session will end with a shared quiet feast.

Participants are invited to bring their phone and headphones, as well as something for the final feast. More information upon registration.

Image description

Flyer with a lilac background and white scribble-like lines in the central area almost forming a body. Black text placed in the middle announces “meeting inside with Rajni Shah, 28 February.” At the top, bottom, left and right edges of the images the words “for,” “to,” “the,” “live,” “listen,” “play.”

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is on the second floor, unfortunately without elevator access

– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

– Please take a Covid test before the event; if you have symptoms, please do not attend, and let us know so we can offer your spot to someone else. Tests and masks will be available.

Acknowledgements

Series initiated by shy*play (Aion Arribas and antje nestel) with Rajni Shah, Kai Hazelwood, Raoni/Muzho Saleh, and Angelo Custodio.

The project is kindly supported by AFK.

Saturday 28 February 2026, 14-17hr

(doors open at 13.30)

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, spaces limited

RSVP online

for the listen to live here: shedding playground

Flyer design: nor akelei

Drawings featured on the flyer were created by participants in a workshop led by Sam Metz at ATD in Amsterdam, as part of the “What If… Neurodiversity” symposium in January 2025.

Workshop

A playground for slowness, hybridity, and togethering, guided by Kai Hazelwood, transdisciplinary Disabled, Black, and queer artist and researcher, and embodied healing practitioner. Happening simultaneously online and offsite, this session is inspired by the wisdom of snakes and creatures who shed their skin and Disabled wisdom of virtual togetherness. Online participation will go through Hazelwood’s friends at Garden, a 24/7 virtual community center designed for BIPOC folks who are practicing pandemic safety.

Everybody is welcome!
Participants require no prior experience with movement.
Drinks and snacks will be offered throughout.

Image description

Flyer with a black background and white scribble-like lines in the central area. Blue text placed in the middle announces “shedding playground with Kai Hazelwood, 7 February.” At the top, bottom, left and right edges of the images the words “for,” “to,” “the,” “live,” “listen,” “play,” and “here” appear.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is on the second floor, unfortunately without elevator access

– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

– Please take a Covid test before the event; if you have symptoms, please do not attend, and let us know so we can offer your spot to someone else. Tests and masks will be available.

Acknowledgements

Series initiated by shy*play (Aion Arribas and antje nestel) with Rajni Shah, Kai Hazelwood, Raoni/Muzho Saleh, and Angelo Custodio.

The project is kindly supported by AFK.

Saturday 7 February 2026, 14-17hr

(doors open at 13.30)

If I Can’t Dance

WG Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

& Online (GatherTown)

Free, spaces limited

RSVP online

for the listen to live here: architecting

Workshop

Saturday 15 November 2025, 14-17hr

(doors open at 13.30)

First in a seven-part workshop series exploring the making of socialities, with neuroqueering approaches leading the way. Hosted by shy*play, this gathering experiments with reshaping spatial conditions so that space does not dictate how relations unfold; instead, relations emerge through its collective making. shy*play invites bodyminds who have had enough of, or cannot perform, centrality—the assumption of a “right” way of being and relating that places certain performances at the centre and the human as the measure of all experience. They also extend an invitation to those that are curious about how sociality can unfold when spatiality is shaped by neuroqueer approaches and sensibilities.

Participants require no prior experience with movement and installation. Drinks and snacks will be offered throughout.

Image description

Flyer with a white background and pink scribble-like lines in the center. Black text reads “architecting workshop with shy*play, 15 November,” surrounded by smaller words: “for,” “to,” “the,” “live,” “listen,” “play,” and “here.”

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is on the second floor, unfortunately without elevator access

– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

– Please take a Covid test before the event; if you have symptoms, please do not attend, and let us know so we can offer your spot to someone else. Tests and masks will be available.

Acknowledgements

Series initiated by shy*play (Aion Arribas and antje nestel) with Rajni Shah, Kai Hazelwood, Raoni/Muzho Saleh, and Angelo Custodio.

The project is kindly supported by AFK.

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, spaces limited

Milena Bonilla

Milena Bonilla (b. Bogotá, Colombia; lives and works in Amsterdam) is an artist, researcher, and educator whose practice questions the assumption that language and agency are exclusive to humans, and how this belief underpins capitalist and colonial systems. Her work engages with epistemic diversity, its historical conditioning, and with the idea of art as medicine. Following this trajectory, she is developing a year-long research project of workshops, mappings and other speculations exploring the historical significance of the spontaneous plant life surrounding the If I Can’t Dance building in the WG-terrein—a former medical site with a layered history, from plague house to hospital to artists’ community

Ferals and Ruderals: History Through the Cracks

Performative walk

Digital collage showing a nettle branch on top of a xeroxed historical floorplan.

The final session of the Ferals and Ruderals series takes the form of a performative walk through key historical sites in the WG-terrein. With the help of plants, their seasonal memories, ecologies and medicinal powers, Milena Bonilla unpacks the spatial politics of this place, exploring the entanglement between colonial expansion and modern medicine, as well as the resonances between practices of enclosure and the structures of herbaria and plantation systems. The walk concludes with a “research deviation” presented at If I Can’t Dance by choreographer and acupuncturist Toni Steffens, who collaborated with Bonilla throughout the year.

Image description

Digital collage showing a nettle branch on top of a xeroxed historical floorplan.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor of a historic building and, unfortunately, is not accessible by elevator.

– The venue is a former medical theatre dating from the 1920s and retains its original seating. Access across the tiered seating (tribunes) is via two narrow staircases.

– Two gender-neutral toilets are located on the first floor.

– Language: spoken English

Saturday 19 September

WG-Plein 881, Amsterdam

16–18hr

(walk-in: 15:45)

Tickets (sliding scale), €7.50, €5, €3

Ferals and Ruderals: History Through the Cracks

Workshop 3

A spontaneous green plant grows from the threshold of a building. A checkered black and white floor is visible behind the door.

Looking back at the long and layered history of our site as a modern hospital and, before that, as a plague house and asylum (Buitengasthuis), the workshop dwells on the 19th-century plan to transform the secluded Buitengasthuis into Amsterdam’s ethnographic museum. What does this unrealized project tell us? Guided once again by the intelligence and knowledge of the plants spontaneously growing on the site, participants consider the interconnection between colonial expansion and medical history. The workshop includes a transhistorical tour of the site and concludes with an oracular reading at f If I Can’t Dance.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor and unfortunately has no elevator.

– Two gender-neutral restrooms are available inside If I Can’t Dance

– Language: The workshop will be held in English. Our team also speaks Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and French, and can assist with translations of specific terms during the session.

Friday 17 July 2026, 14.30–17.30hr

(walk-in: 14:15)

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, spaces limited

Ferals and Ruderals: History Through the Cracks

Workshop 2

Saturday 21 March 2026, 14:30-17:30hr

photograph of a notebook laid on a yellow surface depicting the drawing of a Nettle leaf and its roots coloured in green. The drawing is surrounded by notes in pencil.

Old architectural drawing showing the aerial view of a square building with inner courtyard and four towers on its corners. The building is secluded by a water canal and rows of trees.

1/8

Guided by the sprouts emerging in the area, this session turns to the medical and carceral institutions that have occupied the grounds of the WG Terrein since the 17th century: the Pesthuis (‘Plague House’) and the Buitengasthuis (‘Isolation Hospital’). Along the way, participants reflect on the water borders that have historically been linked to the exclusionary treatment of illness, otherness, and divergence within frameworks of coloniality and modernity. Through the ‘doctrine of signatures’ and other oracular healing practices dismissed by the Dutch healthcare system, the workshop offers tools to read space not only as a document, but as a living agency, a teacher, and a wounded healer.

Image description

First image: photograph of a notebook laid on a yellow surface depicting the drawing of a Nettle leaf and its roots coloured in green. The drawing is surrounded by notes in pencil.

Second image: old architectural drawing showing the aerial view of a square building with inner courtyard and four towers on its corners. The building is secluded by a water canal and rows of trees.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor and unfortunately has no elevator.

– Please dress appropriately, as most of the workshop will take place outdoors.

– Two gender-neutral restroom are available inside If I Can’t Dance

– Language: The workshop will be held in English. Our team also speaks Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and French, and can assist with translations of specific terms during the session.

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, spaces limited
RSVP [https://if-i-cant-dance.weticket.io/ferals-and-ruderals-2/shop]

Ferals and Ruderals: History through the Cracks

Workshop 1

Saturday 1 November 2025, 14-16hr

Artist Milena Bonilla is standing knee-high in vegetation and is speaking to a small group of gathered people, some of which are leaning on a brick building of the WG-terrein in Amsterdam West.

A small group of people are seen scattered, kneeling and touching the ground which is covered in yellow, brown and green leaves. They are surrounded by the brick buildings and trees of the WG-terrein in Amsterdam West.

A working table on which are scattered drawing materials such as paper, charcoal pencils and clip-boards. Two books are also seen, one with a red cover with the title ‘Inflamed: Deep Medecine and the Anatomy of Injustice’; the other with a white cover with the title ‘Caliban and the Witch: Women the Body and Primitive Accumulation’.

A woman, with a red headscarf in her long straight brown hair, is seen from the back, seated in the wooden tribune of the Collegezaal of the WG-Terrein. She is bent over a clipboard, and is busy working on a charcoal drawing of a flower.

Handwritten notes about the Vrouwenkliniek with a drawing of a hand in the soil and midwifes’ fingers.

1/5

First in a year-long series of workshops exploring the plant life in the WG-terrein, learning from their dual capacities as medicines and poison. This opening session focuses on the former Vrouwenkliniek (Women’s Clinic), a key site for the history of sexual and reproductive health in the Netherlands. Through walking, observing, talking, and drawing, participants engage with the spontaneous plants growing around it, and through them, explore the histories living beneath our feet.

Image description

Handwritten notes about the Vrouwenkliniek with a drawing of a hand in the soil and midwifes’ fingers.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor and unfortunately has no elevator.

– Please dress appropriately, as most of the workshop will take place outdoors.

– Two gender-neutral restroom is available inside If I Can’t Dance, and a wheelchair-accessible toilet is available at the WG-terrein.

– Language: The workshop will be held in English. Our team also speaks Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and French, and can assist with translations of specific terms during the session.

– Regrettably, no live captions and sign language interpretation can be offered this time

Acknowledgements

The project is kindly supported by AFK and Cultuurfonds

Research assistance by Lucila Pacheco Dehne and Toni Steffens

The seeds of this project originate from the workshop Sketches for Gardening: a castle held at the The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art Warsaw in 2024 and curated by Marianna Dobkowska.

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, spaces limited
RSVP

Ferals and Ruderals: History through the Cracks

Screening & Artist Talk

Saturday 1 November 2025, 17-19hr

the projected image of a close-up of a herbarium drawing of a flower on the backdrop of a cluster of bright green plants. Superimposed on the image in white letters is written: ‘Luxembourg renovated her work on the herbarium while in prison. Simultaneously, her reflexions on militarism and its alienating dangers for the working class were fully developed under the pressure of war’.

A few silhouettes of audience members facing the large screen in the darkened Collegezaal of the WG-Terrein. On the screen is the projection of the title of Milena Bonilla’s film, ‘I am Life and Life is Beautiful: a conversation guided by Rosa Luxembourg’s herbarium with herbalist and dancer Shelley Etkin’. To the left of the screen is a small table with two lit candles.

1/3

Following the workshop, the artist will be in conversation with If I Can’t Dance Curator Sara Giannini to introduce her practice of dissident botany and counter-historical research. The talk will also include the screening of videos from the I am Life I am Beautiful trilogy dedicated to Rosa Luxembourg’s herbarium (2020/22) and Below the Sun. A Taxonomy of Light (2023), on Antonin Artaud, the Peyote plant, and the taxonomic fabrication of what is considered ‘real’.

Image description

The words ‘resistance, immune system’ are written in white italics across a close-up of green plant life.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor with unfortunately no elevator.
– We’ll have a mix of seating options, including chairs, the original collegezaal tribunes, and newly built tribunes.
– Two gender-neutral restrooms available.
– The event will be in English.

– Regrettably, no live captions and sign language interpretation can be offered this time

Acknowledgements

The project is kindly supported by AFK and Cultuurfonds

Research assistance by Lucila Pacheco Dehne and Toni Steffens

The seeds of this project originate from the workshop Sketches for Gardening: a castle held at the The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art Warsaw in 2024 and curated by Marianna Dobkowska.

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

€5.50 / 3.50

Chandra Frank

Chandra Frank is an Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on feminist and queer of colour movement work, possibilities of dissent, and the ways in which race and the environment work as terrains of power. She is completing her first monograph in progress, Tidal Politics: Feminist Queer Diaspora & Refusal in the Netherlands, which charts the creative and strategic interruption of feminist queer movement work in the 1980s alongside the literal and figurative sinking landscape and racial climate of the Netherlands.

Tidal Gatherings #3: Difficult Digestions

Performance & Workshop

A mysterious image with sand tones features a clay form resembling a digestive organ, floating in a rarefied space with several bubbles.

Approaching clay as a tidal and migratory material, the third edition of Tidal Gatherings presents a new performance and workshop developed by visual artist, clay and soil researcher Lina Bravo Mora. Both open up the decomposing worlds of mud, using migrating and stationary sediments from various water bodies in the Netherlands. Merging poetics and music, the performance “lands” us in these soils through geological storytelling and is accompanied by accordionist Luis Gabriel Kammerer Teran. The following day, the same muds are used for a writing workshop that invites participants to touch and consult with the different clays, bringing their muddy sensations into words.

Accessibility information

If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor of a historic building and, unfortunately, is not accessible by elevator.

– The venue is a former medical theatre dating from the 1920s and retains its original seating. Access across the tiered seating (tribunes) is via two narrow staircases.

– Two gender-neutral toilets are located on the first floor.

Acknowledgements

Launched in 2024, Tidal Gatherings is an ongoing curatorial project initiated by curator and researcher Chandra Frank in affiliation with If I Can’t Dance.

The development of Difficult Digestions is made possible by AFK.

Performance

Saturday 10 October 2026, 16-18hr

Workshop

Sunday 11 October 2026, 15-17hr

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Ticketed events, sliding scale, 3€, 5€, 7.50€

Tickets performance

Tickets workshop

Sso-Rha Kang on Tidal Gatherings: Leakage – Passage – Spillage

Visitor report

September 2025

At If I Can’t Dance we see the visitor report as a method of documentation. The affectual, relational and embodied nature of performance work is not always easily captured in audio-visual formats. To supplement such formats, If I Can’t Dance commissions written visitor reports, which offer subjective responses to a lived experience of a work and its context. The visitor report is, therefore, not to be confused with a critical review. It is first and foremost a form of witnessing. The people commissioned to write the report span a range of positions and practices within and outside the field of art. For Tidal Gatherings: Leakage – Passage – Spillage we invited curator Sso-Rha Kang.

Tidal Gatherings #2: Leakage – Passage – Spillage

Symposium

Saturday 21 June 2025

11–19hr

1/9

A summer solstice programme of walks, talks and rituals with Adjoa Armah, Chandra Frank, Sara Giannini, Fazal Rivzi, Mikki Stelder, and Arnisa Zeqo. Hosted by Kunsthuis SYB, in the rural region of Friesland, the second iteration of Tidal Gatherings considers how thinking with water can reshape our sense of space, time, and relation—dissolving dualities between inner and outer worlds. How do colonial ideas of water management relate to bodily tides, emotional floodings, and leakages? How does water inhabit our bodies, and how do we inhabit water? Where does water gather us? How do tides orient us?

Image description

A ribbon of water pouring out of a glass, held by a figure draped in a white net textile. In the background are green leafy trees and grass.

Accessibility information

The programme is in English and moves between Kunsthuis SYB and surrounding rural areas

Kunsthuis SYB is a historical building and does not have an elevator, unfortunately parts of the programme are not accessible with a wheelchair

Acknowledgements

Tidal Gatherings is an ongoing curatorial project by Chandra Frank in collaboration with If I Can’t Dance. Tidal Gatherings #2 is organized with and hosted by Kunsthuis SYB and is curated with Arnisa Zeqo (Kunsthuis SYB) and Sara Giannini (If I Can’t Dance), with production support from Alice Conforti and Gisanne Hendriks (Kunsthuis SYB).

Kunsthuis SYB
Hoofdstraat 70

9244 CP Beetsterzwaag

Wigbertson Julian Isenia on Tidal Gatherings

Visitor report

December 2024

At If I Can’t Dance we see the visitor report as a method of documentation. The affectual, relational and embodied nature of performance work is not always easily captured in audio-visual formats. To supplement such formats, If I Can’t Dance commissions written visitor reports, which offer subjective responses to a lived experience of a work and its context. The visitor report is, therefore, not to be confused with a critical review. It is first and foremost a form of witnessing. The people commissioned to write the report span a range of positions and practices within and outside the field of art. For Tidal Gatherings, we invited anthropologist and cultural analyst Wigbertson Julian Isenia.

Tidal Gatherings #1

Symposium

4, 5, 6 October 2024

1/15

A three-day symposium on the intersections between water, ecology, and Dutch colonialism curated by Chandra Frank. Connecting different sites and modes of convening, it includes talks, film screenings, and a study group featuring the work of Paula Albuquerque, Sharelly Emanuelson, Desiree Mwalimu Banks, Toni Giselle Stuart, Lisandro Suriel, and Geo Wyex.

Through these different facets, the programme invites to think with water alongside ideas of belonging, race, gender, and sexuality, as well as artistic production.

Acknowledgements

The project continues If I Can’t Dance multi-year collaboration with CBK Zuidoost and takes place in the framework of Sound System Ecologies: Music and Visual Cultures in the Dutch Kingdom & South Africa, a collaborative project between DJ Lynnée Denise and Chandra Frank funded by the Mondriaan Fund Open Call Slavery Memorial Year Grant (2023–2024). Many thanks to SHEBANG.

If I Can’t Dance & CBK Zuidoost,

location SHEBANG, Amsterdam

Open Rehearsal

Cycle 4

Open Rehearsal is an initiative of If I Can’t Dance to support the development of performance practices across the diverse communities of artists based in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, aiming to create much-needed space for intimate dialogue on ideas and works-in-process. The programme welcomes artists from various practices such as, and not limited to, architecture, dance, music, theatre, and visual arts.

The previous Open Rehearsal cycles are archived here.

Open Call

After a two-year break, we are thrilled to launch a new Open Rehearsal cycle, running from January till May 2027. Open Rehearsal supports the development of performance practices in the Netherlands by giving artists time, space, and a structure in which to try-out work-in-progress. The programme is intended for artists who have already begun developing a performance and who have reached a point at which an external perspective, dedicated rehearsal time, and an encounter with an audience could meaningfully contribute to the work’s further development. Open Rehearsal welcomes experimental and hybrid performance practices, particularly those that move between or beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries. We encourage applications from artists at different stages of their careers and with diverse educational and professional backgrounds, who feel that their work would benefit from a dedicated period of rehearsal and structured feedback.

Image description

Photograph of what seems like a backstage table with two blue chairs against a black backdrop and adjacent to a wall and a tribune with pillows. On the white table there are various objects, mainly make-up, a mirror, two glasses, a bottle of water, a vase with flowers, and notes. Three shirts hang from the wall next to the table, while a blonde-hair wig is laid on the back rest of one of the chairs.

Read the open call here

Deadline: 18 November 2026

Featuring

De Nieuwe Meent

dNM is a housing cooperative located in Amsterdam Oost. It is one the city’s first housing cooperative projects and was completed in 2025. Rooted in the housing rights movement, dNM is a social, political, and architectural project completely developed through a collaborative and community-led process. dNM is an experiment in co-design, shared living, and solidarity economy.

Mural

Open Call

Together with de Appel and Framer Framed, If I Can’t Dance has formed a coalition of Amsterdam-based cultural institutions supporting dNM in the development and realization of a semi-permanent mural on its north facade. The mural will form an integral part of the building and its vision. Overlooking Science Park Station and the railway, it will be a highly visible urban surface for both the local community and train commuters. The call is open to artists, writers, designers, architects, and activists. No previous experience with mural art is required. In the spirit of dNM, experimental and community-driven approaches are welcome. More information in the open call.

Image description

Flyer annoucing an open call for a mural at de Nieuwe Meent (dNM). Using a white background, it features a photograph of a red-brick residential building behind a railway platform, with overhead cables and bare trees in view. A faint rectangular outline marks the proposed mural location on the facade. Bold, sans-serif black typography highlights “OPEN CALL for a mural,” while subtle diagonal lines referencing the train cables add movement to the design. The logos of de Appel, Framer Framed, and If I Can’t Dance are listed at the bottom.

Deadline: 15 September 2026

Read the open call here

Please note that this open call has been updated in July 2026

Ana Vujanović and Bojana Cvejić

Ana Vujanović is a researcher, dramaturge, writer and lecturer in performing arts, film and culture. She has published numerous articles and several books, the latest one being Toward a Transindividual Self: A Study in Social Dramaturgy with Bojana Cvejić (Berlin, 2022). She is a mentor at SNDO – School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam, and guest professor at the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT)

Bojana Cvejić is a practicing dramaturg and writer whose research spans performance theory, critical theory, philosophy and dance studies. Among several books, she is author of Choreographing Problems (2015) and Toward a Transindividual Self: A Study in Social Dramaturgy with Ana Vujanović (2022). Since 1996, she has collaborated on works of opera, dance, and theater as co-director, dramaturg or performer. Bojana is Professor at Oslo National Academy of Arts and has taught at P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels) since 2002. Her research in social choreography, transindividuality, and practical dramaturgy transforms into a practice through the self-organization of collective platforms for experimental production of knowledge and life (including Performing Arts Forum, Saint-Erme since 2005).

Toward a Transindividual Self

Book presentation

Monday 16 June 2025
17–19:30hr (doors open at 16:30hr)

1/6

An afternoon programme dedicated to Toward a Transindividual Self: A Study in Social Dramaturgy, a book by Ana Vujanović and Bojana Cvejić. The authors are joined by Sruti Bala, Marija Cetinić, and Antonella Fittipaldi, who each offers reflections in relation to their respective research and practices. The book examines the process of performing the self, introducing transindividuation as a new way to think about collectivity in 21st-century Western neoliberal societies.

Image description

Marija Cetinić, Ana Vujanović and Bojana Cvejić are sitting on white chairs on the If I Can’t Dance theater stage. Ana is speaking while holding the mic, while both Marija and Bojana smile, listening to what is said.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor with unfortunately no elevator
– Seated event
– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

Acknowledgements

The event is organized in collaboration with SNDO as part of their 50th anniversary celebration.

If I Can’t Dance
WG-Plein 881

1054 SM Amsterdam

Tickets: €7.50 & €5 (students)

Voice as Landscape

Voice as Landscape is a performance platform concerned with the near boundless potential of the voice and voicings. Born from a love of language that called for its undoing – or renewal – in the materiality of sound, and a desire to find the juncture between the uttered and the inhabited, Voice as Landscape is entering its second year with an emboldened sense of community and a sober grounding in the political reality in which we labor to make art. The warped and increasingly aggressive logics of empire would have us force the finality of categorization. Our small work here against this trend is a platforming of works built in the fluid forever of togethers in motion. Voice as Landscape is an initiative of Alec Mateo and Lorenzo García-Andrade

horseshoe to heart / togethers in motion

Performance Programme

Saturday 24 May 2025, 16:30–23hr

1/9

A day-long dramaturgy curated by Voice as Landscape (Lorenzo García-Andrade & Alec Mateo) on the idea of transformative correspondence. Moving between our theater space, the WG Terrein, and Het Ketelhuis, the event includes convivial moments and performative encounters.

With Kaixin Chen & Sankrit Kulmanochawong, Aitana Cordero, Kike García & Jesús Bravo, María Jerez & Élan D´Orphium, Phantom Wizard.

Programme*:
16:30 Gather at If I Can’t Dance theater
17:00 Dinner with Kaixin Chen and Sankrit Kulmanochawong
19:00 La Siesta with Aitana Cordero at Het Ketelhuis
20:00 Gather at old plane tree in front of If I Can’t Dance, WG-Plein 881
20:15 Reclamos with María Jerez and Élan D´Orphium
21:00 Paisaje Tres with Kike García and Jesús Bravo at If I Can’t Dance theatre
22:00 Phantom Wizard at If I Can’t Dance theatre

Image description

People sitting in small groups on a red and white picnic blanket that covers the entire floor and rises up over a table in the center of the room. One person is walking in back of the table which has a plant, water and cups on it. In front of each person on the floor is a small white package and an envelope.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor with unfortunately no elevator

– Seated event

– Gender neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

horseshoe to heart / togethers in motion is co-hosted by Perdu and If I Can’t Dance and supported by het Cultuurfonds (with support by the Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds), Acción Cultural Española, and the Spanish Embassy. If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund.

Emmaplein, WG-Plein & If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

(meeting point at Emmaplein at 16:30hr)

Rossella Biscotti

Across film, sculpture, performance and sound, Rossella Biscotti addresses historical narratives and systems of power. By bringing together individual testimonies and institutional archives, she constructs narratives that examine political, social, and economic dynamics, having notably engaged with Italian political history, questions of gender, climate issues, and the politics of resource extraction.

Conversation & reading

PDF spread, the left page shows an installation shot with a concrete sculpture on the ground, resembling a cut-out staircase laying horizontally rather than proceeding vertically. On the wall, there are two red monochrome prints in different hues, one is darker than the other. The right page features the first page of an essay by author Giovanna Zapperi titled

Presented in collaboration with the Rijksakademie, this event celebrates Rossella Biscotti’s decade-long project The Trial, which has now been published as a book. The Trial centres on the landmark “April 7th” trial, held in 1983-84 in Rome against members of the Italian leftist movement Autonomia Operaia. In a conversation with philosopher Aaron Schuster, Rossella Biscotti elaborates on the significance of this historical event, and its resonance in the present. The conversation is interwoven with videos from the project and is followed by a collective reading of the trial transcripts.

Image description

PDF spread, the left page shows an installation shot with a concrete sculpture on the ground, resembling a cut-out staircase laying horizontally rather than proceeding vertically. On the wall, there are two red monochrome prints in different hues, one is darker than the other. The right page features the first page of an essay by author Giovanna Zapperi titled “In the Bunker of History: Places, Voices and Materials in Rossella Biscotti’s The Trial”. From the lay-out an opening quote and foot-notes on the right margins stand out.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor of a historic building and, unfortunately, is not accessible by elevator.

– The venue is a former medical theatre dating from the 1920s and retains its original seating. Access across the tiered seating (tribunes) is via two narrow staircases.

– Two gender-neutral toilets are located on the first floor.

– Language: spoken English

Acknowledgements

The event is organized together with the Rijksakademie. The publication The Trial (2025) by Rossella Biscotti, includes texts by Rossella Biscotti, Daniel Blanga Gubbay, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Giovanna Zapperi and is published by Mousse Publishing, Milan.

Friday 25 September, 18:00 – 20:00

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Free, RSVP

Tom K Kemp

Tom K Kemp is a filmmaker and artist who employs game writing, film and installation to examine and reimagine the structures that organise collective life. Working primarily through the roleplaying game form, he combines simulation and genre fiction into semi-improvised group storytelling, in which participants generate plot, dialogue, diagram and performance together. By folding political metaphor and imagined worlds into gameplay shaped by players’ lived experience and digressions, his work explores group agency and the unintended consequences of modelling reality.

Crisis Acres

Screening

Two people sit behind a desk in a workspace. The person on the left is gesturing in an explanatory way to a drawing on a large piece of paper that the person on the right is holding up so that it can properly be seen. The drawing is of one big body in which many, many smaller bodies figure as its different organs. The heart is identified as the patient, while other figures dispersed throughout the drawing include doctor, occupational therapist, IT, medical student, paramedic, etc. Under the large body is written ‘Hospital’. The subtitles to this still image from Tom K Kemp’s film Crisis Acres reads ‘and then you’ve got all the support staff’.

Simulating a day in an imaginary NHS hospital, the film integrates role-playing, improvisation and pseudo-documentary filmmaking to expose the breaking points in the world’s largest healthcare system. The screening is part of If I Can’t Dance’s ongoing programming around healthcare, healing and medical histories, in connection to our space: the Collegezaal of the former Women’s Clinic of the Wilhelmina Gasthuis hospital.

The screening is followed by an after talk with Kemp and Amsterdam based artist Pernilla Manjula Philip, whose work explores infrastructures of care from the perspective of chronic illness and DIY medical tools.

Image description

Two people sit behind a desk in a workspace. The person on the left is gesturing in an explanatory way to a drawing on a large piece of paper that the person on the right is holding up so that it can properly be seen. The drawing is of one big body in which many, many smaller bodies figure as its different organs. The heart is identified as the patient, while other figures dispersed throughout the drawing include doctor, occupational therapist, IT, medical student, paramedic, etc. Under the large body is written ‘Hospital’. The subtitles to this still image from Tom K Kemp’s film Crisis Acres reads ‘and then you’ve got all the support staff’.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor with unfortunately no elevator
– Seated event
– Gender neutral WC
– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Crisis Acres was created with the support of Mondriaan Fonds and Arts Council England.

Wednesday 16 September 2026

19.00 – 21.00hr (doors open at 18.45hr)

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054 SM Amsterdam

Tickets, sliding scale €7.50, €5, €3

In Pursuit of Otherwise Possibilities (IPOP)

In Pursuit of Otherwise Possibilities (IPOP) is an educational and pedagogical platform founded by Elioa Steffen and Szymon Adamczak.

IPOP explores theories and methodologies for queering performance feedback within educational institutions, while supporting the development of LGBTQ+ artists. Participants meet regularly to present their work to a cohort of peers and co-devise techniques for receiving feedback.

A Queer Feedback Handbook

Book Launch

Thursday 11 September 2025

18.00 – 20.00hr (doors open at 17.30hr)

Launch of the first handbook published by In Pursuit of Otherwise Possibilities (IPOP), an educational and pedagogical platform founded by Elioa Steffen and Szymon Adamczak. Drawing on three years of experiences developing a queer communal feedback model, this book proposes a need-based and performative approach to feedback. For the event, Elioa Steffen and Szymon Adamczak are joined by some participants to reflect on IPOP’s methods, offering key concepts such as ‘feedback ecology’, ‘promiscuous care’, and ‘non-identitarian queerness’, alongside teaching resources and feedback activities to try.

Image description

A purple and black book cover with the words IPOP: A Queer Feedback Handbook, Experiments in Otherwise Arts Education written in white stylized capital letters. In smaller white print are the names Elioa Steffen and Szymon Adamczak. There is a small white and black photograph in the top right corner depicting people sitting in a circle around posters spread out on the floor. In the bottom left corner is another black and white image of two people sitting on a wooden floor writing on sheets of paper and notebooks.

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054 SM Amsterdam

Tickets: €7.50 & €5 (students)

Studium Generale Rietveld Academie

For the first afternoon of the Studium

Generale Conference-Festival, If I Can’t

Dance has invited writer and curator Dani

Blanga Gubbay to create a dramaturgy of

moments drawn from his four-part Mousse

Magazine column, Notes on Spitting,

which explores the relationship between

dance and choreography, and sex and

pornography, merging theory and fiction

within a 24-hour storyline.

Notes On Spitting

Wednesday 18 March, 13-17hr

Notes on Spitting is presented as an

expanded reading by Dani

Blanga Gubbay in which the text is

interwoven with video works by Anchan/

Anna Daučíková and Christina Della

Giustina, an exhibition of drawings by

Alina Popa (1982–2019), a score of ghostly

gestures conceived by Alex Baczyński-

Jenkins, and soundscapes by Krzysztof

Bagiński that merge into a DJ set. The

result is a constantly shifting atmosphere,

exploring unproductive pleasures, sexual

drives, non-phallic eroticism, and the

eruptive forces of volcanoes and bodily

movement.

ft.

soundtrack from Maria Hassabi’s STAGED

scenes from Fassbinder’s Querelle

two saliva-inducing drinks

Image description

Two juxtaposed images in portrait format. The first is an ink on paper drawing by artist Alina Popa in which black lines take flight across the page in different directions and interrupted by various much tighter scribbles. At the bottom is written ‘my inner energy’ and the date 16-12-2016. The second image, mirroring the first, is a black and white photograph of choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata. He is in full movement, his weight being transferred over to his right hip, while his naked torso and flowing long black hair lean in the opposite direction. His hands are slightly raised toward the left and his fingers gesture elegantly. Hijikata’s is immersed in a cloud of white haze.

Accessibility information

-The Teijin Auditorium can be reached with the elevator from the ground floor
-Seating includes chairs and pillows
-Language: English
-More extensive access info can be found on the website of the Stedelijk Museum
-The event will be livestreamed via the Studium Generale Rietveld Academie YouTube Channel

Acknowledgements

Daučíková and Della Giustina’s videos are in dialogue with the exhibition ‘yOu aRe VarIatioNs’, jointly organized by If I Can’t Dance with Vleeshal, Middelburg, where it is still on view until March 22 2026. The exhibition is curated by Sara Giannini and Martha Jager.

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Teijin Auditorium

Museumplein 10

1071 DJ Amsterdam

Livestream

Clara Saito

Clara Saito is a visual and performance artist based in Amsterdam. Her artistic practice is rooted in improvisation, transformation, and a refusal of fixed forms. Drawing from her plural cultural background, Brazilian, Swiss, and Japanese, as well as her long-standing involvement in Amsterdam’s queer and DIY scenes, she explores identity as a fluid process. Her performance philosophy embraces an embodied anarchism, where freedom, unpredictability and solidarity drive creation.

History in Movement

Research sharing

Saturday 17 October 2026, 15-17hr

Poster featuring an illustrated portrait of Clara Camarão, a Potiguara Indigenous woman depicted with bow and arrow. The title “CLARA CAMARÃO” appears prominently at the top in bold black lettering, with the phrase “A DOR DE UM É A DOR DE TODOS” underneath. Red, yellow, and orange peppers and leafy mangroves frame the central illustration, alongside black-and-white geometric patterns. At the bottom, a yellow text panel reads: “A POTIGUAR INDIGENOUS WOMAN WHO RAISED AN ARMY OF WOMEN, TOOK BACK THE LAND, AND DEFEATED THE DUTCH IN 17TH-CENTURY NORTHEAST BRAZIL.”

The artist shares parts of an ongoing research project connecting the colonial history of the Netherlands with the history of Northeast Brazil, where she was born. The presentation comes at the end of a research trip that brought her back to Brazil, where she followed the traces of Clara Camarão, a Potiguara Indigenous woman who successfully led a women’s army against Dutch colonizers in 17th-century Northeast Brazil. Merging biographical notes with historical accounts, this informal lecture-performance opens up questions around armed resistance, betrayal, and social organization.

Baque Flamingo, an Amsterdam-based percussion group dedicated to Afro-Brazilian cultures of resistance, join Clara Saito with a Maracatu de Baque Virado performance.

Image description

Poster featuring an illustrated portrait of Clara Camarão, a Potiguara Indigenous woman depicted with bow and arrow. The title “CLARA CAMARÃO” appears prominently at the top in bold black lettering, with the phrase “A DOR DE UM É A DOR DE TODOS” underneath. Red, yellow, and orange peppers and leafy mangroves frame the central illustration, alongside black-and-white geometric patterns. At the bottom, a yellow text panel reads: “A POTIGUAR INDIGENOUS WOMAN WHO RAISED AN ARMY OF WOMEN, TOOK BACK THE LAND, AND DEFEATED THE DUTCH IN 17TH-CENTURY NORTHEAST BRAZIL.”

Accessibility information

If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor of a historic building and, unfortunately, is not accessible by elevator.

– The venue is a former medical theatre dating from the 1920s and retains its original seating. Access across the tiered seating (tribunes) is via two narrow staircases.

– Two gender-neutral toilets are located on the first floor.

– The lecture-performance is in spoken English

Acknowledgements

The development of History in Motion is made possible by AFK.

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Ticketed events, sliding scale, 3€, 5€, 7.50€

Free / RSVP

Jennifer Scappettone

Jennifer Scappettone is a professor of literature, creative writing, gender studies, and environmental humanities at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Killing the Moonlight: Modernism in Venice (Columbia, 2014) and the cross-genre verse books From Dame Quickly and The Republic of Exit 43. She is also the translator of Locomotrix: Selected Poetry and Prose of Amelia Rosselli.

Mia You is author of the poetry collections Festival (Belladonna* Collaborative, 2024) and I, Too, Dislike It (1913 Press, 2016), as well as the chapbooks Rouse the Ruse and the Rush (Nion Editions, 2023) and Objective Practice (Achiote Press, 2007). Her poems have appeared in Boston Review, Chicago Review, Cordite Poetry Review, the PEN Poetry Series, and Poetry. She currently teaches Anglophone literature at the Universiteit Utrecht and in the Critical Studies program at the Sandberg Institute.

Poetry After Barbarism

Reading & conversation

Thursday 22 May 2025

20:30hr (doors open 20-22hr)

1/6

An evening featuring poet, translator and scholar Jennifer Scappettone, who gives a preview presentation of her forthcoming publication Poetry After Barbarism: The Invention of Motherless Tongues and Resistance to Fascism (Columbia University Press, September 2025). Following a reading from the book, Scappettone is in conversation with fellow poet Mia You and If I Can’t Dance curator Sara Giannini.

Image description

A silhouette of a person sitting holding a paper while looking over their shoulder at a large projected image behind them. Half of the projected image is the definition of the word xenoglossia. The definition reads: “foreign speaking/babbling]: coined to describe those who speak natural languages to whose origin cultures they do not “belong,” lacking the proper education and mastery of the cosmopolitan.” The other half of the projected image displays a photograph looking upward into the gold-gilded cupola of Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The cupola features roman text, angels and the twelve apostles.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor with unfortunately no elevator

– Seated event

– Gender neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

The event is co-organized with the Utrecht University’s Network for Environmental Humanities. If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund.

If I Can’t Dance
WG-Plein 881

1054 SM Amsterdam

Tickets: €7.50 & €5 (students)

DAI-COOP Study Group

Raffia Li on The Word and the Wound – And Now You Are Ready to Sing An Invitation to think-in-assembly.

Visitor report

September 2025

At If I Can’t Dance we see the visitor report as a method of documentation. The affectual, relational and embodied nature of performance work is not always easily captured in audio-visual formats. To supplement such formats, If I Can’t Dance commissions written visitor reports, which offer subjective responses to a lived experience of a work and its context. The visitor report is, therefore, not to be confused with a critical review. It is first and foremost a form of witnessing. The people commissioned to write the report span a range of positions and practices within and outside the field of art. For The Word and the Wound – And Now You Are Ready to Sing
An Invitation to think-in-assembly we invited artist and DAI alumni Raffia Li.

The Word and the Wound – And Now You Are Ready to Sing An Invitation to think-in-assembly

Conversation & Performance

Friday 23 May 2025

17–19hr (doors open 16–2hr)

1/12

After a three-day workshop, our Dutch Art Institute COOP Study Group ‘The Word and the Wound’ shares their practice of ‘thinking-in-assembly’, a method that connects thinking and listening, deepening the relation between personal experience and collective voice.

The gathering marks the launch of a new section of our website dedicated to our long history at the Dutch Art Institute, where we’ve been teaching workshops since 2008. In the space, DAI student-made publications are presented alongside a range of archival materials from recent study groups, as well as a reading table focusing on the current COOP.

With Snejanka Mihaylova, Lisa Montan, Frédérique Bergholtz, Anna Buyvid, Nada Gambier, Patrick Freriksen, Agnese Krivade, Bel McLaughlin, Javier Rodriguez Perez, Alva Roselius, Hannah van der Schaaf, Agnese Spolverini and Mia Tamme.

Image description

Participants in the performance are on the black stage standing in a circle. They are all tapping their left arm with their right hand. In the background hang colorful textile compositions.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor with unfortunately no elevator

– Seated event

– Gender neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

The Word and the Wound – And Now You Are Ready to Sing is organized in collaboration with the Dutch Art Institute. If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund.

If I Can’t Dance
WG-Plein 881

1054 SM Amsterdam

Tickets: €7.50 & €5 (students)

Nicoline van Harskamp

Nicoline van Harskamp is an artist whose work considers acts of language and solidarity. Next to her artistic practice, she is professor for performative art at the University of Fine Arts (Kunstakademie) in Münster, Germany.

Prosodia

Performance

A dark theatre space viewed from the top of the audience riser. In the centre of the space, a spotlight is set on five bare stage parts. An actress in a short blue dress, and braided hair stands on the left, looking over her shoulder. An actress in a short white dress sits on the edge of the stage, her legs dangling above the theatre floor, looking down. She holds a computer mouse in her hand. Opposite the actresses, in the bottom right of the image, a woman in a traditional white vest, seated on a wooden café-style chair, looks down at her instrument as she plays the lyra and bow.

A “synthetic” performer named Prosodia, two actresses in the flesh, a theatre director, and a traditional musician are on stage. As they attempt to synchronise and sing together, the characters – human and non-human alike – begin to reflect on the technologies that underpin their practices, namely three generations of performative artificial language: “sung-narration,” “acting,” and “synthetic speech.”

Image description

A dark theatre space viewed from the top of the audience riser. In the centre of the space, a spotlight is set on five bare stage parts. An actress in a short blue dress, and braided hair stands on the left, looking over her shoulder. An actress in a short white dress sits on the edge of the stage, her legs dangling above the theatre floor, looking down. She holds a computer mouse in her hand. Opposite the actresses, in the bottom right of the image, a woman in a traditional white vest, seated on a wooden café-style chair, looks down at her instrument as she plays the lyra and bow.

Accessibility information

– If I Can’t Dance is located on the second floor of a historic building and, unfortunately, is not accessible by elevator.

– The venue is a former medical theatre dating from the 1920s and retains its original seating. Access across the tiered seating (tribunes) is via two narrow staircases.

– Two gender-neutral toilets are located on the first floor.

– Language: spoken English

Acknowledgements

With Mehrnoush Rahmani, Ayisha Siddiqi and Lidewij Mahler

Original music composition, oud, and vocals by Eleni Mik.

Presented as part of the 2026 International Association of Word and Image Studies triennial conference Word, Image and Social Dynamics.

Supported by the Creative Industries Fund.

Friday 28 August

18:00 – 19:15 (doors 17:50)

20:30 – 21:45 (doors 20:20)

English, 70 minutes,

(English captions for sung text)

If I Can’t Dance

WG-Plein 881

1054SM Amsterdam

Ticketed event, sliding scale, 5€, 8€, 12€

Tickets first show

Tickets second show

2024-25

Master course

DAI-COOP

The Word and the Wound 2 / And Now You Are Ready to Sing

Course

2024-25

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The focus of this study group remains on practice. As a continuation of last year’s study group, the encouraging rephrase of guest tutor Lisa Montan’s “And now you are ready to sing”, is reformulated to reflect on what it means to be ready to sing? What does it mean to sing with others? What is the relation between the individual voice and the voice of the group? How does it connect to the body, to (bodily) memory? What are the resonances of singing (together) – in time and space? In what way does singing mobilise our critical and artistic potential? Singing is proposed not only as an emanation of sound, but as an embodied practice of listening. Therefore, the research is articulated around questions of acts of listening, (a)tuning, transmitting, testing and exercising with sounds, with a particular interest in the somatic element of singing, as well as storytelling, folk traditions, the re-interpreting and re-writing of text. In her workWords to write it. The Word and the Wound (after which the study group is named) the Italian feminist Wanda Tommasi identifies the practice of writing as a process of symbolic creation that leads to repair. Special attention is thus brought to the relation between the performative and the restorative, thinking of the potential of performance to be a reparational practice.

Course tutors: Snejanka Mihaylova, Frédérique Bergholtz

Guest tutors: Lisa Montan, Angelo Custodio, Sara Giannini, Anik Fournier

Students: Anna Buyvid, Agnese Krivade, Alva Roselius, Agnese Spolverini, Bel McLaughlin, Hannah van der Schaaf, Javier Rodriguez Perez, Mia Tamme, Nada Gambier, Patrick Freriksen

Gatherings

PAF, St. Erme

NIDA Art Colony, Vilnius

Nicosia, Cyprus

If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

Nicosia, Cyprus (forthcoming)

Bachelor course

SNDO

Codes of in/accessibility within performance practices

Course

2024

In dialogue with If I Can’t Dance’s current research on disability justice and accessibility, this class looks at the different implications that accessibility can take, as well as, the functions it can serve in the creation and circulation of performance practices. In thinking with and alongside access, concepts such as presence, embodiment, perception, interpretation, scoring, and communicability become more layered, leaving space for questioning and deepening. How do bodies-in-performance appear for publics on-stage and off? What are the unconscious ableist structures that enable or disable access within our field and beyond? The dichotomy between abled and disabled bodies is misleading; bodies are rendered enabled or disabled by an uneven construction and distribution of access within racial capitalism and ongoing colonial violence. The seminar aims to unpack those entanglements and explore the correlations between disability and wider mechanics of exclusion, marginalization and harm. Working with material from the If I Can’t Dance archive, a selection of readings, and visits to exhibitions presently open in Amsterdam, the students will be given opportunities to work on small exercises in which they will be asked to explore accessibility in their own work and life.

Course tutors: Anik Fournier and Sara Giannini

Read full syllabus

Sites

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

2023-24

Master course

DAI-COOP

The Word and the Wound

Course

2023-24

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The study group opened a series of reflections on practice and its roots in everyday life. The “word” is synonymous with work; the “wound” denotes an environment. In this sense, the title is open to different questions about the relationship between artistic practice and context. This form of ‘work’ can be viewed in connection to what we can call the creative process. But what is creation? How do we actually initiate a process of creation? How do we form, and how are we formed by, daily life? And how can we – as proposed by Italian feminist Wanda Tommasi – understand working as a process of symbolic creation that leads to repair?

These questions are used to encourage the study group to think about their daily (artistic) practices, and to find methodologies through which individual and collective work can be performed and sustained.

Course tutors: Snejanka Mihaylova, Frédérique Bergholtz

Guest tutors: Angelo Custódio and Lisa Montan.

Students: Ania Yilmaz, Ariell Zéphyr, Cristina Ramos González, Elif Cadoux, Helena Estrela, Lisa Vlamings, Maria Miguel Pratas, Sam Mountford, Seán Bean, Stephen McEvoy, Tereza Darmovzalová, Valeria Moro, and Yi-Hong Wang (Hong).

Gatherings

PAF, St. Erme

NIDA Art Colony, Vilnius

PAF, St. Erme

Essaouira, Marrakech

Vleeshal, Middelburg / If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

Essaouira, Marrakech

2022–23

Research Commissions

Susanne Altmann

Susanne Altmann (lives and works in Dresden) is a feminist art historian, curator, and leading scholar in the contextualisation of women’s artistic production in former East Germany, working to reorient historical understandings of the region in relation to Eastern Europe rather than to the West. Her new research investigates media experimentation connecting women’s art and working methods, from the early Soviet avant-garde through the last years of the Eastern Bloc.

Elisabeth Rafstedt on When Technology Was Female

Visitor report

Spring 2024

Portrait: Elisabeth Rafstedt, photo by Rietlanden Women's Office.

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At If I Can’t Dance we see the visitor report as a method of documentation. The affectual, relational and embodied nature of performance work is not always easily captured in audio-visual formats. To supplement such formats, If I Can’t Dance commissions written visitor reports, which offer subjective responses to a lived experience of a work and its context. The visitor report is, therefore, not to be confused with a critical review. It is first and foremost a form of witnessing. The people commissioned to write the report span a range of positions and practices within and outside the field of art. For the conversation and film programme accompanying the launch of Susanne Altman’s publication we invited designer Elisabeth Rafstedt.

Available via the If I Can’t Dance webshop

When Technology Was Female: Histories of Construction and Deconstruction, 1917-1989

Publication

Continuities and ruptures between the early Soviet (c.1917) and late state socialist (c.1980s) periods are examined through detailed discussions of a wide range of women’s artistic practices, including Liubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova, Tina Bara, Sibylle Bergemann, Věra Chytilová, Natalia LL, Dora Maurer, the Erfurt Women Artists’ Group, Běla Kolářová, Evelyn Richter, Zorka Ságlová, and many others. Featuring over one hundred images of works ranging from costume sketches and stage maquettes, to photographs and film stills, the book offers a sweeping study of over seventy years of women’s artistic production and is meant for any reader engaged at the intersections of feminist and (post-)socialist art histories.

Author: Susanne Altmann
Graphic design: Experimental Jetset
Managing editor: Megan Hoetger
Series editor: Frédérique Bergholtz
Copy editor: Janet Grau
Page count: 320
ISBN: 978-94-92139-22-1

Acknowledgements

When Technology Was Female: Histories of Construction and Deconstruction, 1917-1989 is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who also serves as managing editor for the publication.

Special thanks to all who allowed for image reproductions, including: A.Lupas, P420, Bologna, and the Pejkoski Collection, London; The Art Institute of Chicago/ Art Resource, New York/ Scala Florence; the Deutsche Fotothek; Dóra Maurer and the Vintage Galéria, Budapest; Else Gabriel; the Estate of Běla Kolářová; the Estate of Zorka Ságlová and Hunt Kastner Gallery, Prague; the Evelyn Richter Archiv der Ostdeutschen Sparkassenstiftung im Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig; Jan Krumbach and the Ester Krumbachová Archive; the Kunstsammlung Jena; Lindenau-Museum Altenburg; the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest; MOMus – Museum of Modern Art – Costakis Collection, Thessaloniki; Monika Andres; the Museum of Modern Art, New York/ Scala, Florence; the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Ostkreuz – Agentur der Fotografen GmbH; the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden; Tina Bara; Verena Kyselka; and Zofia Kulik and the KwieKulik Foundation.

When Technology Was Female

Film programme

Saturday 20 January 2024, 14–18hr

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Taking over all three floors of the Goethe’s canal house on Herengracht, the installation features a selection of works from across different geographic, temporal and aesthetic constellations, including greater- and lesser-known works like Aelita (1924, dir. Yakov Protazanov); Zemlya (1929, dir. Oleksandr Dovzhenko); Fraülein Schmetterling (1965, dir. Kurt Barthel); Daisies (1966, dir. Věra Chytilová); Wäscherinnen (1972, dir. Jürgen Böttcher); Getting to Know the Big Wide World (1979, dir. Kira Muratova); and Signale (1989, Erfurt Women Artists’ Group).

Accessibility information

– Seated event
– First floor, no elevator
– No wheelchair accessible WC; gender neutral WC
– Language: English

Acknowledgements

When Technology Was Female is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger.

Technical preparation of the programme was supported by Julia Sokolnicka with installation assistance from Viola Karsten and the team of Goethe-Institut Amsterdam.

Goethe-Institut Amsterdam
Herengracht 470

1017 CA Amsterdam

€7,50 regular / €5 students
Purchase your ticket here

When Technology Was Female

Book Launch

Saturday 20 January 2024, 18.30-20hr

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Following an afternoon film programme is a lively conversation between the art historian and design collective Experimental Jetset with whom she worked to realise her book’s experimental form. Moderated by Megan Hoetger (managing editor), they discuss performativity, strategies of enactment, and the intersections with political histories of design that link the early Soviet avant-garde, the (post-)punk era and today. They also touch on works by artists including Alexandra Exter, Liubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova, Sibylle Bergemann, Kira Muratova, Věra Chytilová, Tina Bara, Evelyn Richter and the Erfurt Women Artists’ Group.

Accessibility information

– Seated event

– First floor, no elevator

– No wheelchair accessible WC; gender neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

When Technology Was Female is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who also serves as managing editor for the publication.

Special thanks to Viola Karsten and the Goethe-Institut Amsterdam for hosting the public conversation.

Goethe-Institut Amsterdam
Herengracht 470

1017 CA Amsterdam

Free

Pants Wear Skirts: The Erfurt Women Artists’ Group, 1984–1994

Panel conversation

Friday 26 May 2023, 16.30hr

Christa Maria Lerm-Hayes, Anna Seidl, Susanne Altmann and Megan Hoetger in conversation, ‘Pants Wear Skirts’ (2023), panel conversation. Photo: Sara Giannini.

Susanne Altmann, Introduction for ‘Pants Wear Skirts’ (2023), panel conversation. Photo: Frédérique Bergholtz.

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In conversation with programme curator Megan Hoetger and University of Amsterdam professors Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes and Anna Seidl, the art historian discusses the new publication Pants Wear Skirts: The Erfurt Women Artists’ Group, 1984–1994. Published to accompany her recent co-curated exhibition at the nGbK Berlin, the book is the most extensive examination of the prolific production of the Erfurt Women Artists’ Group, which was formed by artist Gabriele Stötzer in the early 1980s, as a space for women in East Germany to meet, share experiences and, eventually, to collectively create films, music and fashion together.

Acknowledgements

When Technology Was Female is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger.

Special thanks to Viola Karsten and the Goethe-Institut Amsterdam for hosting the public conversation.

Goethe-Institut Amsterdam
Herengracht 470
1017 CA Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservation required

Visiting information

Three Seminars from When Technology Was Female

Work-in-Process

From May 2023

Zorka Ságlová, ‘Kladení plín u Sudoměře’ (‘Laying Diapers at Sudoměře’), series of bw photographs, 30 x 40 cm each, 1970

In a series of three seminars, programme curator Megan Hoetger brings together visual and textual materials from across the art historian’s project. Each seminar shares a different facet of the research, ranging from explorations of women’s artistic practices in the early Soviet Union (c. 1917) and late East Germany (c. 1980s), to interests in forms of feminist writing and samizdat, or self-publishing, legacies in the former Eastern Bloc. Each seminar also features an episode of the podcast series Talk Me Through…, which takes listeners inside the art historian’s method of close reading analysis.

Image description

Black and white photograph depicting a group of five women putting big sheets of white fabric on a meadow, with around eight pieces lying on the grass in the foreground of the image.

Acknowledgements

When Technology Was Female is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who conceived the seminars in conversation with Susanne Altmann and realised the online studio room in collaboration with Kommerz design studio.

Special thanks to Kirila Cvetkovska for assistance with audio editing of the Talk Me Through… podcast series, and to Naomi Collier Broms and Marta Santos for their research assistance.

Socialist Collectivity and the Aesthetics of (Dys)Functionality

Workshop

Thursday 10 November 2022, 13–17hr

Four black and white film stills. The first three show elements of reproductive labor (breastfeeding, children and men eating), and the last shows productive labor (farm machines in the fields).

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In a masterclass workshop at the University of Amsterdam, the historian leads students through an examination of the concept of ‘the collective’, as it was ideologically envisioned through texts, as well as visually represented across films. Directors and artists under discussion are: David Maryan, Lev Kuleshov/ Aleksandr Rodchenko, Kira Muratova, Jürgen Böttcher, Evelyn Richter and the Erfurt Women Artists’ Group (Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt).

Image description

Four black and white film stills feature elements of reproductive and productive labour. The first three stills focus on reproductive labour: two women feeding children a long dining table; three women sitting in a line and breastfeeding; and another long dining table, this one filled with young men waiting to eat the food. The final still shows agricultural equipment in transit. In each still there is a strong perspectival line and repetition of elements, emphasising a machine-like understanding of human work and social relations.

Acknowledgements

When Technology Was Female is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and the workshop appears as part of the Collectivities and Technologies Entangled masterclass seminar, organised by Hoetger and Professor Dr. Christa Maria Lerm-Hayes at the University of Amsterdam.

Altmann’s participation in the programme is generously supported by the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis and the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture.

Full programme:

Collectivities Otherwise: Party Lines, Counterpropositions and (Post-)Socialist Spaces

Lecture by Susanne Altmann and roundtable discussion with Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Eszter Szakaćs and Robbie Schweiger

9 November, 17hr (Spui 25, University of Amsterdam Academic-Cultural Centre)

Free with registration

White Papers of Dissent

PhD defence by Barbara Cueto with responses from Gregory Sholette, Massimiano Mollona, Nishant Shah (ArtEZ), Jeroen de Kloet, Margriet Schavemaker and Paula Albuquerque

10 November, 10hr (Agnietenkapel, Oudezijds Voorburgwal 229-231, 1012 EZ Amsterdam)

Free

Socialist Collectivity and the Aesthetics of (Dys)Functionality

Masterclass workshop with Susanne Altmann

10 November, 13–17hr (closed session)

For student registration only

Principles of Internet Criticism: Aesthetics and Social Imaginaries

Appointment lecture by Geert Lovink

18 November, 16.30hr (University Aula, Singel 411)

Free

University of Amsterdam

Location OMHP (oudemanhuispoort) E2.01

Closed session

Collectivities Otherwise: Party Lines, Counterpropositions and (Post-)Socialist Spaces

Lecture and Roundtable

Wednesday 9 November 2022, 17hr

Susanne Altmann and Christa Maria Lerm-Hayes in conversation, ‘Collectivities Otherwise: Party Lines, Counterpropositions and (Post-)Socialist Spaces’ (2022), lecture and roundtable. Photo: Temra Pavlović.

Megan Hoetger, Eszter Szakaćs, Christa Maria Lerm-Hayes, Susanne Altmann, and Robbie Schweiger, ‘Collectivities Otherwise: Party Lines, Counterpropositions and (Post-)Socialist Spaces’ (2022), lecture and roundtable. Photo: Temra Pavlović.

Group portrait with five women, all wearing fantastical costumes.

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The art historian presents research-in-process, examining the entanglements of industrialisation with notions of ‘the collective’, and tracking moments in which the latter was reclaimed and rearticulated by artists working outside and alongside the socialist party apparatus in East Germany and the erstwhile Eastern Bloc. The presentation is followed by a discussion with programme curator Megan Hoetger, Professor Dr. Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, and researchers Eszter Szakaćs and Robbie Schweiger on contested notions of collectivity operative across (post-)socialist spaces then and now.

Image description

Group portrait with five white women, all wearing fantastical handmade costumes. Four of the women are standing and one kneels. The kneeling woman peers out from behind a large mask that she holds like a shield in front of her torso. The mask is assembled from olive green, chocolate brown and ash gray textile remnants pieced together to form an ominous face. Behind her, the other four women strike robotic poses, with arms and legs extended in awkward and unexpected angles. From left to right: one of the women wears a plastic suit and hat stitched together with pieces of newspaper and red vinyl. Her right leg is lifted and slightly bent, as if in mid-step. Next to her, another woman stands naked with white body paint covering her head, as well as right shoulder, breast and arm. The rest of her body is marked with black stripes, which also appear on her painted face, demarcating the brow bone with a heavy line. Her arms are slightly bent, as if about to plie, and she looks directly into the camera. The third standing woman wears a loose-fitting patchwork dress. She is positioned behind the others with her arms fully extended away from her body and her gaze is also fixed on the camera. The final standing woman is completely concealed behind a large polyhedron-shaped mask made of thin metallic sheets held together by riveted metal strips. These strips extend down her torso and right arm, forming the suggestion of a suit of armor. Behind the armor, she wears a shirt and pants, head-to-toe black, and her right arm is lifted perpendicular to her body with a slight crook at the shoulder. The group is posed in front of a nondescript wall, which is half flat-blue paint and half covered with black and red line drawings on newsprint. The newsprint extends out onto the floor below them.

Acknowledgements

When Technology Was Female is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and the lecture appears as part of the Collectivities and Technologies Entangled masterclass seminar, organised by Hoetger and Professor Dr. Christa Maria Lerm-Hayes at the University of Amsterdam. Altmann’s participation in the programme is generously supported by the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis and the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture.

Special thanks to University of Amsterdam Faculty of the Humanities and SPUI25 for their support of the public presentation.

Full programme:

Collectivities Otherwise: Party Lines, Counterpropositions and (Post-)Socialist Spaces

Lecture by Susanne Altmann and roundtable discussion with Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Eszter Szakaćs and Robbie Schweiger

9 November, 17hr (Spui 25, University of Amsterdam Academic-Cultural Centre)

Free with registration

White Papers of Dissent

PhD defence by Barbara Cueto with responses from Gregory Sholette, Massimiano Mollona, Nishant Shah (ArtEZ), Jeroen de Kloet, Margriet Schavemaker and Paula Albuquerque

10 November, 10hr (Agnietenkapel, Oudezijds Voorburgwal 229-231, 1012 EZ Amsterdam)

Free

Socialist Collectivity and the Aesthetics of (Dys)Functionality

Masterclass workshop with Susanne Altmann

10 November, 13–17hr (closed session)

For student registration only

Principles of Internet Criticism: Aesthetics and Social Imaginaries

Appointment lecture by Geert Lovink

18 November, 16.30hr (University Aula, Singel 411)

Free

SPUI25 (University of Amsterdam Academic-Cultural Centre)
Spui 25–27
1012 WX Amsterdam

Free with registration

When Technology Was Female: A Cultural Investigation of Former Socialist Europe, 1917–89 and After

Lecture

Saturday 2 July 2022, 11–19hr

Surrealist social-realist painting of two female factory workers, one outside and the other inside as viewed through a window

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The ideological and infrastructural geographies of socialist industrialisation, from the post-revolutionary climate of soon-to-be Soviet territories (c.1918) up through the final decades of the Eastern Bloc (c.1980s) offer an uneven map. From visual detail to production methods, the historian explores how ‘industrialisation’ meant widely varied things across contemporaneous socialist contexts and, by extension, across artistic practices operating therein.

Image description

Two female factory workers are painted in surrealist social-realist style with uncharacteristically vibrant colours including a tangerine orange representing the factory’s exterior brick wall, a bright kelley green portraying the machinery inside the factory and a rose-pink worker’s headscarf. The women look directly at the viewer, appearing neither particularly happy nor sad but in the midst of work. One stands outside at the corner of the building, wrapped in a blue-brown apron and surrounded by industrial springs and coils. The other, in the pink headscarf, peers out from within with right arm raised to pull the lever of one of three assembly line machines moving back into a deep single-point perspectival space. This strong perspective line reinforced by receding lines of the fence that closes on the left side, has a counterpoint in the window on the right through which the worker can be seen and which seems to open up the composition.

Acknowledgements

When Technology Was Female is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Special thanks to Likeminds for hosting the event.

Likeminds (formerly Dansmakers)
Gedempt Hamerkanaal 203
1021 KP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€17 regular / €13 student
(includes meal)

Exhibition Tour with Samia Henni

For tickets see Introductory Event listing

Samia Henni

Samia Henni (lives in Zurich) is an architectural historian, exhibition maker and educator who through text and visuals interrogates the built, destroyed and imagined environment. Continuing her anti-colonial and decolonial research in close dialogue with the activists and archives of Lyon-based demilitarisation research centre Observatoire des armements, the publication and exhibition expose France’s atomic infrastructures in the Algerian Sahara and their archival, economic, environmental and social impacts.

Performing Colonial Toxicity

Exhibition

Friday 22 March – Sunday 16 June 2024

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The Mosaic Rooms presents Performing Colonial Toxicity, an archival survey exhibition documenting France’s secret nuclear programme in Algeria during and after the Algerian Revolution (1954-62). This expansive research project, put together by architectural historian and exhibition maker Samia Henni, unfolds across a series of audio-visual assemblages — each consisting of maps, photographs, film, stills, documents and archival testimonies.

The public programme running in tandem with the exhibition offers multiple entry points to further engage with the concerns and research in the exhibition. The programme embraces Henni’s methodologies, engaging in alternative approaches to archival investigations to interrogate colonial histories and untold stories.

Friday 22 March 2024

11 am

Tuesday 30 April 2024

7pm

Radiant Matter

Online talk by scholar Jill Jarvis to examine the role of art and literature as a witness to trauma endured by Algerians during and after French colonialization

Tuesday 4 June 2024

7pm

Nuclear colonialism

Panel discussion with David Burns, Samia Henni, Alisher Khassenaliyev and Maïa Tellit Hawad on the historic and ongoing impacts of nuclear colonialism, toxicity, and extraction

Thursday 6 June 2024

7pm

Ciné-Sahra: An unknown part of us lives in this desert and an unknown part of this desert lives in us

Film programme curated by Abiba Coulibaly and Emma Bouraba

Acknowledgements

The exhibition is a co-production If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution and Framer Framed, which was realised within the frame of Henni’s Performing Colonial Toxicity, a two-year research project commissioned for the If I Can’t Dance Edition IX – Bodies and Technologies (2022-23) biennial programme and curated by If I Can’t Dance programme curator Megan Hoetger. The project is supported by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Special thanks to the Observatoire des armements, Centre de documentation et de recherche sur la paix et les conflits; the Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD); and to filmmakers Élisabeth Leuvrey and Larbi Benchiha with producer Farid Rezkallah for use of images and film excerpts in the exhibition; as well as to Prof. Dr. Roxanne Panchasi, Simon Fraser University for her support for the Tamasheq-to-French translation of Algerian testimonies.

The exhibition is generously supported by Arts Council England.

The Mosaic Rooms
226 Cromwell Rd
London SW5 0SW
United Kingdom

Mrinmayee Bhoot with Samia Henni on Performing Colonial Toxicity

Interview

January 2024

Mrinmayee Bhoot and Samia Henni in conversation about Samia Henni's ‘Performing Colonial Toxicity’, published by Stir World magazine, January 2024

An in-depth interview about the Performing Colonial Toxicity project between Mrinmayee Bhoot and Henni, published by Stir World magazine.

Read the interview

Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara

Publication

Available via the If I Can’t Dance webshop

Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial regime detonated four atmospheric atomic bombs, thirteen underground nuclear bombs and conducted other nuclear experiments in the Algerian Sahara, whose natural resources were being extracted in the process. This secret nuclear weapons programme, whose archives are still classified, occurred during and after the Algerian Revolution, or the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62). This publication brings together nearly six hundred pages of materials documenting this violent history of France’s nuclear bomb programme in the Algerian desert. Meticulously culled together by the architectural historian from across available, offered, contraband, and leaked sources, the book is a rich repository for all those concerned with histories of nuclear weapons and engaged at the intersections of spatial, social and environmental justice, as well as anticolonial archival practices.

Acknowledgements

Colonial Toxicity is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance.The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who also serves as managing editor for the publication, which is co-published with edition fink, Zürich and Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The project is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

Special thanks to all who allowed for image reproductions, including: the Observatoire des armements, Centre de documentation et de recherche sur la paix et les conflits; the Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD); and to filmmakers Élisabeth Leuvrey and Larbi Benchiha with producer Farid Rezkallah.

Author: Samia Henni
Graphic design: François Girard-Meunier
Managing editor: Megan Hoetger

Contributing editor: Georg Rutishauser
Series editor: Frédérique Bergholtz
Copy editor: Janine Armin
Co-publishers: Framer Framed, Amsterdam; Edition Fink, Zürich

Page count: 592
ISBN: 978-94-92139-24-5

Finissage conversation with Samia Henni and Nuraini Juliastuti

Conversation and Book launch

Sunday 14 January 2024, 15–17hr

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For her exhibition’s finissage, the architectural historian invites fellow If I Can’t Dance researcher Nuraini Juliastuti to join her for a conversation on counter-archive practices and anti- and decolonial research methods and distribution strategies. The discussion also marks the launch of Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara, offering an introduction to the experimental form of the book and the “acts of rehearsing” it proposes.

Accessibility information

– In the exhibition seats are available, the public programmes are seated events
– Ground Floor, wheelchair accessible
– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC
– Language: English

Acknowledgements

The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who conceived this event with Henni, Juliastuti, and programme curator Sara Giannini. The event forms part of the public programme for the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity, which is co-produced with Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The project is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Free with registration

For accessibility information, visit
www.framerframed.nl

And still, it remains

Film screening

Saturday 13 January 2024, 15–17hr

Within the frame of the Performing Colonial Toxicity exhibition, the new artists’ film And still, it remains by directing duo Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah is presented. Spending time with residents of a village in Algeria’s Hoggar Mountains who live surrounded by ancient rock art and the legacy of France’s nuclear bombs, the film asks: What does it mean to live in such intimacy with toxic colonialism? The filmmakers join programme curator Megan Hoetger for a post-screening discussion to reflect on sonic landscapes and modes of listening taken up in their work.

Accessibility information

– In the exhibition seats are available, the public programmes are seated events
– Ground Floor, wheelchair accessible
– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC
– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Performing Colonial Toxicity is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who conceived this event with Framer Framed head of exhibition production Jean Medina. The event forms part of the public programme for the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity, which is co-produced with Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The project is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Free with registration

For accessibility information, visit
www.framerframed.nl

Performing Colonial Toxicity

Lecture and Tour

Sunday 14 January 2024, 13-14hr

Sunday 26 November 2023, 15-16.30hr

Detail from Samia Henni, ‘Performing Colonial Toxicity’ (2023-24), exhibition. Co-produced with Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarten Nauw.

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Samia Henni guides us through the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity (2023), providing background into her seven-year research on the subject of French nuclear colonialism in the Algerian Sahara and its ongoing effects. Henni will also provide more insight into the connections between the different components of the project including the forthcoming publication Colonial Toxicity: Researching French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara.

The exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity can be visited until Sunday 14 January 2024 at Framer Framed.

Accessibility information

– In the exhibition seats are available, the public programmes are seated events

– Ground Floor, wheelchair accessible

– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Performing Colonial Toxicity is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and the tours with Henni form part of the public programme for the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity, which is co- produced with Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The project is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Free

For accessibility information, visit
www.framerframed.nl

Performing Colonial Toxicity Tour: The Testimony Translation Project

Conversation and Tour 

Saturday 28 October 2023, 15.30-17hr

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The architectural historian’s exhibition is activated through a special tour that focuses on the testimonies of Algerian and French victims of the France’s secret nuclear detonation programme, which feature in the installation. The testimonies are drawn from the Testimony Translation Project, an open access digital database built in the If I Can’t Dance Studio, and have been developed in collaboration with a global network of twenty “translator-participants.” Moving between the exhibition and online repository, programme curator Megan Hoetger leads the tour, and she is joined by a group of translator-participants who share their reflections on the translation process.

Accessibility information

– In the exhibition seats are available, the public programmes are seated events

– Ground Floor, wheelchair accessible

– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Performing Colonial Toxicity is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who is facilitating the tour in collaboration with Framer Framed head of exhibition research and development Ashley Maum. Special thanks to Anik Fournier, Martine Neddam, and Alice Rougeaux from the Testimony Translation Project for their participation. The event forms part of the public programme for the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity, which is co-produced with Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The project is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Free with registration here

For accessibility information, visit
www.framerframed.nl

Performing Colonial Toxicity

Exhibition

Saturday 8 October 2023 – Sunday 14 January 2024

Exhibition opening on Saturday 7 October 2023, 19–21hr

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An immersive multimedia installation organised into a series of thirteen stations meant to be traversed and engaged by bodies. Each station presents an assemblage of materials spanning audio-visual and textile-like displays, which trace and name the spatial, atmospheric, and geological impacts of France’s atomic bombs in the Sahara, as well as its colonial classification vocabularies, and the (after)lives of its radioactive debris and nuclear wastes.

Accessibility information

– In the exhibition seats are available, the public programmes are seated events

– Ground Floor, wheelchair accessible

– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Performing Colonial Toxicity is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The exhibition is a co-production with Framer Framed, Amsterdam and is realised within the frame of Henni’s two-year commission, which is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger. The project is supported by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

Special thanks to the Observatoire des armements, Centre de documentation et de recherche sur la paix et les conflits; the Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD); and to filmmakers Élisabeth Leuvrey and Larbi Benchiha with producer Farid Rezkallah for use of images and film excerpts in the exhibition; as well as to Prof. Dr. Roxanne Panchasi, Simon Fraser University for her support for the Tamasheq-to-French translation of Algerian testimonies. Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Opening times:
Tuesday – Sunday, 12–18hr

Free

Performing Colonial Toxicity: Testimony Translation Project

Online work

Monday 15 May – Saturday 30 September 2023

Fragment of a scan of original testimony. To protect the privacy of the individual who gave their eye-witness account, as well as the family of that individual, identifying information has been redacted.

Together with a network of twenty collaborators from around the world, the researcher develops an open access digital database, which begins the long process of digitalizing and translating the over seven hundred pages of written and oral testimonies from Algerian and French victims of the French nuclear detonation programme in the Algerian Sahara (1960-66). Drawn from three key sources, the online repository includes a selection of forty testimonies ranging from individual recollections to intergenerational familial and community memories.

Image description

Fragment of a black and white scan of an original testimony. The document is written in French, for the larger part in Times font, with at the upper part in the centre, in capital letters, the word ‘attestation’. To protect the privacy of the individual who gave their eye-witness account, as well as the family of that individual, identifying information has been redacted through black bars covering these parts in the document.

Acknowledgements

Performing Colonial Toxicity is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who serves as managing editor for the database, which is realised in collaboration with Kommerz design studio.

Much gratitude to the people and institutions responsible for having collected together these testimonies, including: Patrice Bouveret and the Lyon-based anti-nuclear NGO Observatoire des armements (est. 1984); the former European Parliament politician, co-founder of the Green Party in France and environmental activist Solange Fernex (b. Strasbourg, FR, 1934; d. Biederthal, FR, 2006); and the Paris-based Algerian photographer Bruno Hadjih (b. Kabylia, DZ).

Special thanks also go to the twenty translator-participants: Raoul Audouin, Adel Ben Bella, Omar Berrada, Megan Brown, Séverine Chapelle, Simona Dvorák, Hanieh Fatouree, Alessandro Felicioli, Anik Fournier, Jill Jarvis, Augustin Jomier, Timothy Scott Johnson, Anna Kimmel, Corentin Lécine, Natasha Llorens, Miriam Matthiesen, Martine Neddam, M’hamed Oualdi, Roxanne Panchasi and Alice Rougeaux. Funding support for the Tamazight-to-French translation of Algerian testimonies has generously been provided by Dr. Roxanne Panchasi, Associate Professor, Department of History, Simon Fraser University.

Toxic Coloniality or Colonial Toxicity?

Lecture

24 March 2023, 17–18.45hr

Megan Hoetger introducing ‘Toxic Coloniality or Colonial Toxicity?’ (2023), lecture. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

The trace of the explosion of France’s first nuclear bomb in the ground zero, the Algerian Sahara © 1960, Raymond Varoqui / SCA / ECPAD

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Continuing her work of tracing and naming the spatial, atmospheric and geological impacts of the French nuclear detonation programme in the Algerian Sahara (1960–66), the historian explores the lives and afterlives of radioactive debris and nuclear wastes, exposing the coloniality toxicity – or toxic coloniality? – of the norms and forms of France’s weapons of mass destruction, including the classification of its very sources.

Image description

Archival black-and-white photograph taken by a French military photographer in the Algerian Sahara, which depicts an aerial view of the blast imprint from a nuclear bomb detonation. The imprint appears as a black circular form with striation lines radiating out from a slightly raised mound in the centre, and it sits in stark contrast to the vastness of mid-tone grey desert floor that surrounds it. No other forms appear in the space and even the horizon line is pushed to the very top of the image’s frame, creating visual confusion around the imprint’s scale.

Acknowledgements

Performing Colonial Toxicity is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Special thanks to Jeff Diamanti from the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam for support of the public presentation. Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

PC Hoofthuis, room 1,05
Spuistraat 134
1012 VB Amsterdam
The Netherlands

More information

Performing Colonial Toxicity

Performance-Lecture

Saturday 2 July 2022, 11–19hr

Black-and-white archival photograph: five figures in gas masks and hazardous materials (hazmat) suits pose in the Algerian Sahara.

Black-and-white archival photograph: nuclear blast imprint in the Algerian Sahara.

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The researcher experiments with fragmented choreographies of (moving) image, sound and silence as she works her way through archival materials from the French nuclear detonation programme in the Algerian Sahara (1960–66). Moving between official and contraband sources, a speculative narrative is built around visual gaps, redactions and low threshold copies that explores the intersections of performativity, bodies, radioactivity, coloniality and violence.

Image description

Archival black-and-white photograph taken by a French military photographer in the Algerian Sahara, which depicts an aerial view of the blast imprint from a nuclear bomb detonation. The imprint appears as a black circular form with striation lines radiating out from a slightly raised mound in the centre, and it sits in stark contrast to the vastness of mid-tone grey desert floor that surrounds it. No other forms appear in the space and even the horizon line is pushed to the very top of the image’s frame, creating visual confusion around the imprint’s scale.

Archival black-and-white photograph taken by a French military photographer in the Algerian Sahara, which depicts a group of five figures donning black gas masks and bright white hazardous materials (hazmat) suits. Their startling almost apocalyptic appearance is intensified by their gazes – all seem to look directly into the camera. Two figures, one in the centre and one at the far left, carry Geiger counter equipment. Behind the group, military tents and vehicles populate the landscape with some signs of activity. Between the tents on the right, a sixth figure in a hazmat suit appears; and a seventh figure, also in a hazmat suit, emerges from a tent on the left far off in the background. Two towers, one a communications antenna and the other a water storage container, rise up from behind the tents.

Acknowledgements

Performing Colonial Toxicity is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with Framer Framed, Amsterdam. Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Special thanks to Likeminds for hosting the event.

Likeminds (formerly Dansmakers)
Gedempt Hamerkanaal 203
1021 KP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€17 regular / €13 student
(includes meal)

For tickets see Introductory Event listing

Nuraini Juliastuti

Nuraini Juliastuti (b. 1975, Surabaya, Indonesia. Lives in Leiden, the Netherlands) is a translocal practising researcher and writer who focusses on art organisations, activism, illegality, alternative cultural production and unofficial, everyday practices of vernacular archiving. Conceived to culminate in a radio play, her research departs from the practice of cultural activist groups located in Indonesia and Timor Leste that are committed to the recuperation of suppressed indigenous knowledge across agriculture, language and craft.

Eva Posas on Stories of Wounds and Wonder

Visitor report

Spring 2024

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At If I Can’t Dance we see the visitor report as a method of documentation. The affectual, relational and embodied nature of performance work is not always easily captured in audio-visual formats. To supplement such formats, If I Can’t Dance commissions written visitor reports, which offer subjective responses to a lived experience of a work and its context. The visitor report is, therefore, not to be confused with a critical review. It is first and foremost a form of witnessing. The people commissioned to write the report span a range of positions and practices within and outside the field of art. For the radio play, display and conversation accompanying the launch of Nuraini Juliastuti’s publication we invited curator Eva Posas.

Stories of Wounds and Wonder

Publication

This experimental children’s book narrates cross-species practices of survival across the Indonesian archipelago, centring the perspectives of local animals such as endangered monkeys, cosmopolitan rats, migrant sparrows and fugitive dogs. Written in the form of a play, its six episodes ground the readers in the animals’ struggles and aspirations as they go about their daily lives and face the consequences of postcolonial erasure, ecological destruction and capitalist expansion. While the stories unfold, their interconnected existences become an archive of uncertainties, where the fate of many different creatures, humans included, is inseparable from each other. As a script for intergenerational transmission, the book thoughtfully combines dialogues, songs and drawings, with contextualising essays and extensive notations. Through these different modes of reading, children and adults alike will learn about cross-species solidarity and rebellious movements, but also about disappearing Indigenous cosmologies, and the brave women who wove cloths around the mountains in eco-political resistance.

Acknowledgements

The work forms a part of Juliastuti’s investigations of the ‘commons museums’: counter-authoritative cultural institutions and non-human centric practices of world-making that are based on radical pedagogy, vernacular archiving and community-based techniques of life.

Author: Nuraini Juliastuti
Hand-drawn illustrations: Nuraini Juliastuti
Graphic design: Theetat Thunkijjanukij
Managing editor: Sara Giannini
Series editor: Frédérique Bergholtz
English copyeditor: Janine Armin
Indonesian copyeditor: Dyah Permatasari
English translation from Indonesian: Andy Fuller
Research interlocutors and collaborators: Sekolah Pagesangan (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) and Lakoat Kujawas (Mollo, Indonesia)

Page count: 151
ISBN: 978-94-92139-26-9

Broadcast on Radio Alhara

Radio

25 February 2024, 13-16hr, Palestine time (+1 CET)

For all those far away or unable to attend live on the 17th of February, the whole launch programme is broadcast by Bethlehem-based Radio Alhara on the last day of the display companion.

Acknowledgements

The launch events of Stories of Wounds and Wonder are presented in partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam, with additional support from the project Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam.

Many thanks to Radio Alhara, and in particular to Yazan Khalili, for allowing us to share Stories of Wounds and Wonder with many communities of listeners around the world.

www.radioalhara.net

Guided tour

Display tour

21 February 2024, 16.30-18hr

T-shirts produced by Animal Friends Jogja — an independent initiative working for animal rights in Yogyakarta.

During this tour, Juliastuti gives an introduction to the materials in the room and the multi-purpose libraries that the display companion is modelled on. As a way to activate and contribute to the display, the visit also includes an impromptu drawing session.

Accessibility information

– In the display seats are available;
– First floor, wheelchair accessible via elevator
– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

Acknowledgements

The launch events of Stories of Wounds and Wonder are presented in partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam, with additional support from the project Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam.

Concept: Nuraini Juliastuti

Curator: Sara Giannini

Design support: Theetat Thunkijjanukij

Production support: Dewi Laurente

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Free with registration

Stories of Wounds and Wonder

Book Launch

Saturday 17 February 2024, 14.30–17.30hr

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On the occasion of the launch, the book is turned into a radio play performed live by Mercedes Azpilicueta, Astrit Ismaili, Nuraini Juliastuti, and Ratu R. Saraswati. The play is followed by a conversation between Juliastuti and architect, artist, and cultural producer Yazan Khalili. The conversation touches upon the main themes of the publication and their intersection with Khalili’s expansive practice, including anti-colonial knowledge production and community-based infrastructures, intergenerational publishing, drawing as research, and cross-species solidarity.

Hosted by If I Can’t Dance programme curator Sara Giannini and artist Reza Afisina. Music selection and groovy intermissions by Cempaka.

Accessibility information

– Seated event

– First floor, wheelchair accessible via elevator

– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

The launch events of Stories of Wounds and Wonder are presented in partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam, with additional support from the project Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam.

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Free with registration

Stories of Wounds and Wonder: A Companion

Display

15–25 February 2024

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A display of books, fables, textiles, prints, puppets, stickers and other artefacts that inspired Juliastuti’s children’s book Stories of Wounds and Wonder. An ode to the library as a space for reading, copying, playing and being together, the display welcomes audiences of different ages to sit down, chat, snack, read, copy, colour-in, play and make worlds!

For a sneak peek into the display-in-the-making, visit ificantdance.studio.

Accessibility information

– In the display seats are available;
– First floor, wheelchair accessible via elevator
– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

Acknowledgements

The launch events of Stories of Wounds and Wonder are presented in partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam, with additional support from the project Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam.

Concept: Nuraini Juliastuti

Curator: Sara Giannini

Design support: Theetat Thunkijjanukij

Production support: Dewi Laurente

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Tue – Sun, 12-18hr

Free

How to Talk with Our Fellow Animals?

Children’s workshop

Saturday 17 February 2024, 10.30-12.30hr

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Juliastuti’s children’s book Stories of Wounds and Wonder is the departure point for a storytelling workshop on friendships across animal species. In the first part some episodes of the book are read out loud as a script and discussed in relation to books, fables, textiles, prints, puppets and other artefacts that inspired it. After, participants are invited to share stories from their own contexts and draw their own animal characters, practising how they can all live and talk together in a new imaginative world.

The workshop is conducted in English and is imagined for children aged 9 to 13 with a migration background.

Accessibility information

– First floor, wheelchair accessible via elevator
– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC
– Language: English

Acknowledgements

The launch events of Stories of Wounds and Wonder are presented in partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam, with additional support from the project Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam.

Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS Amsterdam

Registrations are closed

Sketching Stories of Wounds and Wonder

Work-in-Process

From May 2023

Nuraini Juliastuti, sketch for ‘Stories of Wounds and Wonder’ (2023).

The researcher introduces aspects of her project for intergenerational learning and trans-species practices of survival and solidarity, culminating in an illustrated publication for children and adults. The studio room functions as an expansion of Juliastuti’s writing desk where you are invited to return to the coming months for a series of teasers of the play-script-in-the-making, from its characters and environments to the political and cultural contexts these have arisen from.

Image description

Four dogs sketched from different angles and with only the outlines indicated, drawn in pencil, surround a tree embellished with foliage, drawn in green and brown pencil. Hand-written in pencil in the upper left corner: ‘Bello’; and next to tree: ‘Ansana Tree’.

Commons Museums: Technologies for Covering the Wounds

Lecture

Saturday 2 July 2022, 11–19hr

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An introduction to the practices of radical pedagogy and cultural resistance promoted by the activist groups at the core of the research. Their transgenerational practices of transmission and living together are conceptualised by Juliastuti as ‘commons museum’. Through storytelling, a glimpse of their collections, displays and archival methodologies are disclosed, while questioning the colonial heritage these notions and technologies carry with them.

Image description

Six women harvest rice in a field situated within or at the edge of a tropical forest. They are crouched in a line that cuts the image diagonally, five seated, with the last on the left standing, looking elsewhere, possibly taking some rest. Facing the crop, they show their backs to the camera. With the exception of the last seated woman, who is visibly holding a cutter, we can’t see their faces. Their heads are protected by headscarves and/or conical rice hats in different colours – from light green to black, fuchsia, rose, green and blue. Their clothes are quite casual, and in different colours and in striped, square or floral patterns. At least two wear flipflops. While their faces or gestures are not visible, the point of view of the photograph enables one to see the second woman in the act of cutting. Next to her lays a bundle of rice, which also appears further down the line, next to the woman whose face is partially revealed.

Acknowledgements

Stories of Wounds and Wonder is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Sara Giannini.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

The lecture is realised in dialogue with Sekolah Pagesangan (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), Lakoat Kujawas (Mollo, Indonesia) and Arte Moris Free Art School (Dili, Timor Leste).

Special thanks to Likeminds for hosting the event.

Likeminds (formerly Dansmakers)
Gedempt Hamerkanaal 203
1021 KP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€17 regular / €13 student
(includes meal)

For tickets see Introductory Event listing

Edition IX

Bodies and Technologies

Finale

September 2023 – February 2024

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the Finale of Edition IX – Bodies and Technologies, featuring artists (collectives) Black Speaks Back and Constantina Zavitsanos, and researchers Susanne Altmann, Devika Chotoe, Samia Henni, Nuraini Juliastuti, and Grant Watson. During a seasonal festival, taking place from September 2023 through February 2024 across Amsterdam venues, they present their new productions and publications. Each in their own way, they tackle the complex and plural entanglements between bodies and technologies – from experiences of pleasure and intimacy to the ongoing embodied realities of colonial and ableist frameworks.

Image description

Cover of the programme booklet, with text in Times font on white background, stating: Finale Edition IX – Bodies and Technogolgies; names of the participating artists and researchers: Susanne Altmann, Black Speaks Back, Samia Henni, Nuraini Juliastuti, and Constantina Zavitsanos; dates: September 2023-February 2024; and the city where the programme will take place: Amsterdam.

Acknowledgements

The Edition IX commission series is curated by programme curators Sara Giannini and
Megan Hoetger in conversation with the If I Can’t Dance artistic team.

Venues across Amsterdam

Artist Commissions

Black Speaks Back

Black Speaks Back (est. 2016, Brussels. Based in Amsterdam) is a Belgo-Dutch grassroots media platform for multidimensional Black narratives. Their film tackles issues of hyper-sexualisation, cultural fragmentation and collective remembrance at the boundaries between intimacy and sexuality, freedom and conditioning, and myth and reality. The Zwarte Ibis project is led by Chris (Ci) Rickets and Alexine Gabriela in collaboration with Smita James.

Musoke Nalwoga on ZWARTE IBIS

Visitor report

Spring 2024

Portrait: Musoke Nalwoga, photo by Simara van Bochove.

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At If I Can’t Dance we see the visitor report as a method of documentation. The affectual, relational and embodied nature of performance work is not always easily captured in audio-visual formats. To supplement such formats, If I Can’t Dance commissions written visitor reports, offer subjective responses to a lived experience of a work and its context. The visitor report is, therefore, not to be confused with a critical review. It is first and foremost a form of witnessing. The people commissioned to write the report span a range of positions and practices within and outside the field of art. For the premiere of Black Speaks Backs’ film ZWARTE IBIS we invited curator and researcher Musoke Nalwoga.

Inside ZWARTE IBIS

Artist talk and Film screening

Saturday 3 February 2024, 17hr

Behind-the-scenes documentation of 'Zwarte Ibis', 2023, photo: Henck Pengel.

This moving artist talk connects BSB’s installation at CBK Zuidoost with the Bijlmerbios movie theater. Members of the collective gather to discuss their collaborative production process, as well as the central role of Amsterdam’s Bijlmer neighbourhood within their project.

Acknowledgements

ZWARTE IBIS is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger. The artist talk and screening are realised in partnership with CBK Zuidoost and the Bijlmerbios. Special thanks to CBK event programme curator Claudio Ritfeld for his support of the artist talk.

Begins at CBK Zuidoost
Anton de Komplein 120
1102 DR Amsterdam

Free with registration for the film screening

ZWARTE IBIS

Film premiere

Friday 12 January & Saturday 13 January 2024, 19hr

Poster for 'ZWARTE IBIS'. Design by Naomi Quartey.

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The collective invites audiences to join them for world premiere of ZWARTE IBIS, their newest short film, which portrays a young Black woman’s quest for intimacy in a world where the boundaries between the individual and the collective, the political and the personal, the past and the present, become ever blurrier. The screenings are accompanied by a welcoming DJ set, singing bowl performance, and post-screening panel discussions on black intimacy featuring members of the cast and crew.

Acknowledgements

ZWARTE IBIS is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who also serves as the film’s production supervisor. The production of the film was made possible with the support of a “Research, Act & Reflect” grant from Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie, and the premiere programme is realised in partnership with Africadelic, Caribbean Creativity, and Re/Presenting Europe. Special thanks to Melkweg, Amsterdam for hosting the programme.

Co-producer: La Fam

Director: Emma-Lee Amponsah

Composer: Chris “Ci” Rickets

Writing team: Nohely Koeyers, Emma-Lee Amponsah, Chris “Ci” Rickets, and Alexine Gabriela

Director of Photography: Henck Pengel

Edited by: Chris Tjong Ayong

Color grading: Yavuz Salim Isler

Text: Mathieu Charles

Narrator: Burnice Hiwat

Lead Actress: Henriette “Aelia Sapph” Valies

Melkweg

Lijnbaansgracht 234A

1017 PH Amsterdam

Tickets:

€11 regular / Cineville free

First screening (fully booked)

Second screening (fully booked)

Zwarte Ibis: An Exploration of Black Intimacy

Exhibition

Thursday 7 December 2023 – Saturday 3 February 2024

Exhibition Opening Thursday 7 December 2023, 17–20hr

Free with registration here

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As a culmination of their time in CBK Zuidoost’s BijlmAIR residency, the collective’s presents an installation featuring audio and visual materials from their production process, including: recordings from their 2022 Kitchen Table Talks, collective notes from scriptwriting in February 2023 and behind-the-scenes footage from filming in summer 2023.

Accessibility information

– Seats available

– Ground floor, wheelchair accessible

– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

– Language: Dutch and English

Acknowledgements

ZWARTE IBIS is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger. The installation is realised in the frame of the CBK Zuidoost BijlmAIR Residency programme as part of the exhibition ‘AIR in Zuidoost #2023.’ Special thanks to Renske de Jong and Yazan Maksoud for their support with constructing the installation.

CBK Zuidoost
Anton de Komplein 120
1102 DR Amsterdam

Opening times: Tuesday – Friday 11–17hr; Saturday 10–17hr

Free

The Making of Zwarte Ibis

Work-in-Process

From May 2023

Black Speaks Back, ‘Zwarte Ibis: Preliminary Experiments’ (2022), performance presentation for the If I Can’t Dance Edition IX – Bodies and Technologies Introductory Event, Amsterdam. Photo: Maarten Nauw.

The grassroots media collective introduces aspects of their film-in-the-making Zwarte Ibis through a series of three media campaigns that share elements of their research, scriptwriting and filming processes. Featuring a Zwarte Ibis music playlist, the studio page includes re-broadcasted material from the group’s Instagram story archive and a wide network of hyperlinks to follow, taking visitors inside the topic of intimacy, histories of (Black) cinema and the behind-the-scenes of their film set.

Image description

Full colour photo depicting in the foreground a row of three, loosely positioned full-length mirrors, free standing on wheels, with each having several wax lights on their base. In the background are two people sitting on a table, in front of a wall covered in a red glow and depicting the video-projected sentence: ‘Has your Blackness formed your experience of intimacy?’. The mirrors reflect fragments of a theatre tribune, flight cases and the audience.

Acknowledgements

ZWARTE IBIS is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who conceived and realised the online studio room in collaboration with Kommerz design studio.

Zwarte Ibis: The Spirit of Black Intimacies

Screening & Performance

Saturday 2 July 2022, 11–19hr

Black Speaks Back, ‘Zwarte Ibis: The Spirit of Black Intimacies’ (2022), screening and performance. Photo: Maarten Nauw.

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A multimedia performance in which the collective experiments with audio, visual and somatic strategies for approaching the question, ‘how do Black people navigate the intimate sphere in a context where their bodies are heavily politicised and under constant interrogation?’ The mirror plays a key role, foregrounding the frameworks of projection and internalisation through which intimacies with self and others are formed.

Image description

Square graphic logo in black-and-white monochromatic colour scheme where ‘the ground’ is flat black and ‘the figure’ a stark white pairing of the words ‘Zwarte’ and ‘Ibis’. ‘Zwarte’ appears more-or-less in the centre of the graphic, and ‘Ibis’ is right-centred with the ‘Ibi’ aligned directly below the ‘te’ of Zwarte. The ‘s’ in Ibis transforms into the long-beaked head of an ibis bird.

Acknowledgements

ZWARTE IBIS is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Special thanks to Likeminds for hosting the event.

Likeminds (formerly Dansmakers)
Gedempt Hamerkanaal 203
1021 KP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€17 regular / €13 student
(includes meal)

For tickets see Introductory Event listing

Jessika Khazrik

Jessika Khazrik (b. 1991, Beirut. Lives in Beirut and Berlin) is an artist, composer, writer and technologist whose ‘indisciplinary’ practice involves performance, machine learning, ecotoxicology, cryptography, visual art, history of science and music. Working towards a hyper-media performance, she explores the convergences of the histories of science and magic through fieldwork and rehearsals in environmental medicine research centres and scientific laboratories for sonocytology, biomedical imagery and exposome studies.

قرابادين Pharmakopoeia

Essay-Performance

Saturday 2 July 2022, 11–19hr

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The artist maps out the plural strands of research that depart from pharmacopoeia, the formularies of shared remedies that would, up until some centuries ago, thoroughly instruct how to identify ailments and prepare compound medicines. Questioning the linguistic, environmental and techno-political links between remedies, medicine and media, Khazrik delves into the divinatory afterlives and militarised roots of biomedical practices of sonification, sensing, imaging and anamnesis.

Image description

Palimpsestic project image of قرابادين Pharmakopoeia. Realised digitally, the graphics mixes, almost in a steganographic way, different colours (ranging from acid green, to red, purple and pink), geometric patterns (mainly circles, crescents, lines and triangles), slightly floral shapes, images and Arabic scripts. The composition has a square landscape orientation. It centres the project title in light fluorescent green and an image of colourful small balls or pearls. These two elements are positioned against a light, patterned, square background that is framed by stronger green- and purple-coloured shapes.

Acknowledgements

Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution and co-produced with Iaspis – The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Arts as part of their Holes, Spirals, Waves (2022) programme. Part of the research is carried out at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Munich where Khazrik is an artist in residence from spring 2022 to spring 2023.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Special thanks to Likeminds for hosting the event.

Likeminds (formerly Dansmakers)
Gedempt Hamerkanaal 203
1021 KP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€17 regular / €13 student
(includes meal)

For tickets see Introductory Event listing

Constantina Zavitsanos

Constantina Zavitsanos (b. 1977, Reading, United States. Lives in New York City, United States) works in sculpture, performance, text and sound to elaborate what’s invaluable in the re/production of debt, dependency and means beyond measure – sometimes sculpting inaudible sound waves or the performance of everyday life like school loan debt or years of sleep. Continuing their interference with what is perceivably accessed, they experiment with heat, infrared light, infrasound, haptics and written scores beyond sight and fixed form.

Staci Bu Shea on Entrophy

Visitor report

Spring 2024

Portrait: Staci Bu Shea, photo by Zazie Stevens.

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At If I Can’t Dance we see the visitor report as a method of documentation. The affectual, relational and embodied nature of performance work is not always easily captured in audio-visual formats. To supplement such formats, If I Can’t Dance commissions written visitor reports, which offer subjective responses to a lived experience of a work and its context. The visitor report is, therefore, not to be confused with a critical review. It is first and foremost a form of witnessing. The people commissioned to write the report span a range of positions and practices within and outside the field of art. For Entrophy we invited curator and writer Staci Bu Shea.

Entrophy

Saturday 30 September 2023, 15hr & 18hr

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A set of three performances (on-site and online) catalysed by the artist and conjured with the performers who co-create them through an experimental score belonging to no one. In a space of collaboration and not-knowing, the works unfold through chance, improvisation, shared in/capacities and desire. Moving across thresholds of perception, the performance(s) are inhabited by sound, infrasound and infrared light. Each has air and water; some have fire and only one has earth. Repeated twice at different tempos, time flows in many directions as well as through layered descriptions, interpretations and captions.

Performers and co-creators of the score: Angelo Custódio and Pedro Matias, S*an D. Henry-Smith and Geo Wyex

Image description

A cropped photograph taken in a two-mirror Schlieren system (with knife edge) shows a black background that hosts otherwise invisible entropic air currents against the shadowed ground of a telescope mirror. Two fingers curl over an igniting open flame that lights a candle. It’s serving something in the blur of mourning and celebration; the vibe is a bit of a full moon feel.

Accessibility information

– Hybrid performance(s), online and on-site
– Live-stream on Zoom
– The on-site performance(s) are seated. There will be priority seats for wheelchair users as well as for deaf and hard of hearing audiences. If you come a bit earlier, our hosts will help you find a spot
– Ground floor, wheelchair accessible
– Wheelchair accessible WC downstairs via elevator; gender-neutral WC
– Language: English
– The performance(s) employ sound and infrasound (vibrations)
– Sign language interpretation (NGT on-site, ASL online)
– CART captioning (Dutch and English on-site, English online)
– Poetic audio description (English, both on-site and online)
– Masking during the performance(s) is welcome and highly encouraged; masks are available at the entrance
– Splendor has a café where you can hang out before and after the event

Acknowledgements

Concept: Constantina Zavitsanos
Initiator of the score: Constantina Zavitsanos
Performers and co-creators of the score: Angelo Custódio and Pedro Matias, S*an D. Henry-Smith and Geo Wyex
Curator and production manager: Sara Giannini
Stage manager: Annick Kleizen
Set design: Constantina Zavitsanos with the performers
AV: Leroy Chaar
Light design: Marion Tränkle
In-house technician and floor manager: Thomas Myrmel
Live-stream production: Hans van Eck, Barry Jonas and Zsolt Szederkényi
Production assistance: Sancha Meca Castro
NGT interpreters and Dutch CART: Faye Schippers and Clarissa van den Elzen
ASL interpreters: Candace Davider and company
English CART: Veerle Haverhals
Audio description on-site and online: Constantina Zavitsanos
Front of house team: Naomi Collier Broms and Sancha Meca Castro
Accessibility advisors: Staci Bu Shea and Annick Kleizen
Zoom production advisors: Patrick Mahaney and Lauren Parrish
Accessibility financial support: I Wanna Be With You Everywhere

We would like to thank I Wanna Be With You Everywhere for their generous contribution in making the event more widely accessible. We are also very grateful to Eliane Baudet, Staci Bu Shea, Marja de Kinderen, Annick Kleizen, Patrick Mahaney, Lauren Parrish and Simon(e) van Saarlos for sharing their expertise and advising us in different phases of the project. Finally, a warm thank you to the Splendor collective, and in particular to Nora Fisher, for hosting the programme.

On-site:
Splendor
Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat 116,
1011 LX Amsterdam

Tickets:

€16,50 regular / €10 students

– First slot: Saturday 30 September 2023, 15-16:30hr (Fully booked)*

– Second slot: Saturday 30 September 2023, 18-19:30hr (Fully booked)*

Online:
The event will be live-streamed on zoom
Free with registration

* Each slot includes all three performances.
They are presented one after the other with no intermission.

Entrophy

Score

A twist on the deductive reasoning game Twenty Questions, this performance score reflects the artist’s research into entropy, polyvocality and indeterminacy. Initiated by the artist, it is formed collectively with the performers who will stage it. With Zavitsanos in the role of the guesser, the performers are asked to think of ‘absolutely nothing’ before answering a set of twenty yes/no questions about the performance they will enact. Their answers determine the performances in a space of collaboration and not-knowing, unfolding through chance, improvisation, shared in/capacities and desire.

Acknowledgements

Concept and score: Constantina Zavitsanos
Performers, interpreters and co-creators of the score: Angelo Custódio and Pedro Matias, S*an D. Henry-Smith and Geo Wyex

Experimenting with Entrophy

Work-in-Process

From May 2023

Two images of the glowing filaments mounted above the central plane of the methanol pool fire

In their studio room, the artist opens a window into their own studio while working towards Entrophy, a series of collaborative performances riffing on questions of entropy, heat, interdependency and shared in/capacities. Here they share the research and experimentations that underlie these performances: from visual references and tests with heat and infrared cameras, to different engagements with accessibility and modes of seeing.

Image description

Two side by side images. Against a dark background, cold blue smoke-like shadows are scored by repeating horizontal lines of bright light.

Entrophy

Lecture-Performance

Saturday 2 July 2022, 11–19hr

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The artist shares their experimentation with heat through technologies and performance tactics that unravel at the perceived limits of the sensorial, opening up sight, sound and measurability to a dimension of feeling. Instead of treating heat as something that can be captured for observance by an audience, the artist works with the felt, shared qualities of heat among bodies in space.

Image description

A black screen hosts two lines of overlapping projected captions in white and grey. The two texts interrupt and join one another in partial occlusion that complicates the legibility of one and produces new texture. Joined text reads as: ‘Slick in the The way up and down is the same the Heisenberg cut like a band Each lives the death of the other cedes our birth.’

A black screen hosts two lines of overlapping projected captions in white and grey. The two texts interrupt and join one another in partial occlusion that complicate the legibility of one and produces new texture. Joined text reads: ‘Hotel, motel, you don’t tell. She got a boson for her birthday and wore it out in quar.’

Acknowledgements

Entrophy is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Sara Giannini.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

Special thanks to Likeminds for hosting the event.

Likeminds (formerly Dansmakers)
Gedempt Hamerkanaal 203
1021 KP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€17 regular / €13 student
(includes meal)

For tickets see Introductory Event listing

Bodies and Technologies

Field of inquiry

How do various technologies condition the performance and experience of one’s own body and of other bodies? And, in turn, how do different bodily experiences re-condition, retune and perhaps even disrupt technologies? In this edition we tackle the complex and plural entanglements between bodies and technologies, from experiences of pleasure and intimacy to the ongoing embodied realities of colonial and ableist frameworks. These investigations are led by Devika Chotoe (b. 1992 Netherlands. Lives in Amsterdam) a dancer, poet and organiser who researches the ongoing impacts of Dutch colonialism on communities of colour in the metropole, with a special focus on the (queer) histories of Indian and Indo-Surinamese migratory trajectories.

Reading Group

Emerging out of a desire to create time and space for collective study, the reading group is a platform to explore methods for collaborative, embodied learning.

The reading group participants are invited based on their work’s affinity to the theme Bodies and Technologies: Tammam Azzam, Josefin Arnell, Keerthi Basavarajaiah, Frédérique Bergholtz, Milena Bonilla, Sancha Castro, Naomi Collier Broms, Angelo Custódio, Anne de Andrade, Paca Faraus, Antonella Fittipaldi, Anik Fournier, Sara Giannini, Megan Hoetger, Nuraini Juliastuti, Francisca Khamis, Arif Kornweitz, Pedro Matias, Martine Neddam, Temra Pavlovic, Fazle Shairmahomed and Charlie Trier/

“Put Your Mouth On Your Lower Back”(Oral Imaginations)

Reading Group

Wednesday 30 November 2022, 18-20hr

A speech chain diagram taken from Nina Sun Eidsheim’s ‘’The Race of Sound’’. The image portrays a symbolic depiction of the process of speech production and speech perception.

The last reading installment closes with vocal ephemerality and oral imaginations. Research-based artist Angelo Custodio guides the group in a voice practice in which they collectively vibrate and tune in to their bodies and each other.

Texts: Nina Sun Eidsheim, Brandon LaBelle

Image description

A speech chain diagram taken from Nina Sun Eidsheim’s “The Race of Sound”. The image portrays a symbolic depiction of the process of speech production and speech perception.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Closed session

Multiplicitous Self and Sacred Subjectivity

Reading Group

Wednesday 26 October 2022, 18-20hr

Image taken from the cover of ‘’Pedagogies of Crossing’’. A predominantly turquoise and black painting depicting wild water and waves transforming into four bodies. A fetus in an oval shaped egg form is situated at the center of the image, in between the waves.

Sacred and ancestral interference can advance understanding a plural sense of self. For instance, M. Jacqui Alexander invokes African cosmologies as a means to make the invisible tangible and Gloria Wekker provides a lexicon of the self through the cosmology of Winti, an Afro-Surinamese religion.

Texts: M. Jacqui Alexander,
Gloria Wekker

Image description

Image taken from the cover of “Pedagogies of Crossing”. A predominantly turquoise and black painting depicting wild water and waves transforming into four bodies. A fetus in an oval shaped egg form is situated at the center of the image, in between the waves.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Closed session

Embodying Change

Reading Group

Wednesday 28 September 2022, 18-20hr

Departing from the understanding of the body as a site for the perpetuation of intergenerational and socio-political traumas and mechanisms, this session looks at technologies of self-care and creativity to invoke ways for undermining those mechanisms. The session closes with a somatic practise guided by performance artist Fazle Shairmahomed.

Texts: Silvia Federici, Jose Esteban Munoz, Nicole LePera, Kai Cheng Thom, Resmaa Menakem, Adrienne Maree Brown, Julietta Singh, Ursula K. Le Guin, Alok Vaid-Menon

Image description

A list of the texts read during the reading group.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Closed session

So… You Want to Queer Your Pedagogy and Design a Pluriverse?

Reading Group

Wednesday 25 July 2022, 18-20hr

A black and white doodle with circular and curvy shapes. Drawn by Pedro Matias.

KUNCI Study Forum & Collective in Yogyakarta co-founder Nuraini Juliastuti discusses study groups and student press following the New Order Regime in 1998 during Indonesia’s Reformation movement. Amid monetary crisis and corruption, reading groups – often under police surveillance – drove student movements and circulated critical thought. During this session doodling is encouraged to re-enact KUNCI’s practice, after which Devika Chotoe leads a collective reading and textual exercise seeking discursive, affective and rhythmic connections between Kate Morales’s and Arturo Escobar’s texts.

You can listen to an extract of this collective reading exercise below.

Texts: Arturo Escobar, Kate Morales

Image description

A black and white doodle with circular and curvy shapes. Drawn by Pedro Matias

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Closed session

Listening to Images

Reading Group

Wednesday 27 April 2022, 18-20hr

16 African identity photos taken in front of a red background. A white square covers each of their faces.

Devika Chotoe introduces a text by Tina Campt that promotes listening to images to attune to quiet, quotidian practices of black refusal in identification photography. This method opens up radical interpretative possibilities for images and state archives, considering images not as sites of social reproduction, but rather as ruptures in the sovereign gaze of colonial regimes within which they were made. Campt attends to the infrasonic grammar of black futurity as well as the stasis and muscular tension visualised in these images that is not perceived through vision alone.

Text: Tina M. Campt

Image description

Sixteen Ugandan identity photos taken in front of a red background. A white square covers each of their faces

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Closed session

Technologies of Perception

Reading Group

Wednesday 30 March 2022, 18-20hr

Anzaldua’s handwriting bulletpointing ‘’nos/otras’’ and a drawing of a puppet.

To move towards knowledge rooted in queer and decolonial perception, Devika Chotoe proposes darkness as a mode to subvert the visual and rational as dominant signifiers of knowledge. Texts include Rolando Vázquez on the modern gaze’s control of representation and experience that perpetuates colonial difference and, to bridge the distance that creates, Gloria Anzaldua on hybrid consciousness. Donna J. Haraway’s ‘situated knowledges’, restructured depending on subject, are also considered.

Texts: Gloria Anzaldua, Donna J. Haraway, Rolando Vázquez

Image description

Anzaldua’s handwriting bulletpointing ‘nos/otras’ and a drawing of a puppet

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Closed session

Radio Emma

The radio programme unpacks key terms from our research into Bodies and Technologies with invited local guests from various disciplines and practices.

Excavating technologies of perception from within the vistas of modernity

Radio

Wednesday 20 September 2023, 18hr

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Devika Chotoe in conversation with Tina M. Campt, Black feminist theorist of visual culture and contemporary art and Rolando Vázquez Melken, teacher and decolonial thinker about excavating technologies of perception as a key site for emancipative pedagogies. The conversation was held in presence of a live audience at SHEBANG.

Guests: Tina M. Campt and Rolando Vázquez Melken
Host: Devika Chotoe

Image description

(1) A black silhouette of a person, holding their arms, crossed at the wrists, above their head, against a dark-purple/blue background.

(2) photo of a intense dark space, with about eight dispersed, candle lit, spots.

Accessibility information

– Seated event

– Ground floor, wheelchair accessible

– No wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments:
Jingle: Paula Montecinos Oliva
Light technician, ZOOM and sound engineer: Barry Jonas.

SHEBANG: Jeroen Beker and Esther Meijer

SHEBANG
Hettenheuvelweg 8
1101 BN Amsterdam

€7,50 regular / €5 students

Listen here

Queer Pedagogy

Radio

Wednesday 21 September 2022, 13-14hr

Image taken from IHLIA LGBTI Heritage’s Instagram

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Taking pedagogical practices as a crucial site where bodies and technologies converge, Devika Chotoe has invited three guests to share their insight on what it means to queer pedagogy and vice versa: how to feature queerness as topic of pedagogy? Together they will touch upon the different initiatives Sorab, Feargal, and Elioa initiated to foster queer teaching and knowledge creation, ranging from archival and performative practices, to organising kink workshops and play parties.

‘’..we are queering the word ‘’education’’, queering who is doing the teaching and who is doing the learning, queering ‘’school’’ as we build ecoversities out of our homes and on the land, queering our bodies as we relate differently with ourselves and heal from the too small boxes they tried to fit us in, queering society as we build collective knowledges together outside of colonial institutions’’ (Kate Morales).

Guests: Sorab Roustayar, activist and founder of Fite Qlub; Feargal Agard, archivist IHLIA LGBTI Heritage and founder of Humans of Film Festival; Elioa Steffen, Co-coordinator of IPOP, a queer pedagogy research project at the ATD. Host: Devika Chotoe.

Acknowledgements

Editorial team: Frédérique Bergholtz, Devika Chotoe, Anik Fournier
Jingle: Paula Montecinos Oliva
Technician and sound engineer: Monty Mouw
Livestreaming, equipment and post-production: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

Listen on site:

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606-608

1013 BV Amsterdam

Please arrive not later than 12.30hr

Free, meal included

Listen here

Bodies and Technologies

Radio

Wednesday 29 June 2022, 13-14.30hr

Listen here

If I Can't Dance team Frédérique Bergholtz, Sara Giannini, Megan Hoetger, research fellow Devika Chotoe and radio producer Monty Mouw, 'Bodies and Technologies' (2022), radio show. Photo: Anik Fournier.

Edition IX tackles the complex and plural entanglements between bodies and technologies. This broadcast stages a conversation with the If I Can’t Dance artistic team – Frédérique Bergholtz, Anik Fournier, Sara Giannini and Megan Hoetger – and research fellow Devika Chotoe, who share their entry points into the programme and engagements with the Bodies and Technologies field of inquiry.

Acknowledgements

Technician and sound engineer: Monty Mouw
Livestreaming, equipment and post-production: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

Library Exhibition

Library displays further the research into Bodies and Technologies by activating material from our library holdings and archive.

Scoring Liveness

Exhibition

22 September – 15 December 2022

Image: keon gaskin and Temra Pavlovic, fragment of artist’s research, 2017

This library exhibition proposes the score as a technology of reproduction. A score is both binding and open in nature, having the capacity to assemble different kinds of bodies, temporalities and materialities, each time anew. Scoring Liveness includes scores, documentation, works and books from the If I Can’t Library and Archive by Yael Davids, Mariana Fernández M, keyon gaskin and Temra Pavlovic, Jacob Korczynski, Constantina Zavitsanos and Park McArthur, together with works borrowed from Amsterdam based artists Martine Neddam and Jo Baer. Throughout the duration of the show a collective writing group led by Michał Dawid and Naomi Collier Broms will explore writing and scoring as a performative practice distinguished by unstable boundaries between bodies. I want the thing that you had when you wrote that keeps writing itself — unmoored and adrift and alive, can be followed live as it unfurls in the ificantdance.studio

Image description

Figure walking down a neighborhood street completely draped in national flags. Their hands are risen above their head. They are pulling the material of a flag across their face so that the facial
features can be seen through the fabric.

Acknowledgements

Scoring Liveness is curated by Anik Fournier (curator of archive and research) in conversation with Frédérique Bergholtz (director). The writing workshop and studio page I want the thing that you had when you wrote that keeps writing itself — unmoored and adrift and alive is curated by Michał Dawid and Naomi Collier Broms and designed by Kommerz. The exhibition poster and handout are designed by Maud Vervenne.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606-608
1013 BV Amsterdam
Open Mon-Thu, 10-17hr
Please call before you stop by

Exhibition Opening: Thursday 22 September, 17-20hr

One day exhibition with Jo Baer

Conversation

Thursday 22 September 2022, 18-19hr

Jo Baer and Frédérique Bergholtz in the artist’s studio, Summer 2022.

Jo Bair, detail of 'The Lord God’s Magical Circus', 2022

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For the opening of Scoring Liveness we present two new paintings by Jo Baer before they leave for New York: The Lord God’s Magical Circus and Bone Keaper, Adam’s symmetry, A Paradice Gone. Writer and editor Janine Armin will deliver a short lecture on Baer’s work, which is the subject of her PhD dissertation. Jo Baer (via Zoom) and Malin Persson will be present for a Q & A.

Image description

First image: two people standing and talking in an artist studio. Two large paintings leaning on the wall with various animals, trees and stones can be seen behind them. A black dog is lying on the floor in the foreground.

Second image: detail from Jo Baer’s painting ‘The Lord God’s Magical Circus’.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606-608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Free, no reservation required

Co-writing with algorithms

Conversation

Wednesday 19 October 2022, 18-19hr

Martine Neddam, ‘Mouchette.org’ (1996-ongoing), website.

Maria Fernandez Mora, excerpt from ‘Dear Machines’ (2022), artist book.

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Artists Martine Neddam and Mariana Fernández M in conversation about ‘scoring liveness’ in their practices, moderated by Anik Fournier.

Image description

A screenshot of a website on which a close-up image of a large bright pink lily is seen. In the top
left-hand corner there is an image of a young girl, beside which is a list of biographical descriptions. At the bottom of the page is a dropdown menu. The first option is: browse me.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606-608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Free, no reservation required

Exhibition opening hours today: 10-20hr

What is a score?

Children’s workshop

Sunday 13 November 2022, 14-17hr

Workshop on scores for children between the ages of 8 and 12, held in the library and surrounding neighborhood. Participants are introduced to different forms of scores in art and daily life, with the goal to develop and execute playful scores together.

Image description

An IKEA instruction manual. Billy Disassembly Instructions is written at the top in black bold
letters, under which are six steps performed by a drawn figure disassembling a book shelf.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606-608
1013 BV Amsterdam

€12,50

Reservation, before 10 November, required via office@ificantdance.org

I want the thing that you had

when you wrote that keeps

writing itself — unmoored and

adrift and alive

Conversation

Thursday 15 December 2022, 18-19hr

As part of the finissage of the exhibition, the writing group presents the process and some materializations of their experiments in collective writing based on scoring liveness.

Image description

Botanical drawing of a tree with a heavy brown trunk that transforms into tentacle like branches and green foliage on top and reptile-like roots on the bottom. There are cursive black words written around the tree that are illegible.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606-608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Free, no reservation required

Exhibition Finissage: Thursday 15 December, 17-20hr

Performance

Performance organised in the frame of Edition IX (2022–23) – Bodies and Technologies.

Forthcoming (Not Yet Here, But Always Been There)

Performance

19 & 20 November 2022, 16hr

Anne Jesuina rehearsing for Devika Chotoe’s performance Forthcoming (Not Yet Here, But Always Been There), within the context of patricia kaersenhout’s exhibition The Third Dimension in CBK Zuidoost, November 2022. Photo: Devika Chotoe.

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Devika Chotoe responds with a performance to patricia kaersenhout’s exhibition in CBK Zuidoost. In this exhibition a central role is played by kaersenhouts’s new film Le retour des femmes colibris in which she stages a fictional meeting with Josephine Baker, Suzanne Césaire, Christiane Diop, Frida Kahlo, and Paulette and Jeanne Nardal – all women who played a key, if not also invisible, role within the Négritude movement.

Acknowledgements

Concept and performance: Devika Chotoe, Anne Jesuina
Sound and performance: Paula Montecinos
Sound assistance: Leroy Chaar
Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, Forthcoming (Not Yet Here, But Always Been There) is co-produced with CBK Zuidoost.

CBK Zuidoost on site

Hettenheuvelweg 8

1101 BN Amsterdam

More information

Reader

Devika Chotoe is a theatre maker,writer, playwright and film journalist. Departing from queer and decolonial frameworks, Chotoe’s work is rooted in researching how art can initiate processes of trans-formation, bridge difference and start meaningful conversations. Eventually striving for self and collective healing, the emancipation of our imagination and the embodiment of change. A main emphasis in Chotoe’s research is unfolding the ongoing impact of Dutch colonialism on communities of colour in the metropole, with a special focus on the (queer) histories of Indian and Indo-Surinamese migratory trajectories. Chotoe graduated from the School for New Dance Development (AHK) in 2022 and writes about film for de Volkskrant and Filmkrant. For more information: www.devikachotoe.com

Ciro Monoarfa Goudsmit started with club and street styles before exploring the impact of sound on the body as a choreographic tool. The work focuses on discovering personal rhythm through sensitivity to drum patterns and body tremors. This exploration comes from the desire to understand the inner body in relation to the physical world around us; to re-understand identity by embracing mixedness as a style of making. Ciro stages the research by immersing audiences in embodied soundscapes, encouraging them to amplify sensations and become speakers. For more information: https://ciromsg.com/

Bodies and Technologies

Book Launch & Performance

Saturday 13 December 2025

13.40 – 14.20hr

Launch of the Bodies and Technologies Reader that compiles material from the If I Can’t Dance reading group in Amsterdam as part of Edition XI–Bodies and Technologies (2022–24) edited by Devika Chotoe. For the launch, and within the context of the VIVA VIVA – Rijksakademie Art Book Fair, Chotoe is present to introduce the publication and is joined by book contributor Ciro Monoarfa Goudsmit who will give a sound performance that continues his research into low frequencies shaking the muscles through vibrations; from relaxing the body by resonating the vagus nerve; humming the soulnerve; to, using silence as rhythm; and ask the body to fall into those gaps; to move muscles and delay into the imaginary.

Image description

A book cover with a large deep purple symbol that calls to mind both the typographical ‘at sign’, as well as an egg in a womb. In the bottom right-hand corner of the cover are the words Bodies and Technologies written in black.

Accessibility information

– The Reading Room at the Rijksakademie is accessible with a lift
– Seated event
– Gender neutral and accessible WC
– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Devika Chotoe would like to thank Tina M. Campt, Rolando Vázquez Melken, Sorab Roustayar, Eli Steffen, Feargal Agard, patricia kaersenhout, Annet Zondervan, Renske de Jong, Barry Jonas, Jeroen Beker, SHEBANG in Amsterdam, Fazle Shairmahomed, Ciro Monoarfa Goudsmit, Joris Kritis, Johanna Gibbs and Janine Armin.

Edition IX—Bodies and Technologies was supported by the Mondriaan Fund, AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts), Ammodo and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Reading Room, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten

Sarphatistraat 470

1018 GW Amsterdam

Free entrance

Bodies and Technologies

Publication

Edited by Devika Chotoe

Bodies and Technologies opens-up a multi-sensory terrain, exploring the ways in which technologies condition the experience of our bodies, and how different embodied ways of being in the world, can rewire and even disrupt the behaviors and performance of technologies. This Reader compiles the texts read by If Can’t Dance’s reading group in Amsterdam as part of the artistic programme of Edition IX – Bodies and Technologies (2022–23). Enfolded within its pages is a commissioned sonic artistic intervention by Ciro Goudsmit. Authors: Rolando Vázquez, Gloria Anzaldúa, Tina M. Campt, Kate Morales, Arturo Escobar, adrienne maree brown, Resmaa Menakem, Kai Cheng Thom, Ursula K. Le Guin, M. Jacqui Alexander, Gloria Wekker, Brandon LaBelle, and ALOK.

Master course

DAI-COOP

On Tradition – Future Ancestors 3: The Mother, The Archival, and The Symbolic Order

Course

2022-23

1/4

The third iteration of ‘On Tradition – Future Ancestors’ focuses on the tryptic: The Mother, The Archival and The Symbolic Order, to further an understanding of tradition and what it means to be a future ancestor. At the heart of this investigation is an attention for the pictorial, asking what role the human act of drawing plays in inscribing, unearthing and envisioning the urges of our current(s), past(s) and future(s). By bringing together our individual practices and experiences, like that of a collective unravelling scroll, the course asked what pictures might possibly unfold?

A focus on visual, textural and sonic making explores how to create a vessel to share references and connections between individual paths of research. The group engages with existing archives, while it also questioned the creation of an archive of the experience over the year. Through a series of group rituals that includes working with choreography, movement exercises, drawing, painting, visual scenography, listening, writing and translation, connections are built among the group’s participants and lead towards the development of collaborative work.

Course tutors: Snejanka Mihaylova and Rory Pilgrim

Guest tutors: Andrea di Serego Alighieri, Frédérique Bergholtz, Claudia Castellucci, Anik Fournier, Maaria Treima, and Sands Murray-Wassink.

Students: Ania Yilmaz, Baoxin Liao (Bobo), Evija Kristopane, Gamze Öztürk, Gleb Maiboroda, Iarlaith Ni Fheorais, Louis Schou-Hansen, Maxi Smith, Mara Ittel, Pelumi Adejumo, and Theresa Zwerschke.

Gatherings

PAF, St. Erme

DAI, Arnhem and If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

NIDA Art Colony, Vilnius

PAF, St. Erme

Salina, Italy

NIDA Art Colony, Vilnius

Bachelor course

SNDO

Performative forms of documentation and writing

Course

2023

This class explores the many forms that documentation can take, as well as the functions it can serve in a performance practice. In particular, we focus on the slippery status of “the document” itself and its many temporalities, highlighting non-visual forms of documentation, especially creative writing. Each morning we pull materials out from the If I Can’t Dance archive, this year related to the commissions of Charlotte Prodger, Grant Watson, Samia Henni, and Derrais Carter, and bring them in dialogue with short readings, screenings, the students’ own work and visits to exhibitions presently open in Amsterdam. In the afternoons students are given a small writing exercise in which they are asked to explore in practice the techniques for documentation we focus on in the mornings.

Course tutors: Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger

Sites

Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Framer Framed, Amsterdam

Other

Hochschule der Künste Bern

Remapping the terms of performance: body, relation, and liveness

Course

28 – 29 March 2023

1/5

According to performance theorist Jonah Westerman, performance art is not a medium, but rather, a set of questions concerning the way art relates to its audiences and wider social context. In this seminar we will take this proposition as a starting point to open-up and remap three keywords that have been central to understandings of performance art, positing them as interrelated questions: What is a body? What is a relation? What is liveness? The students’ work will center the discussion, adding new articulations of what a body, relation and liveness can mean, and new perspectives onto their practice at one and the same time. The seminar further aims to highlight how questions specific to performance manifest in embodied acts of transmission and encounter, in and outside the field of art; in cultural practices past, present and in process of becoming; and between living, and material and technological forms of being. Highlighted in this seminar is how questioning the body, the relation and liveness have aesthetic, and also, ethical and political consequences that are important to think through in artistic practice, each time anew.

Teachers: Frédérique Bergholtz and Anik Fournier

Acknowledgements

Coordination: Marianne Flotron and Madeleine Amsler.

Sites

Hochschule der Künste Bern –

MA Contemporary Arts Practice

Kunsthalle, Bern

Cabinet of Curiosities of Natural History Museum Bern

2021-22

Master course

DAI-COOP

On Tradition – Future Ancestors 2: Rurality and Law

Course

2021-22

1/9

‘On Tradition – Future Ancestors’ focuses on two specific inquiries: Rurality and Law. In a time of increasing crises – from migration, public health, to the destruction of the biosphere – what role does art play in responding to the urgencies of our contemporary moment?

By bringing together the plurality of traditions and contexts from those within the COOP, we will investigate how we can develop methodologies as artists that rethink and challenge our understandings of tradition, rurality and law on global and local levels. In this respect we ask: What is law within tradition(s)? What is legislation? Is there a need for new legislation? How can this be formulated? As a focus point, the COOP engages with practices of writing and storytelling to look at the notion of law/lore and their relation to questions of tradition and future ancestry.

Course tutors: Snejanka Mihaylova and Rory Pilgrim

Guest tutors: Nuraini Juliastuti, Carol R. Kallend, Dima Stefanova, and Andrea di Serego Alighieri.

Students: Pelumi Adejumo, Dylan Spencer-Davidson, Cristina Emmel, Iarlaith Ni Fheorais, Michael Sites Fischer, Izaro Ieregi Gonzalez, Nadja Henß, Gleb Maiboroda, Adriana A. Leanza, Marilú Mapengo Namoda, and Liza Rinkema Rapuš.

Gatherings

Mallorca, Spain

NIDA Art Colony, Vilnius

If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

Wongema and Schiermonnikoog, NL

Baco Art Institue, Bergamo

PAF, St. Erme

Baco Art Institue, Bergamo

Bachelor course

SNDO

Performative forms of documentation and writing

Course

2022

1/5

This class explores the many forms that documentation can take, as well as the functions it can serve in a performance practice. In particular, we focus on the slippery status of “the document” itself and its many temporalities, highlighting non-visual forms of documentation, especially creative writing. Each morning we pull materials out from the If I Can’t Dance archive, this year related to the commissions of Derrais Carter, Grant Watson, the library exhibition Scoring Liveness, Constantina Zavitsanos, and Fred Moten and Wu Tsang, and bring them in dialogue with short readings, screenings, the students’ own work and visits to exhibitions presently open in Amsterdam. In the afternoons students are given a small writing exercise in which they are asked to explore in practice the counter-techniques for documentation we focus on in the mornings.

Teachers: Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger

Sites

Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam

Framer Framed, Amsterdam

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Other

Centre Pompidou

Cultures d’avenir

Course

1-5 November, 2021

This workshop explores different modes of knowledge production and transmission, which performance – as a practice and a lens onto the world – proposes, and what archival practices can learn from this. We centre methods taken up by past artist and research commissions: the speculative approach of Basque artist Isidoro Valcárcel Medina in 18 pictures, 18 Stories (2010-12); curator Grant Watson’s method of using the interview format to register embodied queer histories in How We Behave (2013-ongoing); the role of storytelling in the transmission of intergenerational trauma among diasporic communities in Mounira Al Solh’s Freedom is a Habit I Am Trying to Learn (2017-18); and finally we navigate the dynamic structure of The Gift Science Archive developed to archive the relational nature of Sands Murray-Wassink’s artistic practice (2019-21).

Teachers: Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger

Centre Pompidou, Paris

2020-21

Master course

DAI-COOP

On Tradition – Future Ancestors: let rhythm be your guiding light

Course

2020-21

1/3

‘On Tradition – Future Ancestors’ takes place through a framework of collective reading, listening, and creating to explore our individual and collective relationships to tradition and what it means to be a future ancestor. Through this course we ask ourselves: how do we radically enable nuance, storytelling, and experience in the traditions we become caregivers of? By looking into structures of performance and music composition, the COOP explores how the score can give freedom to different tempos and textures that exist within time. In what sense can we truly think of something from the past anew and enable a creative manifestation of the future to be present? How can rhythm be nurtured as a tool of agency, prophecy and emancipation?

Course tutors: Snejanka Mihaylova and Rory Pilgrim

Guest tutors: Rachel O’Reilly, Ghalya Saadawi, Georgi Ilchev, Ima Abasi-Okon, Miyuki Inoue, and MPA.

Students: Ilgin Akseloglu, Bambi van Balen, Felix Bahret, Alexandra Duvekot, Dandelion Eghosa, Raffia Li, Marilú Mapengo Namoda, Kari Rosenfeld, Rosa Ronsdorf, Lou Lou Sainsbury, Iga Świeściak, Marie Tučková́, Rhodé Visser, Eli Witteman, Zane Zajančkauska, and Lau ten Zeldam.

Gatherings

Online

Oldebroek, NL

PAF, St. Erme

Bachelor course

SNDO

Performative forms of documentation and writing

Course

November 2021

1/2

This class explores the many forms that documentation can take, as well as the functions it can serve in a performance practice. In particular, we focus on the slippery status of “the document” itself and its many temporalities, highlighting non-visual forms of documentation, especially creative writing. Each morning we pull materials out from the If I Can’t Dance archive, this year related to the commissions of Pauline Curnier Jardin, Grant Watson, The Otolith Group, and Sands Murray-Wassink, and bring them in dialogue with short readings, screenings, the students’ own work and visits to exhibitions presently open in Amsterdam. In the afternoons students are given a small writing exercise in which they are asked to explore in practice the counter-techniques for documentation we focus on in the mornings.

Teachers: Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger

Sites

Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam

Framer Framed, Amsterdam

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Performative forms of documentation and writing

Course

June 2021

This class explores the many forms that documentation can take, as well as the functions it can serve in a performance practice. In particular, we focus on the slippery status of “the document” itself and its many temporalities, highlighting non-visual forms of documentation, especially creative writing. Each morning, we pull materials out from the If I Can’t Dance archive, this year related to the commissions of Bulegoa z/b with Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, The Otolith Group, and Sands Murray-Wassink, and bring them in dialogue with short readings, screenings, the students’ own work and visits to exhibitions presently open in Amsterdam. In the afternoons students are given a small writing exercise in which they are asked to explore in practice the counter-techniques for documentation we focus on in the mornings.

Teachers: Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger

Sites

Het Hem, Zaandam

Oudekerk, Amsterdam

Other

University of Amsterdam

Archiving Art

Course

2020

At If I Can’t Dance, the archive exists across several platforms: the database, analogue material, the website, the library, and our collection of works. Students are introduced to questions specific to archiving performance art and what function each of these platforms has in relation to the cataloguing, preservation, and mediation of works. The students are also asked to reflect on the performative role archiving has in creating the narratives of performance work.

For the project, students are assigned a case study from Edition VII (Social Movement), and are involved in inventorizing and organizing the analogue archive boxes from this edition. Students are also encouraged to work in the database, new and old websites, and the library to create a ‘narrative’ for their case studies with the analogue material.

Each commission has its own ‘box’, in which the curatorial research behind the project; the trajectory of the work up until the present; documentation of the works presentation moment(s); and ephemera around the commission, is collected and archived. Students will therefore be responsible for going through boxes, putting the material and trajectory (narrative) of the work in order, and for creating photo documentation sheets for each presentation moment.

Tutor: Anik Fournier

If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

Rijksacademie, Amsterdam

2019–21

Artist Commissions

Pauline Curnier Jardin

(b. 1980, Marseille. Lives in Amsterdam and Berlin) is an artist and performer whose personas in (art)history, folklore and myth are invested in questions related to the contemporary conditions of women. The making of her first feature film extends her interest in rituals that accompany stages of life.

Sea of Roses by Ana Carolina

Screening

9 February 2022, 19hr

Screening of Ana Carolina's 'Mar de Rosas' (Sea of Roses) (1977) as part of 'Bodies Extra-ordinaires' library exhibition (2022). Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

1/3

Within the framework of our research exhibition Bodies Extra-ordinaires we host the screening of this film at our production studio in Westerdok and online on the ificantdance.studio. Set against the backdrop of second-wave feminism and the larger struggle to escape the repressive authoritarian regime in 1970s Brazil, Sea of Roses proposes a set of women figures whose behaviours and violent acts deliver a raw critique of institutions and established beliefs regarding the family, education, religion, romantic love and the honouring of the father. Following a gruesome attempted murder at the start of the film, mother and daughter set off on a journey full of mischievous, surreal events, which leaves viewers situated in a complex negotiation of identification and alienation. We are happy to offer a new subtitled version of this important film after the copy with the English subtitles was burnt in a fire at the cinematheque of São Paulo.

Sea of Roses, 1h30 min, col. Brazilian/Portuguese with English Subtitles.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to director Ana Carolina and Crystal Cine for their enthusiasm and support for the project and permission to screen the film.

If I Can’t Dance production studio
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Studio (streaming only once at 19hr)

Free, the audience number is limited to 25 people, first come first served

Corona QR code is required to attend

Soup and drinks will be served from 18hr, the screening starts at 19hr

Before the screening the library display is open to visit

Freak Orlando by Ulrike Ottinger

Screening

22 December 2021, 19hr

Within the framework of our research exhibition Bodies Extra-ordinaires we host the screening of this film online at the ificantdance.studio. Ulrike Ottinger’s world of ‘freaks’ or unusual characters with physical or mental oddities gradually seem much less odd than their physically ‘normal’ contemporaries. Over the course of five episodes the film traces different origin stories.

Freak Orlando, 126 min, col. German with English subtitles

A Question of Silence by Marleen Gorris

Screening

11 November 2021, 19hr

‘Bodies Extra-ordinaires’ (2021), exhibition. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

Bodies Extra-ordinaires’ (2021), screening Marleen Gorris A Question of Silence. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

Pauline Curnier Jardin and Giulia Damiani, ‘Bodies Extra-ordinaires’ (2021), screening Marleen Gorris A Question of Silence. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

1/4

Within the framework of our research exhibition Bodies Extra-ordinaires we host the screening of this film at our production studio in Westerdok and online on the ificantdance.studio. Three women are accused of the murder of a shopkeeper. The film subtly layers the forms of microaggressions experienced by the women and carried out by male partners in their lives and work. The narrative poignantly intersperses silence and laughter, which comes to a culmination in the last scene of the film. In 1983 artist Barbara Kruger reviewed the film for Art Forum and described how at each screening she attended in New York the infectious laughter of the women spread from the screen to the theatre audience.

A Question of Silence, 92 min, col. Dutch with English Subtitles.

Soup and drinks will be served from 18hr the screening starts at 19hr.

Artist Pauline Curnier Jardin will be present.

If I Can’t Dance production studio
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Studio (for 24 hours)
ificantdance.studio

Free, the audience number is limited to 35 people, first come first served

Corona QR code is required to attend

Bodies Extra-ordinaires

Library & Studio Display

27 October 2021 – 9 February 2022

1/5

At the premises of the If I Can’t Dance production studio, both in Westerdok and online, archivist Anik Fournier and scholar Giulia Damiani create a research space and dramaturgy of activities inspired by Curnier Jardin’s feature film in the making. Departing from the artist’s somatic world of martyred saints, secreting beings and anatomic caves, a library display explores potentials of transforming bodies, human and more-than-human, in cinematic language. Furthermore, the ificantdance.studio accumulates other resources around the vocabularies, stories and feminist genealogies informing Curnier Jardin’s film production. The project runs in conjunction with the exhibition Waiting for Agatha, Sebastian and the Rest of the Holy Children — Unfolding A Filmic Research at Index in Stockholm.

Acknowledgements

The project is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, curated by Sara Giannini and co-produced with Index Stockholm. Bodies Extra-ordinaires is curated by Anik Fournier (Archive and Research Curator, If I Can’t Dance) and Giulia Damiani (independent researcher and dramaturg).

Library display

If I Can’t Dance production studio
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam
Exhibition Opening: 27 October, 17hr
Open daily Wednesday, 13–17hr

Studio display

Please note that to compensate the period of closure due to the lock down, the library display will be extended until 9 February

Qu’un sang impur

Screening

Saturday 26 October 2019, 15–16hr

1/2

Pauline Curnier Jardin, Explosion Ma Baby, 2016. HD video and sound, 7 minutes (excerpt) © Pauline Curnier Jardin

The artist’s research in Italy is shared through a video letter and trailer, alongside viewings of Explosion Ma Baby (2016), in which naked babies are lifted in front of alter pieces during Italy’s chaotic Saint Sebastian festival, and Qu’un sang impur (2019). In the latter, based on Jean Genet’s homo-erotic film Un chant d’amour, Qu’un sang impur (1950), the male bodies in the original are replaced with menopausal women celebrating their erotic powers.

Qu’un sang impur, 16 min 5 sec, col, German with English Subtitles

Explosion Ma Baby, 9 min, col

Acknowledgements

Qu’un sang impur is co-produced with Bergen Assembly and Freunde der Nationalgalerie / Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Introduction
Not Yet Shebang

Hettenheuvelweg 16

1101 BN Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

MPA

(b. 1980, Redding, CA. Lives in Los Angeles) uses meditative, durational, theatrical and actionist modes of performance to engage the energetic as a potential material in live work. Enriched with ritual and theatricality, her work examines behaviours of power, such as global arms race, patriarchy and life on other planets. She creates a new theatre performance in which she focusses on defense mechanisms, telepathic means and the basic elements of matter.

Fire for Water

Performance

21 & 22 October 2022, 20hr

MPA, ‘Fire for Water’, 15 October 2021, Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen, Vijfhuizen. Photography: Konstantin Guz.

A meditation on human violence and the possibility of transformation, Fire for Water is a solo performance by Los Angeles based artist MPA. The duality of fire as a force of both creation and destruction is a metaphor that burns throughout the piece, igniting the complicated entanglements between wounds and armaments, protection and oppression, spectacles and wars. Led by an original soundtrack, the piece enacts a dream-like space where different visions appear. Water vessels, armors, fires, and telepathic means are characters in a story that unfolds across different modes of being. Speaking to the wounds that inhabit us, self-armaments are undone, leaving space to the desire to be wet and to be with water.

After it premiered with If I Can’t Dance at Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen in October last year, Fire for Water will be presented this month as a full theatre piece in the space of Gessnerallee in Zürich.

Acknowledgements

Concept and performance: MPA
Curatorial team: Sara Giannini with Frédérique Bergholtz (If I Can’t Dance), Catalina Insignares (Gessnerallee) and Zippora Elders (Kunstfort)
Sound: MPA with Leroy Chaar, including tracks by MV Carbon
Sound design: Leroy Chaar
Lighting design: Maria Shaplin
Set design: MPA with contributions by Julian Abraham ‘Togar’ and Andrea Verdecchia
Costumes: MPA with Danielle Garrabrants
Production manager: Bianca Góis Barbosa
Team Kunstfort performance: Frédérique Bergholtz, Gert-Jan Brok, Samuel Does, Zippora Elders, Sara Giannini, Irene de Gelder, Jim van Geel, Marion Tränkle

Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, Fire for Water is co-produced with Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen and Gessnerallee Zürich.

Gessnerallee

Gessnerallee 8

88001 Zürich

Switzerland

Fire for Water

Performance and Exhibition

Performance:
Friday 15 and Saturday 16 October 2021

1/10

Departing from the question ‘Can we stop bullets with our minds?’, the performance develops further the artist’s investigation of psychological and esoteric dynamics propelling human violence and systems of defense. The piece is conceived specifically for the spaces and gardens of the Kunstfort, a former military fort on the Amsterdam defence line. The fort’s bunker becomes a dream-like space where different visions appear. As if in a perverted fashion show, self-armaments are done and undone, igniting the complicated entanglements between protection and oppression, spectacles and wars. After the two evenings, remnants of the performance stay at the Kunstfort conjuring an afterlife of the dreams awakened.

Acknowledgements

Concept and performance: MPA
Curatorial team: Sara Giannini in dialogue with Frédérique Bergholtz and Zippora Elders
Sound: MPA with Leroy Chaar, including tracks by MV Carbon
Sound design: Leroy Chaar
Lighting design: Marion Tränkle
Set design: MPA with contributions by Julian Abraham ‘Togar’ and Andrea Verdecchia
Costumes: MPA with Danielle Garrabrants
Make-up: Samuel Does
Fire keeper: Guadalupe Rosales
Production team: Sara Giannini, Irene de Gelder, Jim van Geel
Backstage manager: Irene de Gelder
Building and construction: Gert-Jan Brok

Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and co-produced with Gessnerallee, Zürich and Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen.

18hr, shuttle departure at 17hr
20hr, shuttle departure at 19hr

€10/€12,50 with shuttle from Amsterdam

Purchase your tickets here

Exhibition:

Friday 22 October – Sunday 5 December 2021

Friday – Sunday, 13–17hr

€4 adults / €2 children 12–18 years / free children up to 12 years

Purchase your ticket here

Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen

Fortwachter 1

2141 EE Vijfhuizen (Haarlemmermeer)

The Netherlands

Unknown Address

Radio transmission

Saturday, 13 February 2021, 20–22hr

The artist shares a public address in the context of El Caldo/the Broth, a festival transmitted by Gessnerallee, Zürich. Thinking about oceanic and diasporic journeys, El Caldo focusses on the invisible ways in which people, in order to survive, communicate through waves, spores, winds and telepathies. Somewhere in between the lines of practical communiqué and channelled phantasms, MPA’s sonic meditation ruminates on the foreignness of coming together across cosmological distances. The radio transmission is one of the many manifestations of her performance commission Fire for Water.

You can listen to the piece here.

Acknowledgements

Co-produced with Gessnerallee, Zürich and Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen, Fire for Water is curated by Sara Giannini.

Gessnerallee
Gessnerallee 8
8001 Zürich
Switzerland

Liveness

Performance

Saturday 26 October 2019, 13–14hr

1/4

The audience is seated astride a sort of catwalk with a sword at one end. In angular sunglasses, black jeans and a dark hoodie, the artist offers concise statements: ‘These are dark times, but these are not the darkest times’; ‘Will we save each other from ourselves?’ She closes by kneeling, repeating the same phrase – a ritualistic moment in which ‘spectators’ might negotiate their position and possibly join her.

Introduction
Not Yet Shebang

Hettenheuvelweg 16

1101 BN Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Sands Murray-Wassink

(b. 1974, Topeka, Kansas. Lives in Amsterdam) is a painter, body artist, writer and perfume collector with his main materials being thoughts, feelings, behaviours, emotions and relationships. His practice is indebted to various forms and permutations of intersectional feminist and queer art where Carolee Schneemann, Hannah Wilke and Adrian Piper serving as key coordinates. He and his collaborators dig through, order and “take stock” of his studio as a durational performance of archiving over a two-year period.

giftsciencearchive.net

Website

20 January 2022

A database archiving the artist’s work, which is assembled through storytelling and reproductive labour methods developed with his collaborators Amalia Calderón, Megan Hoetger and Radna Rumping over the nearly three-years of their eponymous durational performance of archiving. The website catalogs nearly 2400 ‘studio objects’, tracing the web-like network of relations that characterize the artist’s practice and highlighting the multiplicity of ways in which objects and their stories can be entered.

Acknowledgements

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London with support from the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam. The architecture of the website is conceived by Hoetger and project assistant Amalia Calderón, and is realized in collaboration with Kommerz design studio.

giftsciencearchive.net

I am not American (I love Adrian, I miss Carolee, I follow Hannah)

Exhibition

13 January – 6 March 2022

Sands Murray-Wassink, ‘I Miss Carolee’ (2019), acrylic paint on canvas board.

Sands Murray-Wassink, from the ’Signature Collage’ series (1993-1995), oil crayon on A4 xerox

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The exhibition brings together works exploring humour as a strategy for describing alternative representations of gay male sexuality and mental health; and which centre the influence of feminist figures, including the artist’s former teacher and long-time friend Carolee Schneemann. Through such strategies, the artist consciously and systematically links with the history of feminist art practice.

The show is accompanied by commissioned and restaged performances from Cassie Augusta Jørgensen (DK) & Rory Pilgrim (UK / NL), Harilay Rabenjamina (FR) and Ebun Sodipo (UK). For more on the exhibition and public programme, visit: https://autoitaliasoutheast.org

Acknowledgements

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London with support from the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam. I am not American is curated by Auto Italia director Edward Gillman. The exhibition and public programme in London have additional support from Arts Council England, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands UK, Institut français du Royaume-Uni, and Mondriaan Fonds.

Opening hours: Thursday – Sunday 12-17hr

Auto Italia, London

44 Bonner Rd, Bethnal Green

London E2 9JS

United Kingdom

Process Event #3: COLLABORATION: How Can We Work Together?

Conversation

Monday 21 June, 12–13.30hr

Megan Hoetger and Sands Murray-Wassink unfurl Tryout Wallpaper in the Gift Science Archive studio-depot at the Rijksakademie, February 2020. Photo: Radna Rumping

Amalia Calderón visits Sands Murray-Wassink in his home studio and explores the ongoing perfume collection from Monument to Depression, December 2020. Photo: Robin Wassink-Murray

Sands Murray-Wassink and Radna Rumping install Signature Collage at mistral, Amsterdam for the exhibition In Good Company (Horsepower): Materials from the Gift Science Archive, 1993-present. Photo: Megan Hoetger

Frédérique Bergholtz and Sands Murray-Wassink install works from “Working 2010s” series for Without You I’m Nothing (Blue) at the Rijksakademie Open Studios 2021, June 2021. Photo: Megan Hoetger

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In the final process event, the artist and collaborators Amalia Calderón, Megan Hoetger and Radna Rumping sit together with If I Can’t Dance archive and research curator Anik Fournier to discuss the structures of ‘collaboration’ within the group’s performance of archiving and the modes of feminist storytelling and knowledge production developed over the course of their eighteen months working together. They also share insights into their respective roles and shared tasks throughout the process.

Image description

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, curated by Megan Hoetger and co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London, the project is supported by the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam.

Acknowledgements

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London with support from the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam.

Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten

Free, live-streamed

Backstage with the Gift Science Archive

Performance

Saturday 19 June 2021, 15–18hr with the artist and Radna Rumping
Friday 25 June 2021, 15–18hr with the artist and Megan Hoetger

Studio-depot Gift Science Archive with a fragment of Horse Cloud

View through the door into the studio-depot of Sands Murray-Wassink and the Gift Science Archive at the Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten. Photo: Sander van Wettum

View of the studio-depot of Sands Murray-Wassink and the Gift Science Archive at the Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten. Photo: Sander van Wettum

View of the “Rolled Paintings” series of works, awaiting cataloging in the studio-depot of Sands Murray-Wassink and the Gift Science Archive at the Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten. Photo: Sander van Wettum

Sands Murray-Wassink unfurls a “Rolled Painting” work on paper for the camera. Photo: Sander van Wettum

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As a pendant piece to the artist’s exhibition for the Rijksakademie Open Studios 2021, the durational performance invites visitors inside the project’s studio-depot where the artist and collaborators Megan Hoetger and Radna Rumping offer a peak into the group’s working processes and relational methods.

Acknowledgements

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London with support from the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam.

Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, studio (A14)
Sarphatistraat 470
1018GW Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10, registration required

Without You I’m Nothing (Blue)

Exhibition

Thursday 17 – Sunday 27 June 2021

Sands Murray-Wassink, installing Without You I'm Nothing (Blue), Rijksakademie Open Studios, 17-27 June 2021

Installation view of Without You I’m Nothing (Blue) at the Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten. Photo: Sander van Wettum

Detail of “Working 2010s” series in Without You I’m Nothing (Blue) at the Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten. Photo: Sander van Wettum

Detail of Body Print / Gay Shadows and Anal Collage (PRIDE & JOY) in Without You I’m Nothing (Blue) at the Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten. Photo: Sander van Wettum

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Conceived within the frame of the Rijksakademie Open Studios 2021, the exhibition presents a wide selection of never-before-seen works, which have been unearthed in the artist’s performance of archiving, including paintings on paper and fabric, photographs and video, and works by Senga Nengudi and Carolee Schneemann from his personal collection. The installation highlights the artist’s long-standing practices of writing, painting, posing, and feminist citationality.

Acknowledgements

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance.The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London with support from the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam. Without You I’m Nothing (Blue) is co-curated by Hoetger and director Frédérique Bergholtz.

Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, studio (A15)
Sarphatistraat 470
1018GW Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10, registration required

In Good Company (Horsepower): Materials from the Gift Science Archive, 1993 – present

Exhibition

6 March – 23 May 2021

Visitor-researcher Richard John Jones engages with materials from Gift Science Archive at mistral, Amsterdam. Photo: Megan Hoetger

Visitor-researcher Mohamad Deeb engages with materials from Gift Science Archive at mistral, Amsterdam. Photo: Megan Hoetger

Visitor-researchers Marina Vrodljak and Kenneth Geurts engage with materials from Gift Science Archive at mistral, Amsterdam. Photo: Megan Hoetger

Visitor-researcher Marina Pollock engages with materials from Gift Science Archive at mistral, Amsterdam. Photo: Megan Hoetger

Visitor-researchers engage with materials from Gift Science Archive at mistral, Amsterdam. Photo: Radna Rumping

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The installation opens up the process of the ‘monumental’ 18-month collaborative performance Gift Science Archive (GSA) to the public for haptic engagements with the artist’s working and archiving processes. Visitors are invited to peruse the GSA database and to pull materials from the collection for a closer look and, over a cup, for a story. The ‘research experience’ is thus set into relational motion, by conversations – a central part of Murray-Wassink’s practice.

Acknowledgements

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance.The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London with support from the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam. In Good Company is co-curated by Hoetger together with mistral co-directors Radna Rumping and Huib Haye van der Werf.

mistral

Groenhoedenveem 2
(entrance round the corner at Veemkade)
1019 BL Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Research Visits: Thursdays and Saturdays, 12–17hr
Book here

Virtual Tours: Fridays, 17–18hr
Book here

Free

Exhibition folder

Process Event #2: RELATIONSHIPS. Feminist Legacies, Queer Intimacies

Epistolary Exchange

26 June 2020–6 February 2021

Digital photograph of Aimar’s left hand touching Sands’ book on Aimar’s desktop sent to Sands as an email attachment on 15 August 2020.

The second of the Gift Science Archive process events unfolds over eight months, as the artist corresponds with Bilbao-based curator Aimar Arriola, reflecting on how ‘queer’ relationships – including the one in the making here – form, grow, shift and blossom. Across the letters, they share insights into their lives and perspectives on the primary materials (thoughts, feelings and relationships) and key thematics (sex, sexuality, gender, health and self-care) in Murray-Wassink’s art/life practice. The exchange (26 June 2020–6 February 2021) is available for the public as a quilt-like network of chapters at ificantdance.studio.

Acknowledgements

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance.The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who facilitated the correspondence and realised the online studio room in collaboration with Kommerz design studio. The project is co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London with support from the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam.

Process Event #1: VALUE / What is trash? What is trashy but valuable?

Conversation

Friday 6 March 2020, 18.30–20.30hr

Right to left: Radna Rumping, Sands Murray-Wassink, and Vivian van Saaze, ‘Gift Science Archive Process Event #1: VALUE’ (2020), workshop. Photo: Silvia Ulloa Márquez.

Sands Murray-Wassink, ‘Gift Science Archive Process Event #1: VALUE’ (2020), workshop. Photo: Silvia Ulloa Márquez.

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In the opening of a three-part series, the artist takes stock of the role of ‘value’ in his 25-year oeuvre at the start of his collaboration with the Gift Science Archive group, including storyteller Amalia Calderón, programme curator Megan Hoetger, and independent curator Radna Rumping. In connection to the group’s year-long studio residency at the Rijksakademie, the conversation unfolds as a studio visit with Associate Professor of Conservation and Museum Studies at Maastricht University, Vivian van Saaze and members of the Amsterdam artist community.

Acknowledgements

Gift Science Archive is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger, and is co-produced with mistral, Amsterdam and Auto Italia, London with support from the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam.

Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten

Sarphatistraat 470

1018 GW Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Up To and Including His Limits

Performance

Saturday 26 October 2019, 16–17hr

Sands Murray-Wassink, ‘Read My Work’ (2011), acrylic paint on synthetic fabric. Photo: Marcel de Buck.

Sands Murray-Wassink, ‘They Don't Understand Me’ (2010), acrylic on synthetic fabric. Photo: Marcel de Buck.

Sands Murray-Wassink, ‘Up To And Including His Limits’ (2019), performance. Photo: Marcel de Buck.

Lisa Robertson in front of Sands Murray-Wassink’s ‘I Want To Fuck’ (2009), acrylic on 'distressed polyester’. Photo: Marcel de Buck.

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The artist’s textile paintings adorn the space throughout the weekend. Here, he shares on his multimedia practice, concentrating on its early beginnings in 1993, in a slide show that makes clear his reliance on feminist figures like Carolee Schneeman, Hannah Wilke and Adrian Piper. He then dances before a dual projection – a Schneemann video and footage from his studio – in and out of step with ‘Starlight’ by The Supermen Lovers.

Acknowledgements

In a two day event, the Edition VIII artists and researchers introduce their work at Not Yet Shebang. Edition VIII artists and researchers are invited by director Frédérique Bergholtz. The commission series is curated by programme curators Sara Giannini and Megan Hoetger.

Introduction
Not Yet Shebang

Hettenheuvelweg 16

1101 BN Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Research Commissions

Derrais Carter

(b. 1984, Augsburg, Germany. Lives in Tucson, AZ) is an artist and assistant professor in the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona where he teaches Black Critical Theory, Black Popular Music and Black Queer Studies. Drawing on these subjects the artist looks at Ernie Barnes’ Sugar Shack (1976) to delve into ‘black ass social history’ in cultivating a space for black interiors and social lives.

Black Vitality: Life, Listening and ‘The Sugar Shack’

Lecture-Performance

27 April 2023

19hr (EST)

Event poster for “Black Vitality: Life, Listening and ‘The Sugar Shack’”.

Part of the Arts Everywhere Festival, this Big Ideas in Art + Culture talk with Carter is a collective listening session masquerading as a lecture. Pairing musical selections from his Black Revelry Quiet Storm radio show with close readings of Ernie Barnes’ painting The Sugar Shack, Carter together with his audience explore what happens when we apply the painting to our social worlds.

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’ is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who also serves as managing editor for the publication, which is supported by the Netherland American Foundation. The publication includes contributions from Taylor Renée Aldridge, Samiya Bashir, Dr. La Marr Jurelle Bruce, DJ Lynnée Denise, Dr. William Mosley III, Dr. Zoë Samudzi, S*an D. Henry- Smith, Melanie Stevens, and Phillip B. Williams, with design by Karoline Świeżyński and sound production by MJ Mouw.

Art Gallery of Guelph
358 Gordon St

Guelph, ON N1G 1Y1, USA

No RSVP required.

For more information, click here.

black poesis/radical composition: Derrais Carter & Samiya Bashir

Reading & conversation

19 April 2023
16–17:30hr (EST)

Event poster for the black poesis/radical composition series featuring the work ‘Untitled (black city)’ by Renee Gladman.

Convened by Dr. Saidiya Hartman, this event is part of the “black poesis/radical composition” series, which examines literary experiments in prose and poetics by contemporary writers, critics and artists whose work in sonic production, visual culture, critical thought, textual assemblage and auto-theory articulates possibilities of living and making inside the racialized enclosure. Carter is joined by Black Revelry contributor Samiya Bashir for a reading from the publication followed by a small academic seminar led by Carter, Bashir and Hartman.

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’ is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who also serves as managing editor for the publication, which is supported by the Netherland American Foundation. The publication includes contributions from Taylor Renée Aldridge, Samiya Bashir, Dr. La Marr Jurelle Bruce, DJ Lynnée Denise, Dr. William Mosley III, Dr. Zoë Samudzi, S*an D. Henry- Smith, Melanie Stevens, and Phillip B. Williams, with design by Karoline Świeżyński and sound production by MJ Mouw.

Columbia University
Deutsches Haus
420 W. 116 Street
New York 10027, USA

No RSVP required, seating on a first come first serve basis.

For more information, click here.

Black Revelry: A Dinner and Lecture

Lecture-Performance

17 March 2023
18:30hr (EST)

Menu for the ‘Black Revelry’ dinner and lecture.

Organized by Dr. Aleia Monae Brown and Carter, this event features a five-course meal with readings from Black Revelry, as well as sonic interludes from the Black Revelry Quiet Storm radio show, between courses.

Coffee + Spice

1025 West Fifth Street

Greenville, North Carolina 97834, USA

Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’

Book Launch

1 June 2022, 19hr

Megan Hoetger, Karoline Świeżyński, and Derrais Carter (left to right), ‘Black Revelry: In Honor of “The Sugar Shack”’ (2022), book launch. Photo: Hopscotch Reading Room.

Megan Hoetger and Derrais Carter, ‘Black Revelry: In Honor of “The Sugar Shack”’ (2022), book launch. Photo: Hopscotch Reading Room.

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The Berlin launch of Derrais Carter’s publication Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’ is hosted by the wonderful Hopscotch Reading Room, a bookshop centering non-western and diasporic perspectives. For the launch, the poet-scholar is joined in conversation by managing editor Megan Hoetger and publication designer Karoline Świeżyński to discuss key conceptual and material elements of the album-book, including notions of the detail and the sprawl in relation to the readerly experience. The dialogue closes with a DJ set from Carter, which draws together a selection of songs from his Black Revelry Quiet Storm radio shows, aired between December 2020 and February 2021.

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’ is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who also serves as managing editor for the publication, which is supported by the Netherland American Foundation. The publication includes contributions from Taylor Renée Aldridge, Samiya Bashir, Dr. La Marr Jurelle Bruce, DJ Lynnée Denise, Dr. William Mosley III, Dr. Zoë Samudzi, S*an D. Henry- Smith, Melanie Stevens, and Phillip B. Williams, with design by Karoline Świeżyński and sound production by MJ Mouw.

Special thanks to Siddhartha Lokanandi and Hopscotch Reading Room for hosting the event.

Hopscotch Reading Room
Kurfürstenstraße 14/Haus B
10785 Berlin, Germany

Free

Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’

Publication

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An experiment in book making, which takes up the form of the LP record as a starting point for re-configuring the haptics of the printed book. Presented as a collection of unbound pages inside a gatefold record sleeve, the publication includes a pressed record, as well as written, visual and sonic contributions from scholars, poets, artists, choreographers and DJs. Through the logic of the detail, each contributor imaginatively (re)produces Ernie Barnes’s iconic painting The Sugar Shack as an archive of personal histories and a universe of intergenerational connections. Held together as an album, it is a performance to be made at home, which invites readers/listeners to feel art’s histories and to be in them with their bodies.

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’ is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger who also serves as managing editor for the publication, which is supported by the Netherland American Foundation.

Special thanks to the Ernie Barnes Foundation for permission to work with visual elements from The Sugar Shack, and to Naomi Collier Broms and Marta Santos with their assistance in assembling the album-books.

Editor: Derrais Carter

Contributors: Taylor Renée Aldridge; Samiya Bashir; La Marr Jurelle Bruce; Derrais Carter; DJ Lynnée Denise, William H. Mosley, III, Zoé Samudzi, S*an D. Henry-Smith, Melanie Stevens and Phillip B. Williams

Managing editor: Megan Hoetger

Series editor: Frédérique Bergholtz

Design: Karoline Świeżyński

Sound production: MJ Mouw

Black Revelry Quiet Storm Reprise

Book Launch

Live broadcast and conversation

Thursday 25 November 2021, 12-19hr with conversation 19-20.30hr

Derrais Carter, ‘Black Revelry Quiet Storm Reprise’ (2021), book launch. Photo: Konstantin Guz.

Monty Mouw and Derrais Carter, ‘Black Revelry Quiet Storm Reprise’ (2021), book launch. Photo: Konstantin Guz.

Derrais Carter and students from Sandberg Institute, ‘Black Revelry Quiet Storm Reprise’ (2021), book launch. Photo: Konstantin Guz.

S*an D. Henry-Smith and Derrais Carter, ‘Black Revelry Quiet Storm Reprise’ (2021), book launch. Photo: Konstantin Guz.

S*an D. Henry-Smith, ‘Black Revelry Quiet Storm Reprise’ (2021), book launch. Photo: Konstantin Guz.

Megan Hoetger, ‘Black Revelry Quiet Storm Reprise’ (2021), book launch. Photo: Konstantin Guz.

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To accompany the release of Carter’s publication, a seven-hour live broadcasting marathon featuring all three of his radio shows, as well as a very special one-hour guest set from publication contributor DJ scholar Lynnée Denise. The live broadcast is hosted by the Sandberg Instituut where the space is transformed into a listening lounge replete with pillows, blankets, and cocktail selections. At the finale of the marathon, Carter hosts a conversation with artist and publication contributor S*an D. Henry Smith on ritual and revelry. The live session in Amsterdam is followed by radio broadcasts in Los Angeles and Berlin.

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’ and Black Revelry Quiet Storm are commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger with production support for the live broadcast from MJ Mouw and realised in partnership with the Sandberg Instituut and Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, Amsterdam. Other broadcasts are realised in partnership with dublab, Los Angeles and reboot.fm, Berlin.

Special thanks to Eva Hoonhout and Liza Prins for their support creating the listening lounge, and to Rachel Day, Diana McCarty and Radna Rumping for their support of the broadcasts.

Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, Amsterdam
Fred. Roeskestraat 96
1076 ED Amsterdam

Other broadcasts
Monday 29 November 2021, 12-19hr
dublab, Los Angeles

Sunday 28 November 2021, 2-9hr
reboot.fm, Berlin

What We Do, Language Can’t Touch

Installation

18 – 25 November 2021

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In conjunction with the end of his residency in the Sandberg Instituut’s Fine Arts department, Carter presents a display of elements from Black Revelry: In Honor of ‘The Sugar Shack’, bringing attention to the incredible scope of haptic and sensorial experiences held together in the publication’s LP sleeve.

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry: In Honor of the ‘The Sugar Shack’ and Black Revelry Quiet Storm are commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger and the exhibition realised in partnership with the Sandberg Instituut.

Special thanks to Eva Hoonhout and Liza Prins for their support with the installation.

Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam
Fred. Roeskestraat 96
1076 ED Amsterdam

Black Revelry Quiet Storm, #3. Frequency: Return. Repeat. Replay. This set is inspired by the atmosphere of ‘Let’s Do It Again’ by The Staples Singers

Radio

Wednesday 17 February 2021, 22–24hr

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Carter as late-night DJ experiments with different modes of storytelling, weaving together sonic readings of ‘the detail’ in Ernie Barnes’s Sugar Shack through song selections (jazz, soul and R&B), personal commentary and recitations of Black critical theory. Episode three, FREQUENCY, shares songs and rhythms that just keep coming back, whether as remakes and remixes, or as embodied memories.

Podcasts of the show now available:

· Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

· Dublab

· reboot.fm

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry Quiet Storm is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger with production support for the show’s recording from Radna Rumping and MJ Mouw of Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, Amsterdam. The broadcasts are realised in partnership with Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee; dublab, Los Angeles; and reboot.fm, Berlin.

Special thanks to Rachel Day and Diana McCarty for their support of the broadcasts in Los Angeles and Berlin.

Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, Amsterdam and dublab, Los Angeles

Sunday 21 February 2021, 2-4hr

reboot.fm, Berlin

Black Revelry Quiet Storm, #2. Dispersal: This groove is long, slow, and winding. Stretch, expand, and linger

Radio

Wednesday 20 January 2021, 22–24hr

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Carter as late-night DJ experiments with different modes of storytelling, weaving together sonic readings of ‘the detail’ in Ernie Barnes’s Sugar Shack through song selections (jazz, soul and R&B), personal commentary and recitations of Black critical theory. Episode two, DISPERSAL, presents a playlist built around ‘the stretch’ of time, of energy – collective and personal – and, most basically, of song length.

Podcasts of the show now available:

· Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

· Dublab

· reboot.fm

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry Quiet Storm is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger with production support for the show’s recording from Radna Rumping and MJ Mouw of Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, Amsterdam. The broadcasts are realised in partnership with Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee; dublab, Los Angeles; and reboot.fm, Berlin.

Special thanks to Rachel Day and Diana McCarty for their support of the broadcasts in Los Angeles and Berlin.

Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, Amsterdam and dublab, Los Angeles

Sunday 24 January 2021, 2–4hr

reboot.fm, Berlin

Black Revelry Quiet Storm, #1. Gathering: An invitation for now and maybe tomorrow

Radio

Wednesday 16 December 2020, 22–24hr

Detail of record cover for Invitation (1979) by Norman Connors including the title track “Invitation”

Detail of record cover for The Night I Fell in Love (1985) by Luther Vandross including the track “If Only For One Night”

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Carter as late-night DJ experiments with different modes of storytelling, weaving together sonic readings of ‘the detail’ in Ernie Barnes’s Sugar Shack through song selections (jazz, soul and R&B), personal commentary and recitations of Black critical theory. Episode one, GATHERING, anticipates the winter solstice, offering a rumination on ‘coming together’ from whatever distances are between us.

Podcasts of the show now available:

· Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

· Dublab

· reboot.fm

Acknowledgements

Black Revelry Quiet Storm is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance. The commission is led by programme curator Megan Hoetger with production support for the show’s recording from Radna Rumping and MJ Mouw of Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, Amsterdam. The broadcasts are realised in partnership with Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee; dublab, Los Angeles; and reboot.fm, Berlin.

Special thanks to Rachel Day and Diana McCarty for their support of the broadcasts in Los Angeles and Berlin.

Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, Amsterdam and dublab, Los Angeles

Sunday 20 December 2020, 2-4hr

reboot.fm, Berlin

Black Revelry

Performance-Lecture

Sunday 27 October 2019, 15–17hr

Derrais Carter, ‘Black Revelry’ (2019), lecture/screening. Photo: Marcel de Buck.

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Structured after a ‘late-night radio show’ – or ‘Quiet Storm’ hour – the artist sits before a projection of Ernie Barnes’ Sugar Shack (1976), a painting as rhizome for black intimacy. The project uses art history and popular music to create a Black written and performative mood, what Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman calls the ‘black ecstatic’. Anecdotes on Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye – and a circulating bottle of cognac – make for a connected vibe.

Acknowledgements

In a two day event, the Edition VIII artists and researchers introduce their work at Not Yet Shebang. Edition VIII artists and researchers are invited by director Frédérique Bergholtz. The commission series is curated by programme curators Sara Giannini and Megan Hoetger.

Introduction
Not Yet Shebang

Hettenheuvelweg 16

1101 BN Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Sara Giannini

(b. Civitanova Marche, Italy. Lives in Amsterdam) is a curator, writer and educator with a background in theatre studies and semiotics. In questioning the cultural canons that created his persona, she focusses on the controversial legacy of actor, author and director Carmelo Bene (b. 1937, Campi Salentina, Italy; d. 2002, Rome).

Sara Giannini and Silvia Bottiroli in conversation

Conversation

24 November 2023, 18hr

'Maquillage as Meditation: Carmelo Bene and the Undead', Sara Giannini with contributions by Jacopo Miliani, Snejanka Mihaylova, and Arnisa Zeqo. Design Raoul Audouin.

Upon the invitation of the newly established Carmelo Bene Archive in Lecce, Sara Giannini is joined by performance curator and educator Silvia Bottiroli to discuss the practices of contextualisation and de-centering that are at play in the book. In particular, they dwell upon Giannini’s approach to Bene’s controversial legacy in relation to performance genealogies in Italy, as well as to feminist and performance-based methodologies of history-writing.

Archivio Carmelo Bene
Piazza Carducci Lecce, Italy, 73100

Free, no reservation required
More information: Facebook.com

How do you embody the undead?

Workshop

31 October 2022, 09:30–12:30hr

Divination game with the letters composing Carmelo Bene's name, watercolour, realized in winter 2019

On the anniversary of the book Maquillage as Meditation, the workshop How do you embody the undead? is organized in collaboration with the TXT Department of the Rietveld Academie and facilitated by Daniel Blanga Gubbay (performance curator and researcher), Sara Giannini (If I Can’t Dance programme curator), and Mercedes Azpilicueta (artist and TXT Department director).

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608

1013 BV Amsterdam

Closed session

A few external spots are available. If you want to join, please send a short motivation (150 words) around your own personal ‘undead’ to ssg@ificantdance.org before October 26.

Maquillage as Meditation: Carmelo Bene and the Undead

Book Launch

30 October 2022, 16-18hr
Conversation at 16.30hr

Arnisa Zeqo, Sara Giannini and Daniel Blanga Gubbay, ‘Maquillage as Meditation: Carmelo Bene and the Undead’ (2022), book launch. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

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On the anniversary of the book Maquillage as Meditation, Sara Giannini is joined by performance curator and researcher Daniel Blanga Gubbay for a gathering that articulates the questions and the embodied research methodologies that are at the core of this work: What do we do with the “dirt of our past”? How does one reconcile—or even just face—those early influential figures? How do we understand the experiences they engender(ed), even if it might not be our desire to return to those experiences? But what can happen if we do return? Book contributor Arnisa Zeqo also joins the conversation.

Acknowledgements

Maquillage as Meditation is realised with the support of the Italian Council (Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity, Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism) and Q-International, La Quadriennale di Roma.

San Serriffe
Sint Annenstraat 30
1012 HE Amsterdam

Free, no reservation required

Maquillage as Meditation: Carmelo Bene and the Undead

Publication

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Partly a script, partly a personal voyage into the psyche of diseducation, this book happens, has happened and will happen on the 31st of October in a place called ‘The Palace of Melancholy’. In this temporal and spatial loop, the figure of Italian actor, author, director, philosopher, and public persona Carmelo Bene is summoned to hopefully be dismissed once and for all. Bene is looked at by the author reluctantly and yet resolutely through inner voices of dissent, shame and rebellion. He is imagined in gatherings that didn’t happen and read through an epistemology of contradiction. In Giannini’s company and support, Snejanka Mihaylova, Jacopo Miliani, and Arnisa Zeqo probe the walls of the Palace, looking for an exit.

Acknowledgements

Author and editor: Sara Giannini
Contributors: Snejanka Mihaylova, Jacopo Miliani, Arnisa Zeqo
Series editor: Frédérique Bergholtz
Design: Raoul Audouin

Maquillage as Meditation

Event

Saturday 31 October 2020, 21hr

Acknowledgements

Supported by the Italian Council (Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity, Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism) and Q-International, La Quadriennale di Roma

Jacopo Miliani’s participation is a collaboration with NOS Visual Arts Production, Bologna

Palazzo della Malinconia

Sent via the If I Can’t Dance newsletter

Maquillage as Meditation: Dis-identity, Ecstasy and the Feminine in Carmelo Bene’s Performance Philosophy

Lecture & Screening

Sunday 27 October 2019, 13–14hr

Sara Giannini, ‘Maquillage as Meditation. Dis-identity, ecstasy and the feminine in Carmelo Bene’s performance philosophy’ (2019), lecture/screening. Photo: Marcel de Buck.

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An intimate and experimental text explores the researcher’s conflictual relationship with actor, author, director and public persona Carmelo Bene since she first saw him on Italian television at age 10. Following this entry into dis-identity, ecstasy and the feminine, Bene’s first cinematic experiment, the short-film Hermitage (1968), is shown.

25 min, col, Italian with English subtitles

Introduction
Not Yet Shebang

Hettenheuvelweg 16

1101 BN Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservation required

Lisa Robertson

(b. 1961, Toronto. Lives in Nalliers, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France) is a writer who began publishing in the early 1990s. Her poetry considers the political energies and pressures that shape language as an aesthetic object and a record of historical desire. She furthers her study of troubadour language as a phenomenon in which voice and text constitute each other.

Anemones: A Simone Weil Project

Book Presentation and Workshop

Book Presentation:

Thursday 2 February 2023, 19hr

Yoon Sook Cha and Lisa Robertson in conversation at Anemones: A Simone Weil Project, Feb 2, 2023. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography.

Lisa Robertson reading in the Grand Luxe Hall, Feb 2, 2023. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography.

Lisa Robertson reading in the Grand Luxe Hall, Feb 2, 2023. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of Western Front.

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Moving between the epistolary, poetry, performance and scholarly research, Anemones centres on a new translation of Simone Weil’s 1942 essay ‘What the Occitan Inspiration Consists Of.’ The text elevates the troubadour concept of love to a practice of political resistance rejecting force in all its forms. Robertson dwells on the transhistorical potential of this concept from the violent context in which it emerged to the troubling conditions of the present. Embracing actualised and suppressed histories, the work testifies to words, friendship and readership as resistance across distances.

After the publication was launched in Amsterdam in December 2021, we are thrilled to announce its upcoming presentation in Vancouver, adding another bead to the long and beautiful relationship of Lisa Robertson with Western Front. The event will begin with a conversation with Yoon Sook Cha, a Vancouver-based writer, photographer, and scholar of Simone Weil, and will be followed by a reading by Robertson of her translations of three troubadour poems and a Q&A period with the audience. For those not able to join onsite, the event can be followed online via livestreaming.

Acknowledgements

Presented in partnership with Western Front, Vancouver.

Reading by Lisa Robertson and conversation with Yoon Sook Cha

Tickets
Live stream

Workshop:

Saturday 4 February 2023, 13-16hr

Western Front

303 E 8th Ave
Vancouver BC V5T 1S1
Canada

Anemones: A Simone Weil Project

Publication

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The author’s research on troubadour poetry yields this experiment in thinking ‘near and with’ philosopher and political activist Simone Weil. Moving between the epistolary, poetry, performance and scholarly research, it centres on a new translation of Weil’s 1942 essay ‘What the Occitan Inspiration Consists Of’ that elevates the troubadour concept of love to a practice of political resistance rejecting force in all its forms. Robertson dwells on the transhistorical potential of this concept from the violent context in which it emerged to the troubling conditions of the present. Embracing actualised and suppressed histories, the work testifies to words, friendship and readership as resistance across distances.

Acknowledgements

Author, translator and editor: Lisa Robertson
Contributor: Benny Nemer
Managing editor: Sara Giannini
Series editor: Frédérique Bergholtz
Design: Rietlanden Women’s Office

Anemones: A Simone Weil Project

Book Launch

Radio Emma, live readings and floral action

Sunday 12 December 2021

Lisa Robertson's research material for 'Anemones: A Simone Weil Project' (2021), book launch. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

Lisa Robertson, 'Anemones: A Simone Weil Project' (2021), book launch. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

Benny Nemer's floral action as part of 'Anemones: A Simone Weil Project' (2021), book launch. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

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To accompany the release of Robertson’s publication, an afternoon with a Radio Emma Broadcast, live (poetry) reading by Lisa Robertson, and a floral action by Benny Nemer. During the radio show, curator archive and research Anik Fournier will be in conversation with Lisa Robertson, contributor Benny Nemer, designers of the book Rietlanden Womens Office’s Johanna Ehde and Elisabeth Rafstedt, and director Frédérique Bergholtz. Over the course of the day you are welcome to pass by and experience a floral action by Benny Nemer, browse through Robertson’s research materials and buy your copy of the book for a reduced launch price of 15 € (through 9 January, afterwards 22 €).

Acknowledgements

The live radio broadcast is realised in partnership with Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee. Special thanks to Naomi Collier Broms, Monty Mouw, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, and Master of Artistic Research of the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten

Ellen de Bruijne Projects
Singel 372, Amsterdam
Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

13–14hr

Anik Fournier a.o., Radio Emma

Tune in via Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

14–17hr, ongoing
Benny Nemer, Floral Action

~~15hr~~ (fully booked)

Reading – Lisa Robertson
A poem by Bernart de Ventadorn

~~16hr~~ (fully booked)

Reading – Lisa Robertson
A poem by William IX of Poitiers

Both readings are fully booked, but please pass by for your copy and for experiencing Benny Nemers floral action between 14-15hr; 15.30-16hr; and 16.30-17hr

Free

Wide Rime

Lecture

Saturday 26 October 2019, 12–13hr

The researcher shifts registers between poetry and academic study in examining rhyme and voice among medieval troubadours – the first European poets to write in their spoken regional vernacular – in the Languedoc region. Her outline of voice and vernacular as a space where power is constantly renegotiated and reconfigured is punctuated by readings from her poetry.

Introduction
Not Yet Shebang

Hettenheuvelweg 16

1101 BN Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Ritual and Display

Field of inquiry

How do ritualistic practices and modes of display contribute to discussions on performance and performativity, while resisting traditional forms of visual consumption? Following the idea that rituals have participants instead of observers, a collaborative platform is generated for study and expanded activities. Practitioners are invited based on their work’s affinity to the theme, led by fellow Giulia Damiani (b. 1989, Cesena, Italy. Lives in London and Amsterdam), whose work embraces magic, evocation and invocation.

Reading Group

Emerging out of a desire to create time and space for collective study, the reading group is a platform to explore methods for collaborative, embodied learning.

The reading group participants are invited based on their work’s affinity to the theme Ritual and Display: Becket MWN, Frédérique Bergholtz, Giulia Damiani, Yael Davids, Adele Dipasquale, Isobel Dryburgh, Lucy Engelman, Anik Fournier, Sara Giannini, Baha Görkem Yalım, Megan Hoetger, Zhana Ivanova, Annick Kleizen, Helena Lambrechts, Panagiotis Panagiotakopoulos (Taka Taka), Anna Maria Pinaka, Tchelet Pearl Weisstub.

Culmination

Reading Group

Wednesday 22 January 2020, 18–20hr

Sara Giannini, ‘Evil Eye’ (2020), screening and performance. Photo: Sara Giannini

Shaped by participants’ response to the trajectory with texts as objects or actions in the group include a video, dissertation fragment, riddle, ritual and more.

Image description

A group of people are sitting on a carpet on the floor with pillows, books, and papers scattered between them. They look up at a back wall where an image of a person in a kitchen standing next to a counter with their hand on a bowl is projected.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to participants: Becket MWN, Frédérique Bergholtz, Giulia Damiani, Yael Davids, Adele Dipasquale, Isobel Dryburgh, Lucy Engelman, Anik Fournier, Sara Giannini, Baha Görkem Yalım, Megan Hoetger, Zhana Ivanova, Annick Kleizen, Helena Lambrechts, Panagiotis Panagiotakopoulos (Taka Taka), Anna Maria Pinaka, Tchelet Pearl Weisstub

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Rituals of the Everyday

Reading Group

Wednesday 18 December 2019, 18–20hr

Annea Lockwood and Alison Knowles, ‘Womens Work’ (2019), magazine. Photo: Giulia Damiani.

Dedicated to thinking about everyday ritualistic spaces, we push off from CAConrad’s ‘Memory, Ritual and Survival’ – an essay written in verse. Supported by an underlying interest in healing rituals, the piece beautifully untangles how ritual makes oneself present to oneself. The magic in everyday reality – clear in the two issues of Womens Work, the first publication of performance scores by women including Pauline Oliveros – remains a concentration among the readings.

Texts and materials: CAConrad, Pauline Oliveros, Victor Turner, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

Image description

Image of a publication that looks a bit like a notebook with the words ‘women’s work’ written in big capital black letters. Under the title is two columns of eight names. The library barcode can be seen in the bottom left corner.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Irene Revell for sharing Womens Work and suggesting we experiment with the scores

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Land and Display

Reading Group

Wednesday 27 November 2019, 18–20hr

Arjuna Neuman and Denise Ferreira da Silva, ‘4 Waters: Deep Implicancy’ (2018), still. Photo: Giulia Damiani.

Indigenous writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s ‘Land as Pedagogy’, a chapter from As We Have Always Done on her involvement with the Nishnaabeg community, launches this exploration into acknowledging communities invested in the individual and collective meaning generated through ritual. Léuli Eshrāghi and Hannah Donnelly’s work addresses the responsibilities of makers and viewers, opening questions on how modes of display might rebuild original relationships to objects.

Texts and materials: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Hannah Donnelly, Léuli Eshrāghi, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Arjuna Neuman

Image description

In a darkened room, the silhouettes of bodies can be seen sitting on the ground on a carpet. They are partially lit by the projection of a grainy black and white image of sun reflected in water on a stony beach.

Logbook
If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Prophecies and Oracles

Reading Group

Wednesday 10 July 2019, 18–20hr

Athanasius Kircher, ‘Mundus Subterraneus’ (1665), illustration

How can the prophetess magnetize the future? How can silence be transformed into language and action? We look into instances where natural elements are used to divine the future and volcanic eruptions forebode the apocalypse while exposing the limits of rational thinking. Finally, the Oracle for a Reading Group by artist and researcher Hestia Peppe sees each of us become querent and oracle, questioning the agency of both and letting ourselves go.

Texts and materials: Steven Connor, Emily Dickinson, Silvia Federici, Athanasius Kircher, Leonilson, Audre Lorde, Hestia Peppe

Image description

A black and white square engraving. Putti positioned in each of the four corners blow clouds that fill up the margins around a large sphere that is transversed by a network of arteries and flower-like nodes. At the top of the engraving two putti hold a frontispiece on which is written
Pyrophylactorium.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Magic and Spells

Reading Group

Wednesday 19 June 2019, 18–20hr

In Bhanu Kapil’s poem 1947: Spell to Reverse a Line, each sentence is a boundary or communicates being bound – or spellbound – as the poet’s enchantment begins to undo the knot of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. Ernesto de Martino and Rebecca Tamás guide us through ritual as social and political practices within community, bringing us to ask: what if the figure of the witch returns to trigger decolonial and feminist responses?

Texts and materials: Bhanu Kapil, Ernesto de Martino, Rebecca Tamás

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Ritual and Display

Reading Group

Wednesday 29 May 2019, 18–20hr

Le Nemesiache, ‘The Sibyls’ (1977), screening. Photo: Giulia Damiani.

Giulia Damiani introduces her work on Le Nemesiache and their extensive performance activity in Naples. The feminist collective’s archive elicits thoughts on ritual in the service of feminism, namely their film The Sibyls (1977), which engages with natural phenomena around Naples. We also look at theorist Richard Schechner’s work on the ritual form of performance, defined as an ‘efficacious’ action.

Texts and materials: Le Nemesiache, Richard Schechner
Italian–English subtitles: Giulia Damiani

Acknowledgements

Courtesy Le Nemesiache’s archive, Naples

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Radio Emma

The radio programme unpacks key terms from our research into Ritual and Display with invited local guests from various disciplines and practices.

Ritual and Display

Radio

Friday 13 May 2022, 13-15hr

Bendegó the meteorite in the ruins of National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, from Kent Chan's artist pages in Reader 'Ritual and Display'

Inspiration for cover Reader ‘Ritual and Display'

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Radio show on the occasion of the launch of our sixth reader, Ritual and Display, exploring the tensions and crossovers between ritual and display through notions of preparation, magic, landscape, bodily writing, feminist thinking, prophecy and contemporary performance practices.

Guests: Giulia Damiani, If I Can’t Dance research fellow for the Ritual and Display programme and editor of the reader; Kent Chan, artist and contributor to the artist pages in the reader; Bhanu Kapil, poet and contributor to the reader; Joris Kritis, designer of the reader series. Hosts: If I Can’t Dance’s director Frédérique Bergholtz and curator of archive and research Anik Fournier.

Acknowledgements

Editorial team: Frédérique Bergholtz, Giulia Damiani, Anik Fournier
Jingle: Radna Rumping
Technician and sound engineer: Monty Mouw
Livestreaming, equipment and post-production: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

If I Can’t Dance Studio
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Attend the live broadcast at Westerdok (arrive no later than 12.45hr) or listen online via Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

Free, meal included

Buy your copy of the reader at the If I Can’t Dance Studio or here for the special Amsterdam Art Week price of €15 (from 22 May €20).

Display and displacement

Radio

Wednesday 22 January 2020, 13–14hr

How does display complicate the way objects and practices are perceived? What constitutes display, especially when it is the public showing of performative and ritual-based practices? The resurgence of interest in ancient traditions and alternative systems of knowledge is coupled with an urgent need to rethink collections resulting from Western colonial displacement. Yet displacement can also be generative for artists, addressing intergenerational knowledge and finding new shapes.

Guests: Charl Landvreugd, artist and researcher; Rita Ouedraogo, research programmer and curator; Jay Tan, artist
Host: Giulia Damiani

Acknowledgements

Editorial team: Giulia Damiani, Anik Fournier
Jingle: Radna Rumping
Sound engineer: Monty Mouw
Livestreaming, equipment and post-production: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608
1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, meal included

Live broadcast

Rituals of the everyday

Radio

Wednesday 18 December 2019, 13–14hr

How does one engage with rituals in daily life? What is the state of ritual practices in Amsterdam? When you hear the word ritual, what do you think of? In this part of the world, traditional religious ceremonies and national rituals are losing momentum. That said, ritual-associated practices and ancient knowledges figure extensively in artistic and cultural contexts. With change at its core, can ritual bring societal change?

Guests: Desta Deekman, choreographer and herbalist; Margriet Minnema, secular chaplain working in prisons; and Tchelet Pearl Weisstub, Proud Jerusalemite, Guilty oppressor, Aging body, Lazy activist, Theatre maker, Visual artist
Host: Giulia Damiani

Acknowledgements

Editorial team: Giulia Damiani, Anik Fournier
Technician: Monty Mouw
Jingle: Radna Rumping
Sound engineer: Monty Mouw
Livestreaming, equipment and post-production: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, meal included

Live broadcast

Live-Stream Series

Live-stream series organised in the frame of Edition VIII (2019–20) – Ritual and Display

Session #4

Live-Stream Series

14 November 2020, 16.00–18.30hr

Elize Mazadiego, Giulia Damiani, Chandra Frank and Ros Murray

Concluding roundtable
Elize Mazadiego in conversation with Giulia Damiani, Chandra Frank and Ros Murray

Introduction by Frédérique Bergholtz.
Response session with Sara Giannini and Megan Hoetger.

Acknowledgements

Live-stream concept and realisation by Lukas Heistinger with dramaturgy by Megan Hoetger and audio-visual support from Fan Liao and Temra Pavlovic. Live-stream audience moderation by Amalia Calderón and Naomi Collier Broms.

Streamed from the If I Can’t Dance Westerdok production studio, Amsterdam

Session #3

Live-Stream Series

7 November 2020, 16.00–18.30hr

Chandra Frank and Gloria Wekker

On the Amsterdam Black lesbian literary circle Sister Outsider

Introductions by Frédérique Bergholtz and Sara Giannini.

Due to connectivity issues throughout the live-stream, the registration of this session has not been approved for public sharing. More information on Chandra Frank’s research methodologies and the Sister Outsider collective can be found in Frank’s essay “Sister Outsider and Audre Lorde in the Netherlands: On Transnational Queer Feminisms and Archival Methodological Practices,” (2019) published by Feminist Review, vol. 121, 1: pp. 9-23, and available online here.

Acknowledgements

Live-stream concept and realisation by Lukas Heistinger with dramaturgy by Megan Hoetger and audio-visual support from Fan Liao and Temra Pavlovic. Live-stream audience moderation by Amalia Calderón and Naomi Collier Broms.

Streamed from the If I Can’t Dance Westerdok production studio, Amsterdam

Session #2

Live-Stream Series

31 October 2020, 16.00–18.30hr

Ros Murray
On Les Muses s’amusent and feminist video activism in 1970s Paris

Introductions by Frédérique Bergholtz and Megan Hoetger.

Response session with Megan Hoetger, Anik Fournier and artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh.

The session included the screening of the documentary Delphine et Carole, insoumuses (Callisto McNulty, 2019, 71 minutes). For copyright reasons, a full version of the film is not included in this registration. Please contact the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir for more information on screening accessibility.

Acknowledgements

Live-stream concept and realisation by Lukas Heistinger with dramaturgy by Megan Hoetger and audio-visual support from Fan Liao and Temra Pavlovic. Live-stream audience moderation by Amalia Calderón and Naomi Collier Broms.

Streamed from the If I Can’t Dance Westerdok production studio, Amsterdam

Session #1

Live-Stream Series

24 October 2020, 16.00–18.30hr

Giulia Damiani

‘Let’s Build a City with a Woman-Dimension: Orography and Dance with Le Nemesiache, from Naples to Amsterdam’ with contributions by Genevieve Hyacinthe, Le Nemesiache, Anik Fournier and Arnisa Zeqo.

Introduction by If I Can’t Dance Archivist Anik Fournier.

The session was preceded by an introduction to the Mythologies/Methodologies series by If I Can’t Dance Director Frédérique Bergholtz, Prof. Christa-Maria Lerm-Hayes (UvA, AHM), and If I Can’t Dance Curators Sara Giannini and Megan Hoetger.

Acknowledgements

Live-stream concept and realisation by Lukas Heistinger with dramaturgy by Megan Hoetger and audio-visual support from Fan Liao and Temra Pavlovic. Live-stream audience moderation by Amalia Calderón and Naomi Collier Broms.

Streamed from the If I Can’t Dance Westerdok production studio, Amsterdam and from the exhibition From the Volcano to the Sea. The Feminist Group Le Nemesiache in 1970s and 1980s Naples, Rongwrong, Amsterdam

Mythologies/Methodologies. Approaching Feminist Collectivities of the 1970s and 1980s

Live-Stream Series

Saturday 24 October 2020, 16–18.30hr

Saturday 31 October 2020, 16–18.30hr

Saturday 7 November 2020, 16–18.30hr

Saturday 14 November 2020, 16–18.30hr

Sister Outsider presents gala night for women, 1986, flyer by Jo Nesbitt

A four-part live-stream series exploring feminist collective legacies across (psycho)-geographies featuring: If I Can’t Dance 2019–20 Research Fellow Giulia Damiani in dialogue with scholar Genevieve Hyacinthe in week one; film historian and critic Ros Murray and a streaming of the documentary film Delphine et Carole, insoumuses (2019) by Callisto McNulty in week two; and scholar and curator Chandra Frank joined by writer and professor Gloria Wekker in week three. The series concludes with a roundtable moderated by art history scholar Elize Mazadiego in conversation with Damiani, Frank and Murray on collective strategies and performance-based research methodologies.

Acknowledgements

The Mythologies/Methodologies series is organised by the curatorial team (Frédérique Bergholtz, Sara Giannini and Megan Hoetger), and is realised in partnership with the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture, University of Amsterdam.

Special thanks to Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir.

Live-stream concept and realisation by Lukas Heistinger with dramaturgy by Megan Hoetger and audio-visual support from Fan Liao and Temra Pavlovic. Live-stream audience moderation by Amalia Calderón and Naomi Collier Broms.

Edition VIII – Ritual and Display is supported by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

€2, reservations required

Full programme

Exhibition

Exhibition organised in the frame of Edition VIII (2019–20) – Ritual and Display

From the Volcano to the Sea: Part II. The Feminist Group Le Nemesiache in 1970s and 1980s Naples

Exhibition

30 September – 2 December 2022

Chelsea Space presents From the Volcano to the Sea: Part II, an exhibition presenting archival materials from the feminist group Le Nemesiache (1970s-1990s), for the first time in London. Based in the southern Italian city of Naples, Le Nemesiache experimented with creativity and the arts as a route towards liberation and fulfillment within their daily lives, and to oppose the exploitation of the landscape surrounding the city.

Acknowledgements

The Feminist Group Le Nemesiache in 1970s and 1980s Naples, is curated by Giulia Damiani and produced in collaboration with the Mangiacapra Archive and members of Le Nemesiache. The items on show are from the Mangiacapra Archive. The exhibition shares the title with a show curated by Giulia Damiani in collaboration with the organization If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to be Part of Your Revolution in Amsterdam, held between 2020 and 2021 at the art space Rongwrong.

Chelsea Space

Chelsea College of Arts

16 John Islip St

London SW1P 4JU

United Kingdom

From the Volcano to the Sea: The Feminist Group Le Nemesiache in 1970s and 1980s Naples

Exhibition

23 October 2020–17 January 2021
Extended to 1 May 2021

Symbol of Le Nemesiache, Lina Mangiacapre

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Founded by philosopher, artist and writer Lina Mangiacapre in 1970, Le Nemesiache was an open group of female participants who led a ‘different daily life’ in which mythology was an embodied practice of feminist transformation. For the first time, the group’s archive of documents, film, collage and much more is presented, dwelling on the way in which they blurred the line between art and politics in ritualistic practices embedded in the natural and supernatural landscape of Naples.

Acknowledgements

From the Volcano to the Sea is curated by If I Can’t Dance’s 2019–20 Research Fellow Giulia Damiani in dialogue with Sara Giannini (If I Can’t Dance) and Arnisa Zeqo (Rongwrong), with an exhibition design by Maud Vervenne. Special thanks to Le Nemesiache

Edition VIII – Ritual and Display is supported by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Rongwrong

Binnen Bantammerstraat 2, 1011 CK Amsterdam

Research Visits
Saturdays, 14–18hr
Free, book here

Virtual Tours, Happy Hour with Le Nemesiache
16 Friday and 30 Friday April 2021, 18–19hr
Free, book here

Exhibition folder

Reader

Ritual and Display

Book Launch

Friday 13 May 2022, 17-19hr

Reader 'Ritual and Display', ISBN 978-94-92139-20-7, 284p, ills bw, 15 x 22 cm, pb, English, 2022

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Launch of our sixth reader documenting our institutional research into the field of inquiry of Ritual and Display. Edited by Giulia Damiani, the publication weaves together notions of preparation, magic, landscape, bodily writing, feminist thinking, prophecy and contemporary performance practices. Come by and join us for a toast in the presence of Damiani, artist Kent Chan who has created an artistic intervention in the publication, and Joris Kritis, designer of the reader series.

If I Can’t Dance Studio
Westerdok 606-608
1013 BV Amsterdam

Free, drinks

During the launch, the reader is available for the special Amsterdam Art Week price of €15 (from 22 May €20).

2019-20

Master course

DAI-COOP

Sotto Voce: Tactics, Signals and Slips of Desire

Course

2019-20

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‘Sotto voce’ is a musical term that denotes a lowering of the vocal or instrumental volume. A literal translation from Italian reads like ‘under voice’ or ‘under the voice.’ Used in daily life, ‘sotto voce’ evokes lover’s discourse, whispers, gossip, dirty talk, and gestures, as enunciations taking place below the voice. From this specific perspective, the voice operates on an official plane of communication, where transmission is regulated and exposed. Like desire lines, sotto voce cuts through the official routes of communication, to initiate new kinships, unlicensed ways of speaking, secretive passages of words, a language of touch and intimacy.

The COOP thinks through the languages, temporalities and relations that may emerge when the performative act is sotto voce. The participants are involved in covert communication tactics, invisible performances and strategies of disappearance.

Course tutors: Sara Giannini, Geo Wyeth and Arnisa Zeqo.

Guest tutor: Constantina Zavistanos

Students: Mayar Alexan, Raphael Daibert, Francesca Hawker, Risa Horn, Rong Raffia Li, Anastasia McCammon, Lea Rüegg, Lou Lou Sainsbury, Sophie de Serière, Marie Tuckova, and Matthew Wang.

Gatherings

Zeeland, NL

Tunis, Tunisia

Dance Studio Jacuzzi and If I Can’t Dance Archive, Amsterdam

Radio Kootwijk, NL

Bachelor course

SNDO

The choreographic object and performative modes of writing

Course

2020

Confined to our homes during the lockdown, this year’s class centre the performative side of daily objects around us: how do they set up rituals in our daily lives, choreograph our movement through our domestic spaces? Create desire or repel us? Taking William Forsythe’s notion of the Choreographic Object as a starting point, each meeting we also look at material from the If I Can’t Dance archive related to the commissions of Every Ocean Hughes, Gregg Bordowitz, Grant Watson, Chroma Lives, and explore modes of writing in relation to the performativity of objects.

Teachers: Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger

Online

2018-19

Master course

DAI-COOP

The Immemorial Body: Betraying Carmelo Bene in Nine Acts

Course

2018-19

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This COOP study group takes as a starting point the disrupted legacy of the Italian actor, director, writer, philosopher, and pop figure Carmelo Bene. The intention is to read Bene’s complex and untranslated work vis à vis different artists and theorists that provide affine or challenging views on his practice. His philosophy of the ‘actorial machine’ is approached through lenses of performance art, opening up performance theory to an epistemology of the South. Inspired by Bene’s own definition of “reading as an act of oblivion,” the class approaches readership as a performative act of rewriting, re-gendering, remaking, and re-enacting.

Course tutors: Sara Giannini, Geo Wyeth and Arnisa Zeqo.

Guest tutors: Barbara Casavecchia and Snejanka Mihaylova.

Students: Anastasia McCammon, Elien Ronse, Eric Peter, Joannie Baumgärtner, Julian Fricker, Karina Sarkissova, Marc Norbert Hörler, Polly Wright, Simon(e) van Saarloos, and Zachary Schoenhut.

Gatherings

DAI, Arnhem

Epen, Limburg

The Bauhaus, Dessau

Berlin, DE

Cagliari, IT

Bachelor course

SNDO

Curating and Performance

Course

2019

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Curating and Performance investigates performance within the framework of its institutional history to think through its contextualization, presentation and preservation through curatorial practice and the theoretical and practical implications of this for artists, institutions and audiences alike.

The course introduces students to contemporary debates surrounding the curation of performance, and to equips them with the critical and practical skills that they require in order to think through how they shape their own artistic work in relation to the curatorial structures that they chose to create, engage with, or respond to. The course is structured around key principles: Space, Time, Bodies, Props and Objects, Notation and Documentation, and Writing

Teachers: Anik Fournier and Giulia Damiani

Merchant House, Amsterdam

Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam

A rose is a rose is a rose, Amsterdam

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

2017–18

Social Movement

Field of Inquiry

How can performance ontologies dedicated to embodiment, affect and the relational better the understanding of social movement? How can looking into its different forms expand the vocabularies of performance studies? These investigations are led by fellow Anik Fournier (b. 1977, Montreal. Lives in Amsterdam), a teacher, writer and archivist who holds a PhD from the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis.

Reading Group

Emerging out of a desire to create time and space for collective study, the reading group is a platform to explore methods for collaborative, embodied learning.

The closed reading group participants are invited based on their work’s affinity to the theme Social Movement.

Open Reading Group #2: The Book Club – A Space for Collective Study and Experimentation

Reading Group

Saturday 7 July 2018, 12–18hr

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Safely ensconced in an Amsterdamse Bos cabin, session leader Myriam Lefkowitz introduces her ongoing research project The Book Club developed with philosopher Cécile Lavergne to explore bodily experience in study and knowledge production. The day consists of a series of experiments on body energy and behaviour – a haptic way of reading then applied to a text by Donna Haraway. We work and read in pairs, for instance, connecting heart and hand with text.

Texts and materials: Donna Haraway

Visitor Report
Amsterdamse Bos
Nieuwe Meerlaan 9, 1171 NZ Amstelveen
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Bodily Movement and Cultural Idioms

Reading Group

Wednesday 13 June 2018, 16–18hr

Anna Rose Holmer, ‘The Fits’ (2016), still.

A grammar and syntax of bodily movement is developed emphasising black social dance. For example, hip-hop is encoded with bodily gestures, which, according to Thomas F. DeFrantz, have both private and public meanings: the black dancing body can simultaneously celebrate and protest. Is there a double consciousness of the black body in movement? What happens when these cultural idioms are performed for those without access to their histories of desire and pain?

Texts and materials: Rizvana Bradley, dolores kirton cayou, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Anna Rose Homer, Adrian Piper

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Afro-pessimism and Social Death

Reading Group

Wednesday 16 May 2018, 16–18hr

Frank B. Wilderson III, ‘Law Abiding’ (2009), reading, Pomona College, 19 April 2017. Credit: Pomona College, Claremont, CA.

The violent condition that defines black bodies as non-entities does not allow for positive relationality. How then is it possible to build a movement on behalf of the black body defined as a non-entity? Can humanism be rethought to think blackness and agency together? keyon gaskin’s work is leaned on to learn how the overdetermined black body can resist capture and re-inscribe racial relations.

Texts and materials: keyon gaskin, Jared Sexton, Frank B. Wilderson III, Sylvia Wynter

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

The Politics of Movement

Reading Group

Wednesday 18 April 2018, 16–18hr

Ayesha Hameed, ‘A Rough History (of the destruction of fingerprints)’ (2015–16), still.

Taking up Édouard Glissant’s notions of arrow-like and circular movement, what drives people to move across social borders? What are the ethical and political repercussions – including at the molecular level of touching and hosting (Barad)? How can these narratives of self and other be read through Ayesha Hameed’s palmistry research into the violent struggle between the tracing and erasing migrants’ fingerprints amid Europe’s xenophobic fantasies?

Texts and materials: Karen Barad, Anne Boyer, Édouard Glissant, Ayesha Hameed, Mounira Al Solh

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Open Reading Group #1

Reading Group

Saturday 27 January 2018, 10–13hr

Led with artistic researcher, experimental performer and body practitioner ELLE (elke van campenhout), the day looks at ‘resistance’ in relation to Agamben’s take on ‘movement’ and Butler, Gambetti and Sabsay’s approach to vulnerability. Participants offer examples of social actions that set things in motion, also informed by Jackson’s view on the social within and outside art institutions. ELLE closes the session with exercises in response to the readings.

Texts and Materials: Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, Shannon Jackson, Leticia Sabsay

Visitor Report
If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

and

Saturday 27 January 2018, 14–17hr
Jacuzzi
Ketelhuisplein 41, 1054 RD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservation required

Technologies of Embodiment

Reading Group

Wednesday 17 January 2018, 16–18hr

Catherine Bernheim, ‘Delphine Seyrig holding a camera during the shooting of Où est-ce qu’on se mai? [Where do we May?], shot in Paris during the May Day demonstration of 1976’ (1976) photograph. Credit: 20 minutos.

The use of early portable video technologies by 1970s French feminist video collectives reveals an embodied, dissident, performative gaze behind the camera. How is this bodily and technological bind renegotiated now? How can the senses articulate reciprocity between subjects and representation? With Charlotte Prodger’s rural queerness as case in point, how can underrepresented experiences use technologies of embodiment to inscribe their position within representation and narratives on their own terms?

Texts and materials: Kelly Baker, Hubert Godard, Ros Murray, Charlotte Prodger

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Affect and Relationality

Reading Group

Wednesday 13 December 2017, 16–18hr

Rudolf Laban, ‘Choreutics’ (1966), book. Photo: Anik Fournier.

When the body, where movement takes hold, is vulnerable, this is commonly understood as passive and inactive, yet it is also a condition for action and resistance. Moving outward from Audre Lorde’s erotics – a deeply female and spiritual plane – fuels a change towards connecting to, and feeling, all aspects of life and relations with others. What, then, is a grammar of bodily movement – its outer form and inner affect?

Texts and materials: Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, Myriam Lefkowitz, Audre Lorde, Leticia Sabsay

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

A Historiography of the Term Social Movement

Reading Group

Wednesday 15 November 2017, 16–18hr

Randy Martin, ‘Performing the Changing City: Public Space, Transformative Events and Creative Action in New York’ (2013), lecture. Credit: Movement Research.

What is meant by social movement: a mobilisation of bodies in the streets or social change that results from the demands of those bodies? Used in both progressive and conservative political projects, how do infrastructure and support structures enable or disable it? How does it exceed the political realm? In turning to performance and dance theory, movement emerges as a force, as an energy that takes root in the body.

Texts and materials: Giorgio Agamben, Shannon Jackson, Randy Martin

Logbook

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Radio Emma

Three radio programmes unpack key terms from our research into Social Movement with invited local guests from various disciplines and practices.

Gathering

Radio

Wednesday 28 November 2018, 13–14hr

Whether it be for festive, spiritual or political reasons, bodies that congregate signify in ways that extend beyond the discursive. If bodily vulnerability is part of resistance, how can this build grounds for new forms of embodied political intervention and modes of alliance that are characterized by interdependence?

Guests: Selçuk Balamir, graphic designer and activist; Tina Reden and Nagaré Willemsen, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam students and usb_blackstudentunion founders; Taka Taka, visual artist and drag performer
Host: Miriam Wistreich

Acknowledgements

Editorial team: Anik Fournier, Miriam Wistreich
Jingle: Radna Rumping
Sound engineer: Leroy Chaar
Livestreaming, equipment and post-production: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

Radio Emma in its renewed form is developed by Miriam Wistreich with If I Can’t Dance

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, no reservations required

Live broadcast

Care

Radio

Wednesday 21 November 2018, 13–14hr

Social welfare structures – diminished within neoliberalism – are less and less subject to collective responsibility. How can we (re-)build care relations? How can we perform caring sensorial gestures – feeling, touching, listening and looking – in ways that caress and seek relations? Forged at a sensorial level, can an ethics of care be grounds for an ethics of the social?

Guests: Nell Donkers, archivist De Appel; Sands Murray-Wassink, feminist, perfume collector and visual artist; and Marjan Sax, founder of Mama Cash and activist
Host: Miriam Wistreich

Acknowledgements

Editorial team: Anik Fournier, Miriam Wistreich
Jingle: Radna Rumping
Sound engineer: Leroy Chaar
Livestreaming, equipment and post-production: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

Radio Emma in its renewed form is developed by Miriam Wistreich with If I Can’t Dance

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, no reservations required

Live broadcast

Embodiment

Radio

Wednesday 14 November 2018, 13–14hr

Anti-clockwise from left to right: Gregory Lennon, Pascal Gatzen, AnnaMaria Pinaka, Miriam Wistreich, Leroy Chaar, Anik Fournier, ‘Embodiment’ (2018), Radio Emma. Photo: Susan Gibb.

When we think about social movement we tend to think of protests and manifestations, forms of collective action that aim for sociopolitical change. However, bodies also move in social ways. How does the body’s performance tie the individual to the social, the micro to the macro? And how in turn does embodiment impact social movement?

Guests: Pascal Gatzen, designer and head of MA Fashion Design, ArtEZ hogeschool voor de kunsten, Arnhem; Gregory Lennon, yoga teacher; and AnnaMaria Pinaka, visual artist
Host: Miriam Wistreich

Acknowledgements

Editorial team: Anik Fournier, Miriam Wistreich
Jingle: Radna Rumping
Sound engineer: Leroy Chaar
Livestreaming, equipment and post-production: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

Radio Emma in its renewed form is developed by Miriam Wistreich with If I Can’t Dance

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, no reservations required

Live broadcast

Lecture

Shannon Jackson: Choreographing Infrastructure

Lecture

Thursday 8 November 2018, 19.30–21.30hr

Shannon Jackson, ‘Choreographing Infrastructure’ (2018). Credit: Imagining America.

The performance scholar responds to the terms ‘social’ and ‘movement’ in recalling Progressive Era social movements – including those led by Jane Addams and Emma Goldman – and of the twenty-first century. She looks at choreography’s position on social practice discourse, drawing on her books Public Servants (2016), Social Works (2011) and Lines of Activity (2000) and the work of artists Joanna Haigood and Yve Laris Cohen.

Acknowledgements

Presented with the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis

P.C. Hoofthuis (Zaal 1.04)
University of Amsterdam
Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Livestreamed

Reader

Master course

DAI-COOP

Opera Corruption. On Tricks, Tricksters and Charms

Course

2017-18

1/10

The course is conceived as a study group on corruption, a very charged word that is addressed as an ’embodied’ subject and practice. ‘Embodied’ in this particular instance means a form of corruption that is not objectified, but is a body/mind affair and as such it is approached through the body, skin, muscles and organs.

This class is about art as a corruptive force, with the mission of making a collective film/opera on corruption and through corruption. In other words, a film corrupted with opera, or an opera corrupted with film. The Opera, a total work of art, (the Gesamtkunstwerk) in which all other art forms can be corrupted, tricked and collapsed with one another. For their final presentation at Mikrokosmos Cinema in Athens in June, the group presents the film ‘A Piece of Dada’ as a collective work.

Course tutors: Pauline Curnier Jardin, Sara Giannini and Frédérique Bergholtz.

Guest tutors: Clara Saito, Anna Pangalou, and Aaron Schuster.

Students: Clementine Edwards, Lukas Hoffmann, Tirza Kater, Rabea Ridlhammer, Clara Saito, Giorgos Tsiongas, Wilfred Tomescu.

Gatherings

Epen, Limburg

Barcelona, Spain

Mikrokosmos Cinema, Athens

FLAM – Forum for Live Art Amsterdam at Arti et Amicitiae

Bachelor course

SNDO

Curating and Performance

Course

2018

Curating and Performance investigates performance within the framework of its institutional history to think through its contextualization, presentation and preservation through curatorial practice and the theoretical and practical implications of this for artists, institutions and audiences alike. The course introduces

students to contemporary debates surrounding the curation of performance, and to equips them with the critical and practical skills that they require in order to think through how they shape their own artistic work in relation to the curatorial structures that they chose to create, engage with, or respond to. The course is structured around key principles: Space, Time, Bodies, Props and Objects, Notation and Documentation, and Writing

Teachers: Frédérique Bergholtz and Anik Fournier

Sites

Wereld Museum, Amsterdam

Artis, Amsterdam

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Other

Grand Union, Birmingham

Curating Performance

Course

28-29 April 2017

The workshop introduces the participants to the history and working methodologies of If I Can’t Dance, and uses past projects as case studies in order to think through the practical and theoretical implications of curating performance. Topics covered included thinking through space, time, bodies and documentation in relation to producing and presenting performance, alongside notions of the ‘performative’.

The interdisciplinary nature of performance is also introduced to extend the thinking from visual arts, to theatre, dance, live art, film and music. The workshop culminates with meetings with Birmingham based curators working within the field of performance, including the independent curator Vanessa Boni, and the director of Fierce Festival, Aaron Wright.

Tutor: Susan Gibb

Grand Union, Birmingham

Artist Commissions

Mounira Al Solh

(b. 1978, Beirut. Lives in Beirut and Zutphen, The Netherlands) traces the movement of stories to reflect upon her personal history and those of the people she encounters in order to consider how social and political themes are grounded in daily life. Here, she creates a new experimental documentary in collaboration with four women affected by the Syrian war.

Freedom Is a Habit I’m Trying to Learn

Exhibition

Saturday 30 November 2019 – Sunday 8 March 2020
Exhibition Opening: Saturday 30 November 2019, 15–17hr

Open daily: Tuesday – Sunday, 11–17hr

Mounira Al Solh, ‘à la santé des alliés’, (2017), screening. Photo: Silvia Ulloa

1/3

This documentary follows the personal discussions, people and places related to four women originally from Lebanon and Syria: Waad, Hanin, Rogine and Zeina. In their new cities, they face questions about the meaning of their cultures, family and political visions. Is exile a choice or an accident? What is home? How do we behave in our new countries? Does the abuse of the word ‘refugee’ affect us?

43 min, col, Arabic with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Featuring: Waad Amer, Hanin Ghaddar, Rogine Hassan, Zeina Mansour, with Abdallah Ali Alsayed, Ali Ali Alsayed, Fatat Ali Alsayed, Nouran Breem, Ramy Ghanem, Tone Hansen, Dalshad Hassan, Bilal Khbeiz, Nabil Mohammad, Nader Omid, Nabeeh Semaan, Mounira Al Solh, Hussein Tabarai, Siddhi Tettero, Ronald Verweij

Camera: Ben Geraerts, Frida Marzouk, Temra Pavlovic, Mounira Al Solh

Sound: Kristian Dmitri, Bodil Furu, Tumelo Maesela, Mounira Al Solh

Producer: Frédérique Bergholtz

The film is co-commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation and premieres as part of Positions #5 at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Van Abbemuseum
Bilderdijklaan 10

5611 NH Eindhoven
The Netherlands

Freedom Is a Habit I’m Trying to Learn

Screening

Tuesday 4 December 2018, 19–21.30hr

1/8

This documentary follows the personal discussions, people and places related to four women originally from Lebanon and Syria: Waad, Hanin, Rogine and Zeina. In their new cities, they face questions about the meaning of their cultures, family and political visions. Is exile a choice or an accident? What is home? How do we behave in our new countries? Does the abuse of the word ‘refugee’ affect us?

Avant-première with Syrian banquet by Aleppo Kitchen, and a music performance by Rogine Hassan.

43 min, col, Arabic with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Featuring: Waad Amer, Hanin Ghaddar, Rogine Hassan, Zeina Mansour, with Abdallah Ali Alsayed, Ali Ali Alsayed, Fatat Ali Alsayed, Nouran Breem, Ramy Ghanem, Tone Hansen, Dalshad Hassan, Bilal Khbeiz, Nabil Mohammad, Nader Omid, Nabeeh Semaan, Mounira Al Solh, Hussein Tabarai, Siddhi Tettero, Ronald Verweij

Camera: Ben Geraerts, Frida Marzouk, Temra Pavlovic, Mounira Al Solh

Sound: Kristian Dmitri, Bodil Furu, Tumelo Maesela, Mounira Al Solh

Producer: Frédérique Bergholtz

Co-commissioned with Sharjah Art Foundation

ZID Theatre
De Roos van Dekamaweg 1

1061 HR Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€12,50 adults / €10 students
(includes meal)

à la santé des alliés

Screening

Friday 15 December 2017, 16hr

1/6

The film, whose title translates as ‘to the health of allies’, narrates layers of parallel events in Lebanon and Syria during the pan-Arab Nasserite movement of the 1950s and 60s. Made from 2003–16 and told from the different perspective of the artist’s relatives, opinions and recollections of the same incidents begin to contradict each other, mixing personal and political events to reveal time as three-dimensional rather than linear.

Eye Filmmuseum
IJpromenade 1

1031 KT Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5

keyon gaskin

prefers not to contextualise their art with their credentials; they create a number of new performances that trouble the discipline’s form, institutions and conventions by investing in the gaps they find within these, and by pursuing the potentials of gathering.

something else entirely

Performance

Friday 14 December 2018, 19–20hr

ISO Amsterdam

Isolatorweg 17

1014 AS Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

keyon gaskin, ‘something else entirely’, 14 December 2018, ISO Amsterdam. Photography: Nellie de Boer.

1/6

This new performance engages third-year SNDO – School for New Dance Development students in a two-week workshop towards a public presentation. The artist’s solo work this is a performance. / you are a community. / you are my material. / this is a prison. / leave when you want is opened up to other bodies who conceive something else to share.

Acknowledgements

Made with and by Keerthi Basavarajaiah, Yannick Bosc, Jette Loona Hermanis, Dasom Lee, Fernanda Libman Fonseca, Ingeborg Meier Andersen, Carolina Papetti, Naomie Pieter, Johhan Rosenberg, Tamir Eting, keyon gaskin

Commissioned by the SNDO – School for New Dance Development in collaboration with If I Can’t Dance and presented with ISO Amsterdam

NASHA

Book Launch & Performance

Friday 30 November 2018, 18.15–22.30hr

keyon gaskin, ‘NASHA’ (2018), performance. Photo: Coco Duivenvoorde

1/12

In these three performances named after the artist’s little sister and done with friends, the attempt to be less lonely when travelling centres on and values black sociality. Writes d.a. carter (aka Derrais Carter) in the accompanying publication: ‘When you encounter NASHA, refuse language. Be present and patient with yourself. Instead of trying to explain the work, let the performance work on you. Allow it to build memories, real and imagined. Let it hum through you.’

Acknowledgements

Introduction d.a. carter

Dead Thoroughbred in collaboration with sidony oneal

the multifarious nature of care with Adee Roberson (Tropic Green)

[a swatch of lavender]: a self portrait performed by local artists

Samiya Bashir

Field Theories (2017)

6 videos, approx 1 min 30 sec each, col, English

Movement: keyon gaskin

Camera and edit: Roland Dahwen (Patua Films)

Presented with the support of SNDO – School for New Dance Development, Fine Arts Department Sandberg Instituut, USB Sandberg Black Student Union and Unsettling Sandberg Instituut/Gerrit Rietveld Academie, all Amsterdam

Bijlmer Parktheater

Anton de Komplein 240

1102 DR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 adults / €12,50 students

(includes meal)

King’s Day Protest

Screening

Friday 30 November 2018, 17.45hr

1/6

A new video work broadcast on the public screen at Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA train station.

6 min 2 sec, col, English

Acknowledgements

Performers: Emma Nantermoz, Neda Rujeva, Julia Sara Vavra, Karina Villafan

Camera: Temra Pavlovic

Editing: keyon gaskin, Temra Pavlovic

Special thanks to SNDO – School for New Dance Development

Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA

1101 BE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

Workshop: Writing for/with Performance

Workshop

Tuesday 27 November 2018

Talentlab

Anton de Komplein 240

1102 DR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Closed workshop

A night of poetry, dance, performance and music lead by the artist and Derrais Carter and facilitated by sidony o’neal and Adee Roberson (Tropic Green) for the talent development project of the Bijlmer Parktheater whereby young talent from eighteen years old with experience in performance can further deepen their competencies in poetry, photography, theatre and dance.

this is a performance.

you are a community.

you are my material.

this is a prison.

leave when you want.

Performance

Friday 28 September 2018, 19.30hr

1/10

In Amsterdam to further develop their commission, the artist presents a performance that, as Litia Perta writes, is ‘less about a whole picture – a total or totalizing knowledge – than it is about intimacy, failure to see, nearness that obstructs rather than clarifies … this work unsettles, undoes, asks what it means, looks like, feels like, to come undone, to see only fragments, to have little or no context.’

FLAM – Forum for Live Art Amsterdam at Arti et Amicitiae
Rokin 112

1012 LB Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€7,50

its not a thing

Performance

Thursday 21 and Friday 22 September 2017, 19–21hr

1/4

Writer Jamie Hale has reflected on this work in The Oregonian: ‘… no matter how hard keyon gaskin tries to make the performance not a thing, its not a thing is somehow the most captivating thing in town.’

Dansmakers Podium
Gedempt Hamerkanaal 203

1021 KP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€7,50 adults / €5 students

Myriam Lefkowitz

(b. 1980, Paris. Lives in Paris) creates conditions for augmented perceptive experiences that favour attention, trust and the negotiation of emotions and relations; she designs a new ‘choreographic tool’ over a series of workshops.

How Can One Know in Such Darkness?

Performance

Saturday 24 November 2018, 9–10.30hr, 10.30–12hr, 13.30–15hr, 15–16.30hr and 16.30–18hr

1/4

During library opening hours, beholders are ushered into a hall and invited to lie down, close their eyes and immerse themselves in a collective tactile experience. Surrounded by blankets, pillows, fabrics, stones and other objects, performers weave a non-verbal narrative between bodies using touch and sound. Feelings and imagination, states of sleep and wakefulness, may blur to enable a different regime of images to appear. Each session accommodates ten beholders, who may then watch the following session.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Lendl Barcelos, Alkis Hadjandreou, Annick Kleizen, Zoe Scoglio

Original concept: Jean Philippe Derail, Julie Laporte, Myriam Lefkowitz

Developed in partnership with La Ferme du Buisson, Noisiel through Corpus, an international network for performance-related work and La Galerie, centre d’art contemporain, Noisy-le-Sec, and presented in collaboration with the department of Art History at the University of Amsterdam Library

University of Amsterdam Library
Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10

La Bibliothèque

Book Launch & Performance

Thursday 22, Friday 23, Monday 26, Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 November 2018, 10.30–12hr, 13–14.30hr and 15–16.30hr

1/4

An art project that questions the usual patterns of attention. Five performers intermingle in the daily life of a library, each guiding a single beholder at a time through a series of ‘attention devices’: a walk with closed eyes, a nap augmented by the subtle touch of objects, textiles and sounds and a reading practice that addresses the entire body as a site for understanding. A publication details the experience.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Lendl Barcelos, Alkis Hadjandreou, Annick Kleizen, Zoe Scoglio

Conceived in lineage with La Piscine, a project performed at a swimming pool and created by Lendl Barcelos, Jean Philippe Derail, Valentina Desideri, Ben Evans, Alkis Hadjandreou, Catalina Insignares, Julie Laporte, Géraldine Longueville, Florian Richaud, Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Clara Valière, Yasmine Youcef

Co-produced by Bulegoa z/b, Bilbao and La Ferme du Buisson, Noisiel in the frame of Corpus, an international network for performance-related work, and presented in collaboration with the department of Art History at the University of Amsterdam Library

University of Amsterdam Library
Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10

Practising Attention

Workshop

Monday 5 February 2018, 10–18hr

1/7

An exchange of sensorial, perceptive and imaginary tools developed through her practice: touch, different modes of seeing, states between sleep and wakefulness and silent forms of communication. Collective conversations with participants about the experiences produced by these tools open up and map the issues that emerge from the modified states, addressing contemporary modes of attention and guided by the enquiry: What practice creates the conditions for our attention to shift?

Participants are asked to bring a text they consider feminist and an object or fabric with interesting tactile or sound properties.

Acknowledgements

Collaborator: Cécile Lavergne

Podium Mozaïek
Bos en Lommerweg 191, 1055 DT Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

(includes meal)

Practising Attention

Workshop

Wednesday 13 December 2017, 10–18hr

An exchange of sensorial, perceptive and imaginary tools developed through her practice: touch, different modes of seeing, states between sleep and wakefulness and silent forms of communication. Collective conversations with participants about the experiences produced by these tools open up and map the issues that emerge from the modified states, addressing contemporary modes of attention and guided by the enquiry: What practice creates the conditions for our attention to shift?

Centro Municipal de San Francisco
Plaza Corazón de María s/n, 48003 Bilbao
Spain

Free, reservations required

Practising Attention

Workshop

Friday 17 November 2017, 14–18hr

1/6

An exchange of sensorial, perceptive and imaginary tools developed through her practice: touch, different modes of seeing, states between sleep and wakefulness and silent forms of communication. Collective conversations with participants about the experiences produced by these tools open up and map the issues that emerge from the modified states, addressing contemporary modes of attention and guided by the enquiry: What practice creates the conditions for our attention to shift?

Huiskamer van de Buurt de Tagerijn
Balboastraat 18, 1057 VW Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

How can one know in such darkness?

Performance

Saturday 28 October 2017, 14hr

One of a series of public meetings putting into practice the research about attention, sensation and perception conducted during her three-month residency at La Ferme du Buisson. Through various immersive devices that provoke encounters between choreographic artists and spectators, Lefkowitz creates the conditions for an increased perceptual experience through the use of gaze, touch, walking and liminal states between sleep and waking.

Acknowledgements

Collaborators: Jean Philippe Derail, Ghyslaine Gau, Thierry Grapotte, Catalina Insignares, Julie Laporte, Florian Richaud, Yasmine Youcef

The performance and residency at La Ferme du Buisson, Noisel takes place with the support of Drac Île-de-France – Ministère de la Culture, Conseil régional d’Île-de-France and Corpus, an international network for performance-related work

La Ferme du Buisson
Allée de la Ferme, 77186 Noisiel
France

Free

Charlotte Prodger

(b. 1974, Bournemouth, United Kingdom. Lives in Glasgow) works with sculpture, writing and moving image of which its ever-evolving formats are inextricably bound to the autobiographical content of her work. Her recent videos set up complex tensions between the body, landscape, identity and time. The new single-channel film explores what happens to the coded signifiers of queer bodies within uninhabited wildernesses.

SaF05

Exhibition

Saturday 23 January – Sunday 5 September 2021
Open daily 10–18hr

At last the Amsterdam public can view the 2019 installation that concludes the eponymous video trilogy named after the last of several maned lionesses – a cipher for queer attachment and desire – documented in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. The artist came to know about the lioness through conservationists’ camera-trap and behaviour footage.

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Museumplein 10
1071 DJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€20 adults / €10 students and CJP

SaF05

Exhibition

Saturday 11 May – Sunday 24 November 2019
Open daily: Tuesday – Sunday, 10–18hr

Charlotte Prodger, SaF05 (2019), video still, The 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Venetië, 11 May – 24 November 2019.

1/5

This film combines archival, scientific and diaristic footage from the Scottish Highlands, the Great Basin Desert, the Okavango Delta and the Ionian Islands. SaF05 is the name of a maned lioness, a cipher for queer attachment and desire. The artist intersects a database of behaviours and camera-trap footage of SaF05, the last of several maned lionesses documented in the Okavango Delta, with autobiographical fragments that fluctuate between proximity and distance.

39 min, col, English

Acknowledgements

Camera: Emma Dalesman, Sarah Forrest, Susan Gibson, Rodney Knight, Charlotte Prodger

Camera trap footage of SaF05: Botswana Predator Conservation Trust

Sound recording: Joe Howe, Charlotte Prodger, Mark Vernon, Ellie Williams

Bagpipe: Isla Jane Stout

Colourist: Jason R. Moffat

Editing, voice-over, sound design, mixing: Charlotte Prodger

Additional mixing: Michael MacKinnon

Producer: Susan Gibb

Consulting producer: Mason Leaver-Yap, Casey O’Connell

Production assistance: Emilie McCluskey, Matilda Strang

Post-production assistance: Natalie McGowan, Vilté Vaikuté

Produced by Scotland + Venice in partnership with If I Can’t Dance, with additional support from Charlotte Prodger Supporters Circle, Elephant Trust, Hollybush Gardens, Koppe Astner, Mercer Union, Toronto and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Exhibition commissioned by the Scotland + Venice partnership with funding support from the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, curated by Linsey Young with Cove Park

On its return to Scotland, the work tours the Highlands and Islands, while If I Can’t Dance leads an international tour to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Mercer Union, Toronto

58th Venice Biennale, Arsenale Docks

San Pietro di Castello 40, 30122 Venice

Italy

Free

Passing as a Great Grey Owl

Screening

Thursday 8 November – Tuesday 4 December 2018, 14–18hr

Charlotte Prodger, Passing as a Great Grey Owl (2017), video still. Courtesy of LUX Scotland.

Found footage of a female biologist mimicking the call of the male great grey owl is counter-posed with video of women’s legs as they urinate in different wildernesses. The collision of these activities suggests exuberant queer territoriality. This video work includes a passage from ‘I am (for The Birds)’, the final text in late artist and curator Ian White’s book Here Is Information. Mobilise (2016).

6 min, col, English

Acknowledgements

Courtesy LUX Scotland

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

BRIDGIT and LHB, with other videos

Screening

Saturday 14 October 2017, 14–19.30hr

Sunset walk through Bergen aan Zee’s dune landscape to the North Sea follows the screening, 2017. Photo: Coco Duivenvoorde.

1/5

The artist’s LHB (2017) and BRIDGIT (2016) are shown alongside the films that influenced their maker’s thinking around ‘queer wildernesses’: Dani Leventhal and Jared Buckhiester’s Hard As Opal (2015) and Jonathan Rattner’s The Interior (2016). These works enquire into queer life in the densely populated urban contexts that dominate popular LGBTQI+ narratives. A sunset walk through Bergen aan Zee’s dune landscape to the North Sea follows the screening.

6 min, col, English

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival and Video Data Bank

Filmtheater Cinebergen
Eeuwigelaan 7, 1861 CL Bergen
The Netherlands

€15 adults / students
(includes free bus service, reservations required)

Research Commissions

Rhea Anastas

(b. 1969, Gloucester. Lives in Los Angeles) is an art historian, critic and curator. She initiates a study of Some Reflective Surfaces (1975–76) by artist and philosopher Adrian Piper (b. 1948, New York City. Lives in Berlin) who appears as a disco dancer in modified Mythic Being guise with narration and film, performing for the first time in formal terms for an art audience.

‘What You Know from How I Move’: excerpts from viewing and researching Adrian Piper’s Some Reflective Surfaces (1975–76), the audience-orientated performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 28 February 1976 in the exhibition Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965–2016

Lecture

Thursday 29 November 2018, 19–20.30hr

Inviting audience discussion, Anastas reads excerpts from her research compiled between summer 2017 and autumn 2018 that explores parallels between specific intersubjective dynamics within the watching and being-watched and the spacing mechanisms (in time, context and conditions) entailed in apprehending and reflecting on Some Reflective Surfaces. Piper performed this piece on stage at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York on 28 February 1976 as part of a multi-day programme of commissioned live pieces.

Acknowledgements

Presented in collaboration with the department of Art History, University of Amsterdam

Special thanks to Adrian Piper Research Archive (APRA) Foundation Berlin

University of Amsterdam Auditorium

Oudemanhuispoort 4–6, 1012 CN Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€5 adults / students

Research on Adrian Piper

Lecture

Saturday 23 September 2017, 15–16.30hr

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With narration and film, Anastas introduces her study of artist and philosopher Adrian Piper’s Some Reflective Surfaces (1975–76). In this piece, Piper appears as a disco dancer in modified Mythic Being guise, performing for the first time in formal terms for an art audience. Additionally, two other works by Piper are screened: It’s Just Art (1980) and Aspects of the Liberal Dilemma (1978).

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; APRA Foundation Berlin; and Lévy Gorvy, New York

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free

Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez

(b. 1976, Ljubljana. Lives in Paris) is a writer and curator; she undertakes a study on the actress, feminist activist, and author of several videos, Delphine Seyrig (b. 1932, Beirut. d. 1990, Paris), including her unfinished film Calamity on American frontierswoman Calamity Jane’s published letters to her daughter.

Eszter Salamon: MONUMENT 0.7: M/OTHERS

Performance

Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 November 2019, 20–21.20hr

In empathy with female subjectivities, several of Eszter Salamon’s works focus on feminist genealogies and transgenerational relations. M/OTHERS reconsiders the structures of generations by exploring the mother-daughter relation, aiming to move away from social norms and arrive at new modalities of action, feeling and perception.

If I Can’t Dance and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez commissioned Eszter Salomon to make a new performance in the frame of the research project on Delphine Seyrig’s unrealised black-and-white silent feature film Calamity based on the correspondence between American frontierswoman Calamity Jane and her daughter.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Erzsébet Gyarmati, Eszter Salamon
Scenography: Sylvie Garot, Eszter Salamon
Lighting design: Sylvie Garot
Rehearsal assistance: Liza Baliasnaja, Boglàrka Börcsök
Costumes: Sabin Gröflin
Production: Botschaft Gbr/Alexandra Wellensiek, Studio E.S/Elodie Perrin

Coproduced by Project Arts Centre (Dublin) and Ménagerie de Verre (Paris).
Funded by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, the Regional Directory of Cultural Affairs of Paris – Ministry of Culture and Communication, and Nationales Performance Netz Coproduction Fund for Dance (NPN) which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Special thanks to Susan Gibb and Ferenc Salamon, Lili Kárpáti and Uferstudios.

Splendor
Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat 116, 1011 LX Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Part of Amsterdam Art Weekend

€15 regular / €10 students

Tour

10-12 August 2019

Tanz im August

HAU (Hebbel am Ufer)

Hallesches Ufer 34, 10963

Berlin, Germany

19 and 20 November 2019

If I Can’t Dance (Splendor)

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

(in the frame of the research project by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez on actress, feminist activist and video director Delphine Seyrig (b. 1932, Beirut. d. 1990, Paris)

22 and 23 November 2019

Ménagerie de Verre

12 Rue Lechevin, 75011

Paris, France

(in the frame of Les Inaccoutumés)

18 February 2019

Museo Reina Sofía

C. de Sta. Isabel, 52, 28012

Madrid, Spain

(in the frame of the exhibition Defiant Muses Delphine Seyrig and the Feminist Video Collectives in France in the 1970s and 1980s)

Defiant Muse: Delphine Seyrig (DAY II)

Lecture

Sunday 2 December 2018, 11.30–16hr

Giovanna Zapperi, ‘Defiant Muse: Delphine Seyrig’ (2018), lecture. Photo: Coco Duivendoorde.

Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez and Eszter Salamon, ‘Defiant Muse: Delphine Seyrig’ (2018), lecture. Photo: Coco Duivendoorde.

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An introduction, with co-curator Giovanna Zapperi, to their 2019–20 Delphine Seyrig exhibition at LaM, Lille, and Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, which addresses Seyrig’s critical engagement with disobedience, countering normativity, transnational struggles and the anti-psychiatry movement. Petrešin-Bachelez then discusses her research into Seyrig’s unrealised film Calamity, from the late 1970s, for which she collaborated with film-maker Babette Mangolte and poet Etel Adnan. Seyrig sought to explore the mother-daughter relationship, undergirded by her long-term interest in US-American culture.

Veem House for Performance

Van Diemenstraat 408–410, 1013 CR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€12 adults / €7 students

Defiant Muse: Delphine Seyrig (DAY I)

Screening

Saturday 1 December 2018, 20–23hr

Sequence of the movie Miso and Maso go Boating (1976) by the collective Les Insoumuses (Carole Roussopoulos, Ioana Wieder, Delphine Seyrig, Nadja Ringart). Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, Paris.

The first of the two films shown by Delphine Seyrig and collaborators is Maso et Miso vont en bateau (1976), in which Les Insoumuses cleverly appropriate media in a scathing and parodic response to political commentary on the status of women. The second, Sois belle et tais-toi [Shut Up and Be Beautiful] (1981), includes interviews with film actresses Jenny Agutter and Jane Fonda – a video statement for #MeToo avant la lettre.

Maso et Miso vont en bateau, 55 min, bw, French with English subtitles

Sois belle et tais-toi, 115 min, bw, French with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Courtesy the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, Paris

Veem House for Performance

Van Diemenstraat 408–410, 1013 CR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€12 adults / €7 students

Research on Delphine Seyrig

Lecture & Screening

Friday 15 December 2017, 14–17hr

Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Research on Delphine Seyrig, lecture, EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, 15 December 2017.

A reactivation of actress, video-maker and feminist activist Delphine Seyrig’s unrealised black and white silent feature about the letters of US-American frontierswoman Calamity Jane to her daughter. At the heart of Seyrig’s interest in the story is the relationship between mother and daughter, which she explores as an actress in Chantal Akerman’s Letters Home (1986), screened here alongside camerawoman Babette Mangolte’s Calamity rushes and Seyrig’s videos S.C.U.M. Manifesto (1976), Maso et Miso vont en bateau (1976) and Inês (1974).

Acknowledgements

Part of a larger commission, in collaboration with art historian Giovanna Zapperi, by Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, Paris

Eye Filmmuseum
IJpromenade 1, 1031 KT Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5 adults / students

2016-17

Master course

DAI-COOP

On Praxis, An Unstated Theory (Writing Out Loud)

Course

2016-17

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The course is an experimental workshop comprising exercises on scores, notations, translation, literalness and equivalences as a means to explore the production of art as a filter. Working from the idea of ‘abundance’, the workshop commences with a collective reading of one of artist Jon Mikel Euba’s texts, during which the students are asked to produce a simultaneous and a consecutive translation of the text into another medium. The process of translation between media continued throughout the course and culminates in a collective sound piece.

Course tutors: Jon Mikel Euba and Susan Gibb

Students: Astarti Athanasiadou, Avan Omar Muhammad, Despina Sevasti, Flora Woudstra, Florencia Almiron, Giulia Crispiani, Helen Zeru, Joy Mariama Smith, larose, Maike Hemmers, Nika Timashkova, Savannah Theis, Sergi Selvas, Valentina Curandi, and Zhenia Vasiliev

Gatherings

Espace Darja, Cassablanca

Ait Ben Haddou, Atlas Mountains

Designhuis, Eindhoven

Bachelor course

SNDO

Curating and Performance

Course

2017

This third-year course builds upon a nine- session theoretical course for second year students that was delivered in April and June 2015, and which is designed to introduce students to ideas and debates around curatorial practices and curating performance through case studies, field trips and reading. This course extends this by providing students with the opportunity to apply these ideas within a practical setting: the students will work in conversation with If I Can’t Dance to think through curatorial methodologies and concerns in the programming, production, presentation and communication of their public presentation in the dancetheatre of de Theaterschool, Amsterdam. The course will unfold across numerous sessions and intensive working periods placed at selected intervals across the presentation’s development, and the two public programmes of performances in the dance theatre.

Teachers: Frédérique Bergholtz and Susan Gibb

2015–16

Event and Duration

Reading Group Amsterdam

Reading Group Sao Paulo

Reading Group Toronto

Reader

Artist Commissions

Leonor Antunes

(b. 1972, Lisbon. Lives in Berlin) creates sculptures that reflect the environment that surrounds them and make reference to the work of lesser-known figures from the history of twentieth-century architecture and design. This commission is lodged in her research into architects Aldo van Eyck and Lina Bo Bardi.

An Open House

Performance

Saturday 10 December 2016, 12–13hr

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Twelve women dressed in as many striking colours of Aldo van Eyck’s Hubertushuis – designed in 1973 as a home for mothers in difficulty – stand on its balconies and behind its windows. The public is told nothing about what they might see, allowed access to one of the two conjoined structures, but not the one occupied by the performers.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Leonor Antunes, Frédérique Bergholtz, Sara Campos, Valentina Curandi, Tess van Eyck, Tiana Hemlock-Yensen, Iva Supic Jankovic, Laima Jaunzema, Avan Omar Muhammad, Kristel Rigaud, Helen Zeru, Elisa Zuppini

Finale

Hubertushuis

Plantage Middenlaan 33, 1018 DB Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€5 adults / students

Introduction

Installation

Sunday 24 January 2016, 11.30–18.30hr

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The elastic golden thread hooked over nails and stretched across the entrance windows solicits thoughts of modernist architect Eileen Gray. The opponent of Le Corbusier’s philosophy is channelled through this shimmering vector that ‘emanates to the world’ from J.B. Ingwersen’s building – inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and its principals of living – where this edition’s artists are introduced. Also a high school, the space embraces learning, becoming and testing ideas.

Introduction

Cygnus Gymnasium

Vrolikstraat 8, 1091 VG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 adults / €10 students

(includes meal)

Alex Martinis Roe

(b. 1982 Melbourne. Lives in Berlin) is an artist with a focus on feminist genealogies fostering productive relations. The network of practitioners for this project develop and perform collective political practices as subject and methodology for a non-linear documentary film with an installation, workshops, public events and a publication.

To Become Two

Salon & Screening

Wednesday 2 May 2018, 20–22hr
Thursday 3 May 2018, 18.30–20.30hr

Alex Martinis Roe, ‘To Become Two’ (2016-2017), salon. Photo: Photo: Hervé Veronese.

In the frame of Centre Pompidou’s programme Mai 68 – Assemblée Générale, this film presentation of Our Future Network (2016) derives from a larger work that traces the genealogy of ‘feminist new materialist’ and ‘sexual difference’ theory. In addition, ten participants gather to reflect on the focus they each have on feminism today and their relationship to 1970s feminisms.

54 min 34 sec, col, English

Acknowledgements

Co-commissioned with ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and The Showroom, London

Workshops and performances are co-commissioned by the Keir Foundation

Produced with the support of the Graduiertenschule der Universität der Künste Berlin and Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and its arts funding and advisory body

Centre Pompidou
Place Georges-Pompidou, 75004 Paris
France

Free

To Become Two: Propositions for Feminist Collective Practice

Book Launch

Monday 30 April 2018, 18–20hr

Accompanied by a screening of the artist’s Their desire rang through the halls and into the tower (2014) highlighting five practices developed within the Gender Studies programme at Utrecht University: double-track approach to institutional politics, international networking, pluralism, affirmative critique and transdisciplinarity. Followed by a conversation between the artist, Casco curator Staci Bu Shea and If I Can’t Dance curator and book co-editor, Susan Gibb.

Acknowledgements

Co-commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and The Showroom, London

Workshops and performances are co-commissioned by the Keir Foundation

Produced with the support of the Graduiertenschule der Universität der Künste Berlin and Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and its arts funding and advisory body

Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons
Lange Nieuwstraat 7, 3512 PA Utrecht
The Netherlands

Free

To Become Two

Exhibition & Book Launch

Friday 27 April – Friday 25 May 2018

The six film installation traces the stories of as many connected feminist groups since the 1970s who have built communities in Europe and Australia. Through observation, interviews and archival research the artist proposes how to grapple with contemporary society through feminist methodologies. The final film, Our Future Network (2016), offers twenty propositions for feminist collective political practices.

54 min 34 sec, col, English

Acknowledgements

Co-commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and The Showroom, London

Workshops and performances are co-commissioned by the Keir Foundation

Produced with the support of the Graduiertenschule der Universität der Künste Berlin and Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and its arts funding and advisory body

The book launch is supported by the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University

Exhibition Opening and Book Launch: Friday 27 April, 19–23.30hr

Archive Kabinett

Müllerstraße 133, 13349 Berlin

Germany

Free

To Become Two

Exhibition, Salon & Workshop

Friday 8 September – Sunday 26 November 2017
Exhibition Opening: Thursday 7 – Friday 8 September 2017, 19–20hr
Public Salon: Saturday 21 October 2017, 14–16.30hr
Workshop: Saturday 7 – Sunday 8 October 2017, 10–17hr
Open daily: Tuesday – Friday, 11–19hr and Saturday / Sunday / holidays, 11–17hr

Six films trace the stories of as many feminist groups since the 1970s who have built communities in Europe and Australia. Through observation, interviews and archival research the artist proposes feminist methodologies for contemporary times. The final film, Our Future Network (2016), offers twenty related propositions. A workshop and public salon led by the artist engages with local contributors on historical feminist practices in the film to develop further political practices.

54 min 34 sec, col, English

Acknowledgements

Curators: Anja Casser, Didem Yazici

Exhibition design: Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga

Poster series design: Chiara Figone

Co-commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and The Showroom, London

Workshops and performances are co-commissioned by the Keir Foundation

Produced with the support of the Graduiertenschule der Universität der Künste Berlin and Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and its arts funding and advisory body

Badischer Kunstverein

Waldstraße 3, 76133 Karlsruhe

Germany

€ 3 adults / €1,50 reduced / Friday, 14–19hr free / Public Salon free / Workshop free with reservations, bio and statement of motivation

To Become Two

Exhibition, Salon & Workshop

Wednesday 26 April – Saturday 10 June 2017
Exhibition Opening: Tuesday 25 April 2017, 18.30hr
Public Salon: Saturday 27 May 2017, 14–18hr
Open Session: Monday 22 May 2017, 18–21hr
Workshop: Friday 19 / Saturday 20 / Tuesday 23 May 2017, 18–21hr
Introduction: Thursday 18 May 2017, 19–21hr
Open daily: Wednesday – Saturday, 12–18hr

Alex Martinis Roe, ‘Our Future Network: Workshop on Trans-generational Collective Politics’ (2016), workshop.

1/2

Six films trace the stories of as many feminist groups since the 1970s who have built communities in Europe and Australia. The final film, Our Future Network (2016), offers twenty related propositions. A workshop programme led by the artist extends on Our Future Network propositions for feminist practices according to participants including Helena Reckitt, Senior Lecturer in Curating at Goldsmiths, University of London, featured in the film. Findings are presented in a public salon.

54 min 34 sec, col, English

Acknowledgements

Curators: Anja Casser, Didem Yazici

Exhibition design: Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga

Poster series design: Chiara Figone

Co-commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and The Showroom, London

Workshops and performances are co-commissioned by the Keir Foundation

Produced with the support of the Graduiertenschule der Universität der Künste Berlin and Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and its arts funding and advisory body

Each film is produced with additional support from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; BAR Project, Barcelona; The Blank Residency, Bergamo; Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle; Cross Art Projects, Sydney; Gender Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht; the Samstag Program, Adelaide; and Viafarini-in-Residence, Milan

The Showroom

63 Penfold St, Marylebone, London NW8 8PQ

United Kingdom

Free, reservations for events only

To Become Two

Exhibition

Saturday 25 February – Saturday 6 May 2017
Exhibition Opening: Friday 24 February, 19hr
Artist Talk: Thursday 27 April 2017, 19hr
Open daily: Tuesday – Friday 10–13hr and 15–19hr, Saturday 10–13hr

1/5

Six films trace the stories of as many feminist groups since the 1970s who have built communities in Europe and Australia. Through observation, interviews and archival research the artist proposes feminist methodologies for contemporary times. The final film, Our Future Network (2016), offers twenty related propositions. Martinis Roe responds to questions gathered from viewers using storytelling, political theory and diagrams considering possible futures that open out from the project.

54 min 34 sec, col, English

Acknowledgements

Curator: Emanuele Guidi

Exhibition design: Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga

Poster series design: Chiara Figone

Co-commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and The Showroom, London

Workshops and performances are co-commissioned by the Keir Foundation

Produced with the support of the Graduiertenschule der Universität der Künste Berlin and Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and its arts funding and advisory body

Each film is produced with additional support from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; BAR Project, Barcelona; The Blank Residency, Bergamo; Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle; Cross Art Projects, Sydney; Gender Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht; the Samstag Program, Adelaide; and Viafarini-in-Residence, Milan

The exhibition is supported by the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, Department of Culture; Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, Bolzano; and City of Bolzano, Department of Culture

ar/ge kunst
Via Museo, 29, 39100 Bolzano BZ

Italy

Free

Our Future Network: Historiography, Public Speaking and Collective Difference

Salon

Sunday 11 December 2016, 13–18.30hr

Alex Martinis Roe, ‘Evolutions of Collective Desire’, (2016), conversation, installation & screening. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn.

1/2

Invited guests pose strategies for engaging with and constructing feminist histories, in dialogue with contemporary needs, desires and practices hosted by the artist in response to a screening of the film, with comments from Deborah Withers, Ana Teixeira Pinto, choreographer Cécile Bally and Vasso Belia with fellow members of the Gender Studies community at Utrecht University.

54 min 34 sec, col, English

Acknowledgements

Our Future Network: Historiography, Public Speaking and Collective Difference is curated for the Dutch Art Institute as Roaming Assembly #9 and part of To Become Two, co-presented with Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht with the support of the Keir Foundation

Finale

Dokzaal

Plantage Doklaan 8, 1018 CM Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€10 adults / €7,50 students

(€10 for meal and drinks)

To Become Two

Exhibition & Salon

Sunday 20 November 2016 – Sunday 29 January 2017
Exhibition Opening: Saturday 19 November 2016, 15hr
Exhibition Tour: Saturday 19 November 2016, 16hr
Salon: Sunday 11 December 2016, 13–18hr
Open daily: Tuesday – Sunday 12–18hr

Alex Martinis Roe, ‘To Become Two’, (2016), exhibition. Photo: Niels Moolenaar.

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Six films trace the stories of as many feminist groups since the 1970s who have built communities in Europe and Australia. Through observation, interviews and archival research the artist proposes feminist methodologies for contemporary times. The final film, Our Future Network (2016), offers twenty related propositions. With a tour by the artist and day-long salon, ‘Our Future Network: Historiography, Public Speaking, and Collective Difference’.

54 min 34 sec, col, English

Acknowledgements

Curator: Emanuele Guidi

Exhibition design: Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga

Poster series design: Chiara Figone

Co-commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and The Showroom, London

Workshops and performances are co-commissioned by the Keir Foundation

Produced with the support of the Graduiertenschule der Universität der Künste Berlin and Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts and its arts funding and advisory body

Each film is produced with additional support from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; BAR Project, Barcelona; The Blank Residency, Bergamo; Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle; Cross Art Projects, Sydney; Gender Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht; the Samstag Program, Adelaide; and Viafarini-in-Residence, Milan

The exhibition is supported by The Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, Department of Culture; Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, Bolzano; City of Bolzano, Department of Culture

The exhibition in Utrecht is financially supported by K.F Hein Fund, Fentener van Vlissingen Fund

Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons
Lange Nieuwstraat 7, 3512 PA Utrecht
The Netherlands

Free

Our Future Network: Workshop on Trans-generational Collective Politics

Workshop

Friday 3 June 2016, 10–16hr

1/5

Considering trans-generational collective politics as part of the programme, Priorities: The Talk Show provides participants with the chance to undertake exercises based on collective political practices developed by the Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective from the 1970s to today, drawing on and part of the research and methodologies of the artist’s project.

Piet Zwart Institute

Karel Doormanhof 45, 3012 GC Rotterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Our Future Network

Workshop

Monday 2 – Thursday 5 May 2016

Twenty-seven women meet for programmed activities in a large guesthouse in the Brandenburg countryside outside Berlin, expanding on the workshop series over the past eighteen months with prepared contributions – discussions, group tasks, etc. – the artist terms ‘propositions for feminist collective practice’. The meeting provides the action for the development of the last film.

Acknowledgements

Contributors: Alejandra Avilés, Cécile Bally, Vasso Belia, Elena Betros, Federica Bueti, Åsa Elzén, Svenja Engels, Lucia Farinati, Julia Gorostidi, Janneke Koers, Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga, Deborah Ligorio, Sara Paiola, Helena Pérez, Helena Reckitt, Juliette Sanchez-Lambert, Valerie Terwei, Veronica Valentini, Evelyn Wan, Lindsay Grace Weber, Lea von Witzingerode

Producer: Susan Gibb

Director of photography: Smina Bluth

Second camera: Nadja Krüger

Sound: Birte Gerstenkorn

Production assistant: Ying Que

Co-commissioned by ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht and The Showroom, London

Gutshof Sauen

Herrn Jörn Geffers

Zum Anger 8, D–15848 Rietz-Neuendorf

Ortsteil Sauen

Germany

Closed set

Evolutions of Collective Desire

Conversation, Installation & Screening

Sunday 24 January 2016, 11.30–18.30hr

Field notes from To Become Two mapping feminist collectives and a screening of It was an unusual way of doing politics: there were friendships, loves, gossip, tears flowers (2014) on a meeting of 300 women are presented alongside edition introductions in a J.B. Ingwersen-designed building inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and its principals of living. As a functioning high school, the space encourages learning, becoming and testing ideas.

10 min 34 sec, Super 8, col, English

Introduction

Cygnus Gymnasium

Vrolikstraat 8, 1091 VG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 adults / €10 students

(includes meal)

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa

(b. 1978, Guatemala City. Lives in Guatemala City) conjures live and sculptural representations that explore themes of loss, identity and displacement by using theatre, drawing, literature and sculpture. The artist develops a cycle of new performances that attempt to exhaust his interest in the Guatemalan Civil War as the recurring subject of his work.

Requiem for Mirrors and Tigers

Book Launch

Thursday 5 April 2018, 19hr

Charting his attempt to exhaust his interest in the Guatemalan Civil War, the publication is launched with the artist and If I Can’t Dance’s Frédérique Bergholtz and Susan Gibb alongside an exhibition of the complete collection of video works documenting the performance cycle.

grunt gallery

50 E 2nd Ave, Vancouver, BC V5T 4R8

Canada

Free

Requiem for Mirrors and Tigers

Exhibition

Thursday 22 February – Saturday 21 April 2018
Exhibition Opening: Thursday 5 April 2018, 19hr
Open daily: Tuesday – Saturday, 12–17hr

This solo presentation debuts the complete collection of video works documenting a three-year performance cycle. The artist uses his body and direct action to perform six images related to the Guatemalan Civil War, his personal position softening images through abstraction and humour while the intense performance schedule pushes beyond the immense force of the collective and inscribed memory of the war’s history. Here videos are featured as part of Capture Photography Festival.

Acknowledgements

Curator: Glenn Alteen

Produced as part of Ramírez-Figueroa’s commission with Corpus, an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

grunt gallery

50 E 2nd Ave, Vancouver, BC V5T 4R8

Canada

Free

Illusion of Matter, The Print of Sleep, Mimesis of Mimesis and Linnæus in Tenebris

Exhibition

Thursday 16 November, 17–20hr and Friday 17 – Sunday 19 November 2017, 11–18hr

Four video works see the artist use his body and direct action to perform a series of images related to the history of the Guatemalan Civil War at punctuated moments and locations across a three-year period. The personal approach soften images of the war through abstraction and humour, while the intensity of the performance schedule is used to push beyond the immense force of the collective and inscribed memory of the war’s history.

Acknowledgements

Produced as part of Ramírez-Figueroa commission with Corpus, an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

Illusion of Matter is produced by Tate Modern

Linnæus in Tenebris is produced by CAPC Bordeaux as part of the artist’s eponymous solo exhibition

Playground, Leuven

Leopold Vanderkelenstraat 28, 3000 Leuven

Belgium

€12 adults / €5 youth

Fino Fantasma

Performance

Wednesday 12 July 2017, 20hr

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, ‘Fino Fantasma’ (2017), videostill. Video: Temra Pavlovic.

Fluorescent lights are arranged across modernist open-planned floors and surrounded by ceremonial objects – candles, cigars, bowls of honey and perfume, roses from the sellers at the city’s cemetery – selected for their ties to Spiritsm, ‘dedicated to the relationship between incorporeal beings and human beings’. Performers communicate from their stations by using the objects, at times setting fire to patterns left over from their intuitively sewn together white-gauze shirts.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Ricardo Januário, Natália Mendonça, Martha Kiss Perrone, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa

Commissioned and produced by Corpus, an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

The Brazilian Tour of Edition VI – Event And Duration (2015–16) is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund through the Brazil intensification programme financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Brazilian Tour

Casa do Povo

Rua Três Rios, 252 – Bom Retiro, São Paulo 01123-000

Brazil

Free

Linnæus in Tenebris

Exhibition & Performance

Thursday 18 May – Sunday 24 September 2017
Performance: Thursday 18 and Saturday 20 May, 19.30 and 20hr
Open daily: Tuesday – Sunday, 11–18hr

1/3

The site-specific installation is presented with the fifth and final performance in this cycle along with the four previous videos. Focusing on eighteenth-century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus who created a nomenclature to classify living species, a cold and bleak atmosphere of a farm emerges where hybrid species are grown on an industrial scale, addressing a recurrent theme in the artist’s work: the suffering of land and the people who farm it.

Acknowledgements

Curator: Alice Motard

Performers: Wingston González, Juan Malonado

Commissioned and produced as part of Corpus, an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux

7 Rue Ferrere, 33000 Bordeaux

France

€7 adults / €4 reduced rate

Finale: Mimesis of Mimesis

Performance

Thursday 24 November 2016, 21.30hr

1/4

Through a string of rooms established to study tropical cultures, the viewer passes embroidered silk wallpaper, colonial artefacts, a sofa with its springs revealed, a pile of chairs denuded of seats, and then the artist, atop decaying pillows, a Venus, string twined around buttons stitched into their skin – a piece of furniture, a mediation on the body, scars and mimicry. Accompanied by video works of the two other performances.

Acknowledgements

Commissioned and produced by Corpus, an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

Royal Tropical Institute

Mauritskade 63, 1092 AD Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

The Print of Sleep

Performance

Saturday 30 April 2016, 21.15hr

1/9

This meditative dreamlike scene recalls an emergency response shelter, combining printmaking with human surfaces and bedtime rituals. The artist paints metal bedframes, guiding performers to be imprinted by them; the bed’s tattooed pattern connotes ‘parrilla’, where victims of the Guatemalan Civil War were strapped to metal frames and given electric shocks. Presented at the conclusion of performance programme Sunrise Sunset at KW Institute for Contemporary Art.

Acknowledgements

Performers: André Pires Sequeira de Abreu, Sarah Bungarz, Roni Katz, Adalisa Menghini, Nasheeka Nedsreal Netter, Lukas Olfe, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Lia Ur, Martin Weller

Curators of Sunrise Sunset: Catherine Wood, Adela Yawitz

Commissioned and produced by Corpus, an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin

Germany

€8 adults / €6 reduced

Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm

Film

2016

A work originally presented in a gallery is staged at the Guatemala City General Cemetery, which, following the 1917 earthquake, became home to high-rise grave complexes for those unable to afford burial. From 5 to 9 am, the artist holds an ice slab in a blanket like a baby. He wavers under its weight as it melts – the closest we come in these works to realism, to the trauma that inspires them.

Acknowledgements

Performer: Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
Camera: Amenotep Córdova, José Miguel Orozco
Editor: Robert Beske, Shrine Production

Commissioned and produced by Corpus, an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

Guatemala City

Guatemala

Closed set

The Print of Sleep

Performance

Sunday 24 January 2016, 11.30–18.30hr

1/3

Six dormitory-style bedframes make an emergency response shelter out of a high school gym. The artist paints each cot, guiding performers to be imprinted; the bed’s tattooed pattern connotes ‘parrilla’, where victims of the Guatemalan Civil War were strapped to metal frames and given electric shocks. Presented with other introductions to this edition in a J.B. Ingwersen-designed building inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and its principals of living.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Peter Baeyens, André van Bergen, Tara-Jay van Bergen, Ivan Cheng, Yael Davids, Laima Jaunzema, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Rik Schlamé, Joy M. Smith, Maya Tamir

Produced by Corpus,
an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

Special thanks to Cygnus Gymnasium

Introduction

Cygnus Gymnasium

Vrolikstraat 8, 1091 VG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 adults / €10 students

(includes meal)

Premiere

Illusion of Matter

Performance

First Performance: Thursday 3 December 2015, 20hr

This new commission from If I Can’t Dance presented within BMW Tate Live: Performance Room comprises a corridor of brightly hued sheets hung like theatre wings, swiftly crowded by children carrying oversized props – a claw, twigs – switched out on the artist’s command for animals and fruit, and then, at their behest once more, destroyed, after which the artist approaches the camera. Followed by Q&A with curator Catherine Wood.

Video, 4 min 55 sec, col, sound

Acknowledgements

Performers: Augustine, Harriet, Miley, Nina, Otis, Sonny, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa

Produced by Corpus,
an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

Tate Modern

Bankside, London SE1 9TG

United Kingdom

Available online here

Joke Robaard

(b. 1953, Meppel, The Netherlands. Lives in Amsterdam) connects social research, material culture and photography with philosophy, textile and fashion theory. For the commission she performs her archive of photographs and related texts from fashion magazines and other media over a 38-year period through workshops and a video on assemblages of images with captions and texts.

Small Things That Can Be Lined Up

Lecture, Screening & Workshop

Wednesday 12 July 2017, 16.30hr

Joke Robaard, ‘Small Things That Can Be Lined Up’ (2016), workshop. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

The video on the artist’s reorganised archive – drawn from fashion magazines and other media sources with eight teenage students from Amsterdam – is overlaid with passages from philosophers Plato and Vilém Flusser addressing images, text and textiles. Accompanied by a lecture on Flusser’s essay ‘Our Clothes’ by artist, editor and translator Rodrigo Maltez Novaes and a performative workshop in which Robaard invites different practitioners to make configurations with the fashion photographs.

45 min, col, English

Acknowledgements

Workshop contributors: Frédérique Bergholtz, Lot Meijers, Rodrigo Maltez Novaes, Maurítizo Îane, Ateliê Vivo members, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo students, São Paulo Reading Group

The Brazilian Tour is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund through the Brazil intensification programme financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Brazilian Tour

Casa do Povo

Rua Três Rios, 252 – Bom Retiro, São Paulo 01123-000

Brazil

Free

Small Things Can Be Lined Up, Premiere

Book Launch & Screening

Friday 25 November 2016, 17hr

Joke Robaard, ‘Small Things That Can Be Lined Up’ (2016), video.

1/3

The artist’s reorganised archive of photographs and related texts drawn from fashion magazines and other media sources is in part performed with eight students through text rehearsals and discussions. Images are intersected accompanied by passages from Plato and Vilém Flusser, evolving a game-like structure in which latent historical, political and social information is embedded within the archive. Hosted in the artist’s studio, and with a publication detailing the exercise.

45 min, col, English

Finale

Wittenburg Studios

Derde Wittenburgerdwarsstraat 1, 1018 KR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

(meal included)

Small Things That Can Be Lined Up

Workshop

Sunday 24 January 2016, 11.30–18.30hr

1/2

Cygnus Gymnasium students perform ‘an access’ to the artist’s image archive garnered from fashion magazines in an exploratory workshop that guides their selections for texts as foci across the project. Presented with other introductions to this edition in a J.B. Ingwersen-designed building inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and its principals of living that is also a functioning high school, encouraging learning, becoming and testing ideas.

Acknowledgements

Students: Sarah Ashworth, Luca Bonsangue, Jacquy Chellit, Noah Claassen, Milo Fordham, Marijn Huijers, Eva Vlasblom, Jona Wolff

Introduction

Cygnus Gymnasium

Vrolikstraat 8, 1091 VG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 adults / €10 students

(includes meal)

Research Commissions

Erin Alexa Freedman and Lili Huston-Herterich

Erin Alexa Freedman (b. 1988, Toronto. Lives in New York) is a curator and writer who approaches textiles as starting points for research into colonial contact and indigenous agency. Lili Huston-Herterich (b. 1988, Toronto. Lives in Toronto) is an artist and curator with a focus on multidisciplinary installation whose studio practice considers how space affects the choreography of bodies. Their performative archive project on Chromaliving: New Designs for Living (1983) – a sprawling exhibition in a former Toronto department store replete with furniture and dressed mannequins – reanimates this vanguard art and design show in suturing it to contemporary practices.

Chroma Lives

Book Launch & Conversation

Saturday 3 December 2016, 15–16.30hr

1/2

A discussion between curator Grant Watson and the researchers on restaging a historical exhibition with contemporary works motivated by art, design and collaborative practices. Works from the original exhibition as well as its restaging by contemporary Toronto artists appear within a mise en scène by Amsterdam-based art and design practitioners. The publication offers new essays and expands on the above analysis.

Image description

Grant Watson (lives in London) is a curator and researcher who previously developed the interview project How We Behave with If I Can’t Dance and is well known for his curatorial work on textiles and textile histories.

Acknowledgements

Moderator: Grant Watson

Contributors to mise en scène: Frédérique Bergholtz, Lot Meijers, Maria Pask, Physical Culture (Julie Héneault, Margaux Parillaud, Ursula Marcussen and Line-Gry Hørup), Anna Reutinger, Simon Skatka Lindell and more

Chroma Lives is supported by Camrost Felcorp and the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts

Dokzaal

Plantage Doklaan 8–12, 1018 CM Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Chroma Lives

Exhibition

Wednesday 1 – Thursday 30 June 2016
Exhibition Opening: Friday 3 June 2016, 18–21hr
Artist Talk: Friday 3 June 2016, 18.30–17.30hr
Open daily: Saturday – Thursday, 12–18hr

1/3

Chromaliving occupied a former department store with a theatricalised vision of contemporary living through domestic room displays outfitted with artist-made furniture, dressed mannequins, appliances and interior decoration. Chroma Lives as rejoinder exhibition takes over a condominium presentation centre in Toronto. Works by contemporary artists in remarkable affinity with the art and design practices advanced nearly 40 years before stand alongside an archive of ephemera and oral histories documenting the original event.

Acknowledgements

Works by Joshua Brolly, Connor Crawford, Laura Dawe, Mike Goldby, Heather Goodchild, Oliver Husain, Tim Jocelyn, Laurie Kang, Jeremy Laing, Brittany MacDougall, Tammy McClennan, Pasha Moezzi, Manden Murphy, Roula Partheniou, Shakeel Rehemtulla and Dynasty, Wanze Song, Kristian Spreen and Brad Tinmouth; ‘Artists Collectives and Site-Specificity’, a talk by ChromaZone members Andy Fabo, Oliver Girling and Rae Johnson; Toronto Reading Group session led by Jacob Korczynski; and performances by Zeesy Powers and Andrea Spaziani

Produced with the additional support of Camrost Felcorp and the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts

Special thanks to oral history archive participants John Adams, Jane Buyers, Andy Fabo, Elinor Rose Galbraith, Erella Ganon, Carla Garnet, Eldon Garnet, Oliver Girling, Rae Johnson, Stella Melchiori-Malouf, Natalie Olanick, Andrew James Paterson, Emily Smit-Dicks and Dot Tuer; all exhibiting artists for furnishing the room hosting the many June activities; and mentors, friends and supporters: Chris Barless, Andy Fabo, Mimi Fullerton, Martha Jocelyn, Matthew Jocelyn, Parker Kay, Sue Kidd, Tanner Kidd, Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts, Carol Weinbaum and the artists and craftspeople of Chromaliving

Camrost Felcorp Yorkville Plaza Sales Centre

21 Avenue Road, Toronto, ON M5R 1A8

Canada

Free

Chroma Lives

Lecture

Sunday 24 January 2016, 11.30–18.30hr

1/3

The archive as performative medium – with respect to Toronto-based artist collective Chromazone’s 1983 show Chromaliving – in relation to contemporary work poses challenges, in addition to that of making a uniquely ‘liveable’ exhibition. This discussion coincides with other edition introductions in a J.B. Ingwersen-designed building inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and its principals of living. Also a functioning high school, the space encourages learning, becoming and testing ideas.

Introduction

Cygnus Gymnasium

Vrolikstraat 8, 1091 VG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 adults / €10 students

(includes meal)

Fred Moten and Wu Tsang

Fred Moten (b. 1962, Las Vegas. Lives in Los Angeles) is a poet and scholar whose work explores black studies, performance studies, poetry and critical theory. Wu Tsang (b. 1982. Lives in Los Angeles) is an artist, performer and film-maker whose work is concerned with hidden histories, marginalised narratives and the act of performing itself. Their sculptural performance uses fabric and sound to produce ‘chance events’ relating the social and physical significance of touch and voice, space and time, while maintaining mystery of who we are and what we know.

Gravitational Feel

Installation & Performance

Thursday 21 November 2019, 19–20hr

Making use of fabric and sound, ‘chance events’ are produced that relate to the social and physical significance of touch and voice, space and time, while maintaining the mystery of who we are and what we know. Presented as part of five performance days put on by Arika and Tramway titled Episode 10: A Means Without End.

Tramway

25 Albert Drive, G41 2PE Glasgow

Scotland

Pay what you can

Gravitational Feel

Installation & Performance

Friday 25 March 2017, 21–22hr

Fred Moten and Wu Tsang, ‘‘Gravitational Feel’ (2017), installation and performance. Photo: Tate.

Making use of fabric and sound, ‘chance events’ are produced that relate to the social and physical significance of touch and voice, space and time, while maintaining the mystery of who we are and what we know. Presented as part of Ten Days Six Nights at the BMW Tate Live Exhibition.

Acknowledgements

Curators: Catherine Wood and Andrea Lissoni with Isabella Maidment and Carly Whitefield

Commissioned and produced as part of Corpus,
an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

Tate Modern

Bankside, SE1 9TG London

United Kingdom

Who touched me?

Book Launch

Sunday 27 November 2016, 19–21hr

1/2

The companion to sculptural performance Gravitational Feel is launched with the authors and the publication designer Will Holder. Audience ask questions to which Moten responds with songs from his laptop.

San Serriffe

Sint Annenstraat 30, 1012 HE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

Gravitational Feel

Installation & Performance

Saturday 26 November 2016, 10.30hr, installation accessible 12–16hr
Sunday 27 November 2016, 16hr, installation accessible 13–16hr

Fred Moten and Wu Tsang, ‘Gravitational Feel’ (2016), installation and performance. Photo: Florian Braakman.

1/5

Fabric and sound are used to produce ‘chance events’ relating the social and physical significance of touch and voice, space and time, while maintaining mystery of who we are and what we know. The sculpture performance sees its makers cohabit the roles of poet and performance artist.

Acknowledgements

Commissioned and produced as part of Corpus,
an international network for commissioning performance-related work. Corpus is Bulegoa z/b (Bilbao), CAC (Vilnius), KW (Berlin), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Playground (STUK & M, Louvain) and Tate Modern (London) and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

Finale

Splendor

Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat 116, 1011 LX Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations recommended

Premiere

Girl Talk

Screening

Sunday 24 January 2016, 11.30hr

Fred Moten and Wu Tsang, ‘Girl Talk’ (2015), video. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn.

Moten moves in a sunny backyard wearing a cape with crystal-decorated lapels before Tsang’s camera in this 2015 work. Experimental musician Josiah Wise’s rendition of the eponymous jazz standard is soundtrack to this humble, sometimes slow motion, example of the attuned collaboration. Presented with other edition introductions in a J.B. Ingwersen-designed building – inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and its principals of living – and operational high school to engender learning, becoming and testing ideas.

4 min, col, sound

Introduction

Cygnus Gymnasium

Vrolikstraat 8, 1091 VG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 adults / €10 students

(includes meal)

Peter Pál Pelbart

(b. 1956, Budapest. Lives in São Paulo) is a philosopher interested in the relationships between madness, literature, politics and subjectivity. He is a member of Ueinzz Theatre Company (est. 1997, São Paulo. Based in São Paulo) whose schizoscenic practice crosses art, madness and subjectivity. Inspired by Fernand Deligny’s forays into autism education, Pál Pelbart and Ueinzz interfere in normopathy and confront different modes – or forms – of life.

Alejandra Riera: … – OHPERA – MUET – … [… – MUTE – OHPERA – …]

Screening

Thursday 13 July 2017, 20hr

Alejandra Riera, .. ‘– OHPERA – MUET – ... [... – MUTE – OHPERA – ...]’ (2017), videostill.

This 2016 film by Alejandra Riera realised with Ueinzz revolves around spaces of history, constructions and demolitions, such as the 2014 removal of a Columbus statue in Buenos Aires. It engages stories and storytellers, female narrators for whom there is often no space, so that space has to be produced.

105 min, col, Portuguese

Acknowledgements

The Brazilian tour of Edition VI – Event And Duration (2015—16) is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund through the Brazil intensification programme financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Brazilian Tour

Fundação Joaquim Nabuco – Cinema do Museu

Av. 17 de Agosto, 2187 – Casa Forte, 52061–540 Recife

Brazil

Free

Alejandra Riera: … – OHPERA – MUET – … [… – MUTE – OHPERA – …]

Book Launch & Screening

Sunday 9 July 2017, 11hr

Peter Pál Pelbart and Alejandra Riera, ‘…- OPHERA – MUET -… […- OPHERA – MUET -…]’, (2017), screening and book launch. Photo: Temra Pavlovic.

This 2016 film by Alejandra Riera realised with Ueinzz revolves around spaces of history, constructions and demolitions, such as the 2014 removal of a Columbus statue in Buenos Aires. It engages stories and storytellers, female narrators for whom there is often no space, so that space has to be produced. Accompanied by a talk by the film-maker and launch of the Performance in Residence book for this research project.

105 min, col, Portuguese

Acknowledgements

The Brazilian Tour of Edition VI – Event And Duration (2015—16) is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund through the Brazil intensification programme financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Brazilian Tour

Espaço Itaú de Cinema Augusta

Augusta, 1475 – Cerqueira César, 01305–100 São Paulo

Brazil

Free, reservations recommended

Zero Gravity, Episode V: Spaces

Performance

Open Rehearsal: Wednesday 7 December 2016, 20hr
Performance and Artist Talk: Thursday 8 December 2016, 20hr

1/3

Ueinzz members present the latest episode in an ongoing series inspired by experimental French educator Fernand Deligny and his unrealised idea for a play or a film in which there are more actors than roles in a troupe. The piece is the result of a collective creation inspired by the work of Deligny, known for his pioneering and alternative approach to education for children and adolescents with autism.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Arthur Amadore, Carlos André Balthazar, Alexandre Bernardes, Onés António Cervelin, Ana Carmen del Collado, Adélia Faustino, Pedro França, Paula Francisquetti, Ana Goldenstein, Erika Inforsato, Eduardo Lettiere, Leo Lui Cavalcanti, Valéria Manzalli, Simone Mina, Amélia Monteiro de Melo, Luiz Felipe Oliveira, Peter Pál Pelbert, Luiz Guilherme Ribeiro Cunha, Rodrigo Rano Calazans, Jayme Valarelli Menezes

Sound: Pontogor

Lights and shadows: Leiza Menagassi

From other galaxies: Luiz Augusto Colazzi, Iza Cremonine, Yoshiko Mine

Finale

Badhuistheater

Boerhaaveplein 28, 1091 AT Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Performance: Saturday 10 December 2016, 20hr

Dokzaal

Plantage Doklaan 8, 1018 CM Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations recommended

Sunday 4 December 2016, 11hr

Filmtheater Kriterion

Roetersstraat 170, 1018 WE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

(includes meal)

Modes of Existence, Modes of Resistance

Lecture

Sunday 24 January 2016, 11.30–18.30hr

1/2

Reflecting on Ueinzz, the philosopher suggests rethinking time as not linear or circular but as a ‘crumbled handkerchief’ with events spread out on it unpredictably, pointing to multiple histories. Presented with other introductions to this edition in a J.B. Ingwersen-designed building inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and its principals of living that is also a functioning high school, encouraging learning, becoming and testing ideas.

Introduction

Cygnus Gymnasium

Vrolikstraat 8, 1091 VG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 adults / €10 students

(includes meal)

Master course

DAI-COOP

Action Unites, Words Divide (On Praxis, An Unstated Theory) II

Course

2015-16

‘Action Unites, Words Divide (On Praxis, An Unstated Theory) II’ is an experimental workshop that resists setting or defining exercises that are consumed in their execution as a presumed educational experience; but rather in tutor Jon Mikel Euba’s intent to share with other agents the real artistic process and problems that he is immersed in. It continues the writing project started in the previous year and analyzes technical questions that refer to artistic practice with an apparent focus on the idea of method. The intention is to help participants to develop and reflect on their own work, by exploring strategies which simultaneously stimulate reflection and self-critique, but also allow for the empowerment of individual subjectivity, increasing the levels of freedom of the participants.

Course tutors: Jon Mikel Euba and Susan Gibb

Guest tutor: Itziar Okariz

Students: Astarti Athanasiadou, Giulia Crispiani, Kristinn Guðmundsson, Maike Hemmers, Martha Jager, Hannah Kindler, Dimitra Kondylatou, Malcolm Kratz, larose, Jammie Nicholas, Panagiotis Panagiotakopoulos, Mathilde Sauzet, Joy M. Smith, and Melissa Tun Tu

Gatherings

Tanakita Campsite, Sukabumi, Indonesia

Maju Kena Mundur Kena (MKMK). Jakarta Biennale and Institut ruangrupa

Sonsbeek Park, Arnhem

Bachelor course

SNDO

Curating and Performance

Course

2016

This fourth-year course invites students to think through curatorial methodologies and concerns in the programming, production, presentation and communication of their first public presentation of graduation works. These presentations took place across two programmes at two venues in Amsterdam, which are located outside of the Theaterschool in order to provide the students with professional working conditions and artistic contexts. The first programme of graduation works was presented at Frascati Theater and the second at Veem House for Performance in Amsterdam. Each programme toured to Uferstudios, Berlin later in April as part of an ongoing exchange between SNDO and the Berlin based bachelor programme of Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz (HZT).

Teachers: Frédérique Bergholtz and Susan Gibb

Sites

Frascati Theater, Amsterdam

Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam

Uferstudios, Berlin

2014-2015

Master course

DAI-COOP

Action Unites, Words Divide (On Praxis, An Unstated Theory)

Course

2014-15

‘Action Unites, Words Divide (On Praxis, An Unstated Theory)’ consists of monthly workshop sessions with tutor Jon Mikel Euba. For each new workshop session Euba writes a new text. He delivers these texts as lectures that are translated live from Spanish to English while the students engage in ‘active listening’ by simultaneously translating the text into other media. The first part of the course involves an explanation of production conditions, where participants look at other works that became pre-production material, gradually contextualizing their approach to the subsequent practical exercise. During the subsequent collective production/practical working phase, an exercise or set of exercises is defined in connection to questions regarding performance, production and dissemination, with a particular focus on issues related to recording.

Course tutors: Jon Mikel Euba

Guest tutor: Itziar Okariz

Students: Maria Barlasov, Michelle Browne, Charlie Dance, Martha Jager, Jammie Nicholas, Panagiotis Panagiotakopoulos, Marie-Andree Pellerin, Mathilde Sauzet, Malina Suliman, and Melissa Tun Tun.

Acknowledgements

Guest tutor: Itziar Okariz

Coordination: Tanja Baudoin and Susan Gibb

Gatherings

Marfa, Texas

If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

Bachelor course

SNDO

Curating Performance

Course

2015

This course considers performance within the framework of its institutional history to think through its contextualisation, presentation and preservation through curatorial practice, and the theoretical and practical implications of this for artists, institutions and audiences alike. The curatorial practices covered in the course included the presentation and collection of historic performance work, and the development of curatorial frameworks for the production and presentation of new works by artists, through methodologies such as curating performance in exhibitions and public programming, collecting performance, performance documentation, re- performance and commissioning. The course also considered examples of curatorial practice that engage with performance works by artists beyond a Western canon to consider what is at stake not only when disciplines intersect, but cultures as well.

Teachers: Frédérique Bergholtz and Susan Gibb

Sites

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Wereld Museum, Amsterdam

2013–14

Appropriation and Dedication

Reading Group Amsterdam

Reading Group New York

Reading Group Sao Paulo

Reading Group Toronto

Radio Emma

Symposium

Reader

Artist Commissions

Gerry Bibby

(b. 1977, Melbourne. Lives in Berlin) has a background in activism and social practice. Their texts and sculptural interventions divert, mis-use and retreat, dealing roughly with the tender stuff that smooths what it is to be in a body, while being estranged as a subject. This first publishing project enacts an interdisciplinary queer tendency to in-discipline in exploring poetry, fiction and performance from ‘backstage’.

The Drumhead

Publication & Residency

A. The Drumhead – A series of readings
Part I: Tuesday 10 November 2015, 19hr
Part II: Sunday 15 November 2015, 19hr
Part III: Friday 27 November 2015, 19hr

On three occasions during their residency in Cyprus, the artist reads their novel – and first fiction work – aloud to an audience. Written in six months in six cities, the text conveys institutional encounters and features a performance artist and secret service agent besieged by exhaustion.

Acknowledgements

The Drumhead is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and follows a two-year collaboration with KUB Arena at Kunsthaus Bregenz, CCA Glasgow, The Showroom, London and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane

Megaro Hadjisavva, Evagorou 2, Nicosia 1097

Cyprus

The Drumhead

Book Launch & Performance

Performance Days
Thursday 27 November 2014, 21–22hr

The artist’s first published book – celebrated with a presentation and drinks – sees a secret service agent and performance artist, among other characters, besieged by exhaustion and frustration. The carefully described architectures in which they find themselves are barely able to contain their big personalities. Bibby relays intrigue in passages brimming with wit, acute observation and occasional disgust, offering viewers ‘ways out’ even if only for the time of reading.

Acknowledgements

The Drumhead (And Other Language Costumes) is a commission initiated by If I Can’t Dance in partnership with KUB Arena at Kunsthaus Bregenz, CCA Glasgow, The Showroom, London and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, with additional support from

the Mondriaan Fund, Arts Council England, Outset, Bloomberg and the Australia Council for the Arts

Performance Days is supported by the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Special thanks to SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and SONSBEEK International Foundation

If I Can’t Dance

Ruysdaelkade 2, 1072 AG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

Combination Boiler

Exhibition & Residency

Wednesday 30 April – Sunday 22 June 2014
Exhibition Opening: Tuesday 29 April 2014, 18.30–20.30hr
Artist Talk: Tuesday 17 June 2014, 18.30hr
Open daily: Wednesday – Saturday, 12–18hr

Gerry Bibby, ‘Combination Boiler’, (2014), exhibition and residency. Photo: Daniel Brooke.

1/3

Over six weeks, the artist investigates the venue’s operations, especially its heating system. The study of these functions informs the writing of their novel The Drumhead (And Other Language Costumes), and exposes the alternately intimate and estranged relationship between artist and organisation. Featuring a conversation with David Bussel, Celine Condorelli and Jessica Vaughan.

Acknowledgements

The Drumhead (And Other Language Costumes) is a commission initiated by If I Can’t Dance in partnership with KUB Arena at Kunsthaus Bregenz, CCA Glasgow, The Showroom, London and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, with additional support from the Mondriaan Fund, Arts Council England, Outset, Bloomberg and the Australia Council for the Arts

Presented as part of ‘How to work together’ organised by London venues Chisenhale Gallery, The Showroom and Studio Voltaire and supported by the Arts Council England through Catalyst Arts, with additional funding in the first year from Bloomberg, Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Outset Contemporary Art Fund

Special thanks to Biennale de Lyon and Frieze Art Fair

The Showroom

63 Penfold Street

London NW8 8PQ
United Kingdom

Free

Office Service

Performance

Emma’s
Thursday 13 March 2014, 21hr

1/4

Full table service is provided during this intermediary look into the artist’s book in progress and ‘working’ characters, both on and off stage. Rectangular surfaces decompose and relax into tables; keyboards and chords become napkins; mouse pads become table cloths. Visitors are encouraged to bring excerpts from prose or poems in which favourite characters punch-in, log-on, take a smoke-break or otherwise dance against the rhythms of the daily grind.

Acknowledgements

The Drumhead (And Other Language Costumes) is a commission initiated by If I Can’t Dance in partnership with KUB Arena at Kunsthaus Bregenz, CCA Glasgow, The Showroom, London and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, with additional support from the Mondriaan Fund, Arts Council England, Outset, Bloomberg and the Australia Council for the Arts

Special thanks to Biennale de Lyon and Frieze Art Fair

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

Appropriation and Dedication 5

Workshop

Monday 10 March 2014

Dutch Art Institute students meet with the artist in Amsterdam to take a wandering tour back to school in Arnhem. Meandering and experiential, the trek is intended to be experienced alone, with participants provided an ‘action score’ in advance. The experience of the wander and the ‘work of not working’ is then reflected on when everyone is back in the same environment.

Acknowledgements

Part of If I Can’t Dance’s course at the Dutch Art Institute

Dutch Art Institute

Kortestraat 27, 6811 EP Arnhem

The Netherlands

Closed seminar

Bibby/Blightman Weekend

Conversation, Lecture & Screening

Friday 7 – Sunday 9 March 2014

The artist reads their manuscript in development while in residency at KUB Arena, followed by a discussion with If I Can’t Dance director Frédérique Bergholtz and curator Vivian Ziherl on the commissioning institution’s unique structure, with Scott Cameron Weaver. The next two days see many guests of the artist give provocative related presentations alongside those of fellow artist in residence Juliette Blightman.

KUB Arena – Kunsthaus Bregenz

Karl-Tizian-Platz, 6900 Bregenz

Austria

Free

KUB Arena

Conversation & Residency

Saturday 25 January – Sunday 27 April 2014
Reading: Friday 7 March 2014, 18–21hr
Open daily: Tuesday – Sunday, 10–18hr and Thursday, 10–20hr

Gerry Bibby, ‘KUB Arena’, (2014), conversation and residency. Photo: Gabriel Orozco

1/4

Concentrating on the writing at the root of their practice, the artist takes a hiatus from sculpture and performance. They use the institutional space provided as reading room in which to write a lengthy manuscript. Events including a reading with Vivian Ziherl are also organised, featuring international guests from different fields of cultural production.

Acknowledgements

The Drumhead (And Other Language Costumes) is a commission initiated by If I Can’t Dance in partnership with KUB Arena at Kunsthaus Bregenz, CCA Glasgow, The Showroom, London and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, with additional support from

the Mondriaan Fund, Arts Council England, Outset, Bloomberg and the Australia Council for the Arts

Special thanks to Biennale de Lyon and Frieze Art Fair

KUB Arena – Kunsthaus Bregenz

Karl-Tizian-Platz, 6900 Bregenz

Austria

€11 adults / €9 concessions / €7 20–27 years old / Free first Friday of the month

I am a receptacle for your extremities

Conversation & Performance

Thursday 17 – Sunday 20 October 2013
Performance: Saturday 19 October 2013, 15.15hr

Gerry Bibby, ‘I am a receptacle for you extremities’, (2013), conversation and performance. Photo: Polly Braden

1/4

Taking up the role of production assistant on an If I Can’t Dance project, the artist serves oysters to Frieze Fair workers, the left-over shells becoming performative fragments. Some years before, while working at the fair, the artist discovered relics of the now extinct Thames Oyster buried on site. The work is also a window into the oyster’s economic history in London.

Acknowledgements

Produced with Adrian Rifkin

Frieze London

The Regent’s Park, London NW1 4NR

United Kingdom

£32

The Black Box Penny Arcade Peep Show / The Drumhead

Installation

Thursday 12 September 2013 – Sunday 5 January 2014

1/2

The artist’s position as ‘backstage’ worker on select If I Can’t Dance productions issues a Frankenstinean cast of characters that make their appearance through reassembled emoticon punctuations, jerry-rigged silk banners and Crowd Control Barriers. This work joins an eccentric series that leads towards the ultimate project of a novel.

12th Biennale de Lyon

65 rue Challemel Lacour
69007 Lyon

France

Roadie (Voice Throwing)

Performance

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication
Sunday 20 January 2013, 17.15–.45hr

The notion of throwing the voice in public speaking – as in acting and ventriloquism – involves the mediation of an appropriated body, be it a mechanised doll or a space. The artist is interested in the seminar’s temporal and spatial parameters, its visual and sonic qualities, and how it stages presenters and audience. They use these aspects as material to address the social, technical and spatial aspects of the seminar.

Acknowledgements

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication is supported by the European Union and the Mondriaan Fund

Special thanks to the Dutch Art Institute/MFA ArtEZ Arnhem and the Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Herengracht 470, 1017 CA Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€30, reservations required

(includes breakfast, lunch and the publication Reading/Feeling)

Snejanka Mihaylova

(b. 1978, Sofia. Lives in Sofia) locates her work at the intersection of philosophy and performance, thinking and theatre. She holds degrees in the philosophy of language, and hermeneutics and theatre. Through publication and song, the artist looks into the aural aspect of the thinking process, underscoring the relational dimension of thought and the necessary predisposition to listening and receiving that is part of any thinking act.

Acoustic Thought

Performance

Sunday 6 July 2016

1/3

In a small Greek church, the artist reads from her poetic interpretation of the Gospel of Thomas. Found at Nag Hammadi, Upper Egypt in 1945, and made up of 114 sayings by Jesus, the artist says the gospel ‘listens, where the written is not simply the record of a voice but a radically different dimension of cognition that emerges as an acoustic realm.’ Followed by a conversation with Susan Gibb.

Acknowledgements

Originally commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, and presented as art of Performance Biennial, initiated and organised by Gigi Argyropoulou, Vassilis Noulas and Kostas Tzimoulis

Performance Biennial, Mylopotamos, Cythera

Diakofti

Greece

Free

Acoustic Thought

Book Launch

Tuesday 29 December 2015, 17–20hr

1/3

The author introduces and reads from her poetic interpretation of the Gospel of Thomas, found at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945, with 114 of Jesus’ sayings. According to Mihaylova, the gospel ‘is a poem that listens, where the written is not simply the record of a voice but a radically different dimension of cognition that emerges as an acoustic realm in the formation of thoughts.’

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608

1013 BV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Publication available for the special launch price of €15

Acoustic Thought and A Prayer

Exhibition, Performance & Workshop

Saturday 3 October – Sunday 20 December 2015
Exhibition Opening: Saturday 3 October 2015, 18–21hr
Performance: Saturday 7 November 2015, 14hr
Open daily: Tuesday – Sunday, 12–18hr

Following the artist’s reading of her poetic interpretation of the Gospel of Thomas, which includes 114 of Jesus’ sayings, composer Lisa Holmqvist gives a performance of a prayer featuring six singers and recorder players. Before starting, they rehearse in the gallery to reflect on the acoustic dimension of cognitive experience.

Acknowledgements

Acoustic Thought is made possible with support from the Creative Industries Fund and the Mondriaan Fund

Originally commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, presented as part of ‘Hotel Theory’, curated by Sohrab Mohebbi in collaboration with Ruth Estévez

REDCAT

631 W 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90012

United States

Free

A Song

Performance

Performance Days
Friday 28 November 2014, 18.30–20hr

€17.50

1/3

An introduction to and reading by the artist of her book on the Gospel of Thomas moves through her interpretations and expansions – including her philosophy on time and singing. Initially seated, the artist moves to the floor, relishing the awkward silence or pause when the end is not yet known. Then a horn begins being played, and five women in concert with the artist layer harmonies. With a reading by Gregg Bordowitz.

Ruysdaelkade 1072 AG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Vondelkerk

Vondelstraat 120, 1054 GS Amsterdam

The Netherlands

A Song

Workshop

Sunday 18 May 2014, 18hr

With composer Lisa Holmqvist, the artist performs a song in relation to the research material on Gospel of Thomas, and the technique of exegesis (commentary on sacred texts). This pre-performance lights upon the artist’s interest in how listening and receiving are necessary predispositions to thinking.

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608 1013 BV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Semi-public

Inner Stage

Exhibition & Performance

Poster Display: Tuesday 28 January – Saturday 22 February 2014
Performance: Friday 14 February 2014, 18hr

Snejanka Mihaylova, ‘Inner Stage’ poster display, Jan. – Feb. 2014, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam.

Gertjan Franciscus, performance for ‘Inner Stage’ exhibition, February 2014, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam.

1/4

Artist Gertjan Franciscus’ texts and performances give life to prophetic half-divine, half-animal figures that inhabit the space of revelation. Here they are linked to Mihaylova’s own reflections and poster display, which rethinks the boundaries between economy and art.

Ellen de Bruijne Projects

Rozengracht 207a, 1016 LZ Amsterdam (now Singel 372, 1016 AH Amsterdam)

The Netherlands

Free, first come, first served, 50 capacity

Inner Stage

Performance & Publication

Emma’s
Sunday 26 January 2014, 17hr

Snejanka Mihaylova, ‘Inner Stage’ poster launch, January 2014, If I Can’t Dance Office, Amsterdam.

1/3

The poster presents the introductory chapter of the artist’s forthcoming publication in a signature print of 100 copies. The development of her publication takes place across the various stages of the project to forge a closer bond between publishing and performance.

Acknowledgements

Produced in collaboration with graphic designer Phil Baber and artist Jeff Weber

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608 1013 BV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Poster: €30

(also on display and for sale at Ellen de Bruijne Projects from 28 January – 22 February 2014)

Appropriation and Dedication 3

Workshop

Monday 6 – Tuesday 7 January 2014, 17hr

Continuing series of workshops at the Dutch Art Institute with the artists.

Dutch Art Institute

Kortestraat 27, 6811 EP Arnhem

The Netherlands

Closed seminar

Appropriation and Dedication 3

Conversation, Residency & Workshop

Artist Talk: Thursday 28 November
Seminar: Monday 2 – Wednesday 4 December 2013

The artist gives a seminar in relation to Egypt’s Nag Hammadi library and its collection of Gnostic texts discovered in 1945, which record ideas circulating among early Christians. Reading and commenting on sacred texts, the group focusses on the artist’s core research text, the Gospel of Thomas, composed entirely of Jesus’ sayings. The artist also gives a talk on her work.

Acknowledgements

Part of If I Can’t Dance’s course at the Dutch Art Institute

Beirut

11 Mahmoud Sedky
off Shaheen St.

Agouza, Cairo

Egypt

Free, reservations required

Emily Roysdon (Every Ocean Hughes)

(b. 1977, Easton, MD. Lives in New York City and Stockholm) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer working with performance, photographic installations, print making, text, video and curating. She developed the concept ‘ecstatic resistance’ to talk about the impossible and imaginary in politics. Her episodic performance explores ‘discomposition’ and ‘transition’ in accumulating movement vocabularies layered through script and score and involving choreographers, writers, artists, musicians and composers.

Uncounted*

Book Launch & Performance

Performance Days
Thursday 27 November – Wednesday 3 December 2014

Emily Roysdon (Every Ocean Hughes), ‘Uncounted*’, (2014), book launch and performance. Photo: Kyle Tryhorn

1/4

Humorous and playful performance-based interventions convey a two-year exploration of temporality, aliveness, periphery and ‘discomposition’ – and their potential for instituting moments of political transition. The words of Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, David Hammons, Lucinda Childs and Jack Smith are spoken by the artist and collaborators who bob up and down holding wave crests outside the windows and wandering about the audience. The book captures images and text from the project.

Acknowledgements

Contributors: Frédérique Bergholtz, Gregg Bordowitz, Katinka Marac, MPA, Rory Pilgrim

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608 1013 BV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Entry cost varies

Acknowledgements

Performance Days is supported by the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

By Any Other Name

Performance

Sunday 9 – Monday 10 November 2014

1/3

Within a theatre setting, ‘to discompose’ – working through in relation to site and performance, social spaces, institutions and collaboration – articulates an environment of observation and response, framed by text and tableau. A dramaturgy of darkness is punctuated by contributions, from drawings to choreography, by invited artists who ultimately become a troupe of players.

Acknowledgements

Drawings: Babi Badalov

Choreography: Eleanor Bauer

Costumes: Jesper Stromback Eklund

Lighting design: Katinka Marac

Commissioned with partners the Playground Festival Leuven (STUK/Museum M), the TBA festival of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and supported by Corpus, European Network For Performance Art, funded through the European Union

Playground Leuven

3010 Leuven

Belgium

Adults €10 / reduced €6, reservations required

Emily Roysdon in Conversation

Conversation

Emma’s
Sunday 16 February 2014, 17hr

1/3

With Vivian Ziherl, the artist discusses her concept of ‘discompose’: a field of inquiry, a speculation on ordering theatrical space, audience orientation and institutional structures. The tool is worked through in relation to site and performance, social spaces and collaboration. In addition, her ‘minor theatre’ pursues an invested staging of audience and text, while trying to ‘build a structure for people to be alive inside’.

If I Can’t Dance

Westerdok 606–608 1013 BV Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free

By Any Other Name

Performance

Thursday 13 February 2014, 17hr and 20hr, limited to 30 ppl each

1/7

‘The stage’ is punctuated with interventions and texts. Performers, shirts over coats, look like bloated interlopers with a queer way of walking. Celestial photogram images adorn the floor on which the audience is asked to lie down. They are surrounded by projections of artist Babi Badalov’s drawings. The performers weave through the audience repeating: ‘Works or doesn’t.’

Acknowledgements

Drawings: Babi Badalov

Choreography: Eleanor Bauer

Costumes: Jesper Stromback Eklund

Lighting design: Katinka Marac

Dutch Art Institute participants: Jan Adriaans, Maria Barlasov, Coco Duivenvoorde, Bryony Gillard, Monique Hendriksen, Bonbon Juan, Alireza Keymanesh, Constanza Puente, Kaste Seskeviciute, Celia Shomal, Aarti Sunder

Commissioned with partners the Playground Festival Leuven (STUK/Museum M), the TBA festival of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and supported by Corpus, European Network For Performance Art, funded through the Culture Program of the European Union

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Museumplein 10, 1071 DJ Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Reservations required

Appropriation and Dedication 4

Workshop

Sunday 9 February 2014

The artist discusses and works on a new element of her performance By Any Other Name. Group movement is rehearsed for a performance outside the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, which will take place at a distance from the audience. Participants work with choreographer Eleanor Bauer on developing this particular movement.

Acknowledgements

Part of If I Can’t Dance’s course at the Dutch Art Institute

Dutch Art Institute

Kortestraat 27, 6811 EP Arnhem

The Netherlands

Closed seminar

Sara van der Heide (Sara Sejin Chang)

(b. 1977, Busan, South Korea. Lives in Amsterdam and Brussels) attended De Ateliers in Amsterdam. Her interest in the affective, formal and linguistic qualities of colour result in works on paper, performances and interventions. Here, she acknowledges the processes outside systems focussed on linear growth and material gain, motivated by a commitment towards the enactment of a paradigm shift.

Mother Earth Breathing: The Garden

Screening

24 January 2015, 19.15hr

The rhythmic montage illustrates one year of growth and decomposition in the artist’s garden, confronting value, decay, death and stillness – processes beyond growth – in the space of nature according to our biological clock.

56 min, col

Acknowledgements

Camera and montage: Sara van der Heide

Colour correction: Sara van der Heide, Guy Molin

Technical guidance: Guy Molin

Camera stand-in: Kyle Tryhorn

Mother Earth Breathing is supported by the Mondriaan Fund

Part of ‘Signals: 24/7’ curated by Edwin Carels

Special thank you to Nelly Voorhuis

44th International Film Festival Rotterdam

Lantaren Venster 6

Otto Reuchlinweg 996, 3072 MD Rotterdam

The Netherlands

Mother Earth Breathing

Book Launch & Performance

Performance Days
Saturday 29 November 2014, 16.33–18hr (sunset) and Sunday 30 November 2014, 8.24–10hr (sunrise)

1/3

Images projected in a darkened room show geometric figures flowing into one another. Trained in meditation, the artist lies down beneath the screen and breathes. When she gets up, the blinds are lifted to reveal first light. Exploring the transitory time of day, the work is also performed at sunset. Installation diagrams and a new essay appear in the publication.

Acknowledgements

Camera and montage: Sara van der Heide

Colour correction: Sara van der Heide, Guy Molin

Technical guidance: Guy Molin

Camera stand-in: Kyle Tryhorn

Mother Earth Breathing is supported by the Mondriaan Fund

Performance Days is supported by the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Special thanks to Nelly Voorhuis, SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and SONSBEEK International Foundation

If I Can’t Dance

Ruysdaelkade 2, 1072 AG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€17,50 afternoon / morning and afternoon programme

(includes one free publication)

Midsummer Night

Performance

Emma’s
Saturday 21 – Sunday 22 June 2014, 20.33–00.53hr

1/4

From 20.33 to 00.53, artists, writers and curators give five-minute summer-solstice presentations in affinity with the artist’s research into time, the Earth and metabolising processes, including breathing and photosynthesis. Dotted around the biggest cacti and succulents collection in the Netherlands – a secluded safe haven, an unfixed utopia – presentations situated by different plants involve music, readings, mirrors, botanical history, spitting, gold and silver tuning forks, and magical projected shapes.

Acknowledgements

Contributors: Tanja Baudoin, Marcel van den Berg, Frédérique Bergholtz, Maarten van Bodegraven, Nathalie Bruys, Laurie Cluitmans, Susan Gibb, Moosje Goosen, Irene Kopelman, Jacob Korczynski, Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, Katja Mater, Sands Murray-Wassink, Maria Pask, Rory Pilgrim, Agnieszka Polska, Kyle Tryhorn, Nora Turato, Nelly Voorhuis, Riet Wijnen, Arnisa Zeqo, Vivian Ziherl

Special thanks to the Vrienden van VU Hortus and Clivia Festival

VU Hortus, Van der Boechorststraat 8, Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Appropriation and Dedication 2

Workshop

Monday 25 – Tuesday 26 November 2013

The 1913 opera Victory Over the Sun – a collaboration between Aleksei Kruchenykh, Velimir Khlebnikov and Kazimir Malevich (who designed the costumes and set) – proposed capturing and destroying the ‘sun’ as symbol of rationality. Students’ considerations of what the sun represents become five-minute performances with self-made backgrounds.

Acknowledgements

Part of If I Can’t Dance’s course at the Dutch Art Institute

Dutch Art Institute

Kortestraat 27, 6811 EP Arnhem

The Netherlands

Closed seminar

Research Commissions

Gregg Bordowitz

(b. 1964, Brooklyn, NY. Lives in New York City) is a major figure in AIDS activism and was a member of ACT UP. In his long career as a writer and visual artist, his attention more recently turned to performance – including improvisational lectures and opera – plotting a personal trajectory across diverse North American poet communities, smoking out ethical and political complexities and alliances of poetic expression.

Poets Don’t Lie: Appropriation and the Proper Power of the Voice

Book Launch & Conversation

Performance Days
Sunday 30 November 2014, 18–21hr

1/3

The artist addresses biopower and remaining faithful to past work through radical queer activism with critic Rachel O’Reilly who brings in a feminist and environmental perspective and poet Fred Moten who speaks from the Black radical tradition. Poetry is read. The politics and aesthetics of appropriation and dedication is discussed. Open to all types. A fascinating archive of Bordowitz’s material and allies is launched.

Acknowledgements

Performance Days is supported by the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Special thanks to SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and SONSBEEK International Foundation

Ruysdaelkade 1072 AG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€17,50 evening programme

(includes one free publication)

Seminar

Seminar

Performance Days
Friday 28 November 2014, 14–16hr

With Sven Lütticken, Tom Vandeputte, and students of the VU University Amsterdam and Sandberg Instituut MFA Critical Studies programme.

Acknowledgements

Performance Days is supported by the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Special thanks to SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and SONSBEEK International Foundation

Ruysdaelkade 1072 AG Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed seminar

Materialist Geography and the Knight’s Move

Lecture

Sunday 9 February 2014, 14–16hr

This keynote touches on experiences in the 1980s with fellow creatives the artist refers to as ‘disgusted by the alignment of regressive politics in the White House with politics in the art world’ when the ‘federal government to museums and galleries were perceived to be driven by national interests, imperialist expansion, profit motive, male supremacy, white supremacy and heteronormativity.’ The artist notes their analysis ‘led to tactics of subterfuge and refusal. Still, we were not resigned.’

Acknowledgements

Part of the exhibition ‘Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology’, curated by Johanna Burton

Hammer Museum

10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024

United States

Free, first come, first served

Gregg Bordowitz & Maggie Nelson

Lecture

Wednesday 5 February 2014

‘Identity is a form of repetition.’ Letting a line like this hang there can be likened to speech bubbles from a state of the union address: uttered to loud applause, urgency is weaponised through quotable phrases. The artist’s phrases are also crafted to be quoted, but this is because of their poetry, not their bombast. This kind of writing process stops only after the last question is asked.

Acknowledgements

Part of ‘Gregg Bordowitz & Maggie Nelson’ organised by The Poetry Project, New York

The Poetry Project

131 East 10th Street, New York NY 10003

United States

Free

Testing Some Beliefs

Lecture

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication
Sunday 20 January 2013, 14.45–15.45hr

1/2

The artist considers what he has to gain from his continued belief that art can change the world. And further, that art is necessarily related to freedom. Even though there are no facts supporting this, he continues to hold onto these ideas, and wonders why they remain. To the visitor he writes: ‘At risk of sounding ridiculous, I will try to explain.’

Acknowledgements

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication is supported by the European Union and the Mondriaan Fund

Special thanks to the Dutch Art Institute/MFA ArtEZ Arnhem and the Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Herengracht 470, 1017 CA Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€30, reservations required

(includes breakfast, lunch and the publication Reading/Feeling)

Jacob Korczynski

(b. 1979, Canada. Lives in Toronto) is a curator and writer. His reading of I See/You Mean (1979) by critic Lucy R. Lippard (b. 1937, New York City. Lives in Galisteo, New Mexico) situates his project within a feminist aesthetic connected to contemporaneous practices in experimental film – specifically the subjective camera eye in The Camera: Je/La Camera: I (1977) by Babette Mangolte (b. 1941, Montmorot, France. Lives in New York City).

I See/La Camera: I

Book Launch

Saturday 10 January 2015, 15–17hr

The author and editor introduces the outcome of an extensive research project into the subjective role of the camera in Babette Mangolte’s film The Camera: Je/La Camera: I (1977) and in text and image in Lucy R. Lippard’s novel I See/You Mean (1979). He situates both works within the context of feminist strategies of self-portraiture.

Art Metropole

158 Sterling Road

Toronto, ON M6R 2B2

Canada

Free

I See/La Camera: I and premiere of new film by Babette Mangolte

Conversation & Screening

Performance Days
Sunday 30 November 2014, 14–16hr

1/2

The curator discusses The Camera: Je/La Camera: I (1977) with its film-maker Babette Mangolte, who premieres a new film. Supporting texts and films are also put forward to help frame the withdrawal of the author’s body from the fictional and documentary image as a strategy of self-portraiture.

Acknowledgements

Performance Days is supported by the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Special thanks to SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and SONSBEEK International Foundation

Ruysdaelkade 1072 AG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€17,50 morning and afternoon programme

(Includes one free publication)

A Point in the Making: Three Days with Babette Mangolte

Conversation & Screening

Wednesday 21 May 2014, 19hr

1/5

This programme around Mangolte’s work includes a day of talks where she speaks with curator Fleur van Muiswinkel on the documentation of performance and feminist aesthetics, and with Korczynski on the subjective role of the camera in film. In addition to a rich screening programme that includes legendary images of Trisha Brown’s dancers on rooftops and a masterclass, there is a screening of The Sky on Location with a Q&A by art critic Bianca Stigter in Eye Filmmuseum.

Acknowledgements

Produced and curated with Fleur van Muiswinkel and Het Veem Theater, in collaboration with Eye Filmmuseum and supported by Amsterdam Fund for the Arts and Fonds Podiumkunsten

Part of the Life Long Burning project and supported by the Cultural Programme of the European Union

Eye Filmmuseum

IJpromenade 1, 1031 KT Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Conversation: Saturday 24 May 2014, 11–13hr

Veem House for Performance

Van Diemenstraat 408–410, 1013 CR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

A Project by Lucy R. Lippard Submitted to the Projects Class, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Fall 1969

Screening

Thursday 31 January 2013, 21hr

On view are the results of a two-week exercise following Lippard’s 1969 instructional work on image and writing that informed her novel I See/You Mean (1979). Daily photographs are taken at the same place and time, with participants in approximately the same positions, and then described in writing. The final outcome shows these texts and images rearranged in different ways. The Camera: Je/La Camera: I is screened on 16mm.

88 min, bw and col, English and French

Acknowledgements

Co-organiser: Kyle Tryhorn

Cinema de Uitkijk

Prinsengracht 452, 1017 KE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

I See/You Mean

Lecture

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication
Sunday 20 January 2013, 11.45–12.30hr

In the late 1970s critic Lucy R. Lippard and film-maker Babette Mangolte drew on landscape and friends to assemble an image of the lives of artists mediated by their seeing I/eye. The former, in text: Lippard’s novel I See/You Mean is anchored by descriptions of fictional photographs of its characters

Acknowledgements

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication is supported by the European Union and Mondriaan Fund

Specials thanks to the Dutch Art Institute/MFA ArtEZ Arnhem and the Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Herengracht 470, 1017 CA Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€30, reservations required (includes breakfast, lunch and publication Reading/Feeling)

Sven Lütticken

(b. 1971, Kempen, Germany. Lives in Amsterdam) teaches art history at VU University Amsterdam. His books include Idols of the Market: Modern Iconoclasm and the Fundamentalist Spectacle (2009). In looking at A Movie Will Be Shown Without the Picture (1979/2012) by Louise Lawler (b. 1947, Bronxville, NY. Lives in Brooklyn) as a case study around showing a film chosen by the artist, the movie-going experience is accentuated.

The V-Conspiracy – Refunctioning Authorship or, After Appropriation and Institutional Critique

Conversation & Screening

Performance Days
29 November 2014, 13.30–15.30hr

1/4

The Question of Manet’s ‘Olympia’: Posed and Skirted by The V-Girls mocks male academic authority on a panel. After it is shown, the researcher, with co-panellists Sidsel Meineche Hansen and Fatima Hellberg, addresses patriarchal elements in art history. In thinking through what it means to return to 1970s and 1980s practices through a feminist lens, he looks into the V-Girls’ performativity, and how it expands traditional art forms.

64 min, col, English

Acknowledgements

Performance Days is supported by the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Special thanks to SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and SONSBEEK International Foundation

If I Can’t Dance

Ruysdaelkade 2, 1072 AG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€17,50 afternoon programme

(includes one free publication)

Seminar

Book Launch & Seminar

Performance Days
Friday 28 November 2014, 14–16hr

With Gregg Bordowitz, Tom Vandeputte, and students of the VU University Amsterdam and Sandberg Instituut MFA Critical Studies programme. Lütticken’s book on Lawler with essays by collaborators is available.

Acknowledgements

Performance Days is supported by the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Special thanks to SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and SONSBEEK International Foundation

Ruysdaelkade 1072 AG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Closed seminar

Appropriation and the Shipwreck of Critical Intentions

Lecture

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication
Sunday 20 January 2013, 11–11.45hr

Louise Lawler’s work is a springboard for a discussion on widening the parameters of appropriation theory ca. 1980, which often presupposes a work’s meaning depends on critical intentions shared by artist and critic. A specific model of authorship has thereby tacitly been (re)established: the artist, mirrored by the writer, as a critical subject engaging with media images.

Acknowledgements

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication is supported by the European Union and the Mondriaan Fund

Specials thanks to the Dutch Art Institute/MFA ArtEZ Arnhem, and the Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Herengracht 470, 1017 CA Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€30, reservations required (includes breakfast, lunch and publication Reading/Feeling)

Louise Lawler: A Movie Will Be Shown Without the Picture

Conversation & Screening

Tuesday 12 June 2012

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A new edition of Louise Lawler’s 1979 work A Movie Will Be Shown Without the Picture revolves around the announcement and screening of a film chosen by the artist, accentuating the operation of the screening and moviegoing. Followed by a talk in the presence of the artist, with Sven Lütticken, Andrea Fraser and Eric C. H. de Bruyn around the work’s actual and potential consequences for contemporary art and theory.

Acknowledgements

Evening co-produced with Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Special thanks to PhDArts, doctoral programme for visual artists and designers, Leiden University / University of the Arts, The Hague

The Movies

Haarlemmerdijk 161, 1013 KH Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Grant Watson

(Lives in London) is a curator with an interest in questions around the transnational through art. His research spans subjects including modern and contemporary Indian art. This itinerant interview project departs from Michel Foucault’s provocation in a 1983 Vanity Fair interview that ‘bios could be the material for a work of art’, and takes form in presentations relating individual testimony to broader narratives of contemporary subjectivity.

Elioa Steffen on the reading performance of How We Behave

Visitor report

Spring 2024

Portrait: Elioa Steffen, photo by Maarten Nauw.

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At If I Can’t Dance we see the visitor report as a method of documentation. The affectual, relational and embodied nature of performance work is not always easily captured in audio-visual formats. To supplement such formats, If I Can’t Dance commissions written visitor reports, which offer subjective responses to a lived experience of a work and its context. The visitor report is, therefore, not to be confused with a critical review. It is first and foremost a form of witnessing. The people commissioned to write the report span a range of positions and practices within and outside the field of art. For the reading performance that was part of the archive activation of How We Behave / An Archive of Radical Practice we invited artist Elioa Steffen.

How We Behave / An Archive of Radical Practice

Reading performance

Friday 15 December 2023, 18-19hr

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In conjunction with the exhibition How We Behave / An Archive of Radical Practice at IHLIA LGTBI Heritage, a reading performance will take place, including the participation of interviewees and members of our Amsterdam communities, a.o. Szymon Adamczak, Sher Doruff, Megan Hoetger, and Joy Mariama Smith.

Image description

Photo of a group of people, seated on chairs that are put in a circle, situated in a theatre space. In the middle, two people are directed towards each other and to a microphone, reading from paper.

Accessibility information

– Seated event
– Second floor, no elevator
– No wheelchair accessible WC; gender neutral WC
– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Concept and script: Grant Watson; Post-script remarks: Frédérique Bergholtz and Anik Fournier; Performers: Szymon Adamczak, Sher Doruff, Megan Hoetger, Joy Mariama Smith; Sound: Leroy Chaar; AV and documentation: Maarten Nauw; Front of house team: Naomi Collier Broms and Sancha Meca Castro.

If I Can’t Dance is structurally supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); the productions in Edition IX are realized with financial support of Ammodo and Cultuurfonds.

If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution
WG-Plein 881
1054 SM Amsterdam

€7,50 regular / €5 students
Purchase your ticket here

How We Behave / An Archive of Radical Practice

Exhibition

Monday 11 December 2023 – Sunday 4 February 2024

Grant Watson, HWB collages (2019), paper textile collage. Carried out within the framework of the 2019-2020 BAK Fellowship Programme.

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IHLIA LGTBI Heritage hosts the presentation of archival material from Watson’s How We Behave (2013–ongoing), giving access to transcripts, audio recordings and video portraits of the radical life stories and practices of a selection of interviewees. IHLIA contributes with material from its collection dedicated to the LGBTI communities and histories in the Netherlands.

Image description

About twenty rectangular cut-outs from lined writing paper, with text fragments (b/w) in different fonts, laid out loosely on a sheet of textile with a colored pattern. On snippets one can read a.o. “ecriture feminine”; “Herbert Marcuse – social movements become agents in societies of relative affluence”; “Sylvia Winter – On being human as a practice”.

Accessibility information

– Seats available

– Third Floor, wheelchair accessible via elevator

– Wheelchair accessible WC; gender-neutral WC

– Language: English

Acknowledgements

Concept: Grant Watson; Curators and production coordinators: Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger; Conversation partner: Frédérique Bergholtz; Exhibition design: Grant Watson; Design development: Tanad Aaron; Production manager: Annick Kleizen; Production crew: Mika Perlmutter, Ruben Janssen, Michael Klinkenberg, Niklas van Woerden, Stefan Blumenschein; Graphic design (online studio and exhibition): Kommerz; Coordination exhibition in IHLIA/OBA: Fleur Jacobs; Accessibility advisor: Annick Kleizen; Copy editor: Janine Armin.

The exhibition is commissioned and developed by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution and co-presented with IHLIA LGTBI Heritage. Special thanks to all the interviewees.

If I Can’t Dance is supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts); Edition IX is supported by Cultuursfonds.

Opening: 10 December, 16-18hr
Tour by Grant Watson: 13 December, 18-19hr

IHLIA/OBA
Oosterdokskade 143
1011 DL Amsterdam

Open daily: Monday – Friday 8–22hr and Saturday and Sunday 10–20hr

Free

How We Behave: An Archive of Radical Practice

Archival Activation

From December 2020

Grant Watson, HWB (fabindia), 2019, paper textile collage. Carried out within the framework of the 2019–20 BAK Fellowship Programme.

A dialogue to update our archives transformed into an ongoing conversation about research-as-performance through this ‘unfinished’ interview series. In reconfiguring the ‘pastness’ of documents as ‘liveliness’, we dig into the material and think through its past archival activations and what form resonates today. The curator and researcher gives an audio introduction to each new upload, weaving across interviews to connect their words, positions and stories.

Image description

Rectangular snippets of cut-out black-on-white texts, in sans serif type of syllables, words, and fragments of sentences, like ‘er’, ‘u’, ‘character’, ‘non’, ‘routine’, ‘queering’, ‘emergent’ and ‘narrative script rehearsal’. They are organised in vertical and horizontal, upward and downward reading directions, along a double-striped black cross, dividing a light-brown background with a textile feel into four parts, and overlapping or interspersing a collection of nine medium-sized brown circles in the right below part, one big red circle in the upper right part, and two small black circles, cut off at the halfway point on the upper and downward left.

Acknowledgements

Curators and initiators archive activation: Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger; Graphic design (online studio and exhibition): Kommerz. Special thanks to all the interviewees.

How We Behave: In Memory of Sylvère Lotringer

Screening

23 December 2021 – 31 January 2022

‘(Mis) Reading Masquerades’ (2010), book launch and lecture.

Sylvère Lotringer and Frédérique Bergholtz, ‘(Mis) Reading Masquerades’ (2010), book launch and lecture.

Sylvère Lotringer and Steven ten Thije, ‘(Mis) Reading Masquerades’ (2010), book launch and lecture.

Sylvère Lotringer, ‘(Mis) Reading Masquerades’ (2010), book launch and lecture.

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To celebrate the life of Sylvère Lotringer (1938–2021) whose work as a literary critic, editor, publisher and educator helped to shape the course of contemporary cultural theory, we share this interview that was recorded in Los Angeles, California, in 2014.

How We Behave (2013–ongoing) is an interview project by Grant Watson departing from a 1983 provocation by Michel Foucault that life practice can be the material for a work of art. Over the past years, Watson has begun re-opening up this project to new forms and constellations. In conversation with If I Can’t Dance’s Anik Fournier and Megan Hoetger, How We Behave/An Archive of Radical Practice has emerged in the ificantdance.studio, putting new emphases on how “unfinished” work can yield valuable moments for understanding research-as-performance and for reconfiguring the assumed ‘pastness’ of documents as ‘liveliness.’ More coming in the .studio next year; and, for now, we leave you with Sylvère.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Grant Watson for allowing us to share this video work.

How We Behave

Exhibition

Saturday 9 September – Sunday 10 December 2017
Opening Weekend: Friday 8 September – Tuesday 11 September
Open daily: Thursday – Saturday 13–18hr and Sunday 11–18hr

These three interviews with Brussels- and Antwerp-based artists – feminist project Just for the Record, Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven and Elke van Campenhout – are inspired by Michel Foucault’s question: why can’t life be ‘the material for a work of art?’ The interviews’ focus on how people work on themselves and reflect on their lives and relationships appears in the context of similar reflections from other artists on citizenship in cities urged to adapt to diverse inhabitants.

Acknowledgements

Concept and interviews: Grant Watson

Director of photography: Kate McDonough

Curator: Frédérique Bergholtz

Originally commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and funded by the Mondriaan Fund and the Arts Council of England, the latter in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary and The Showroom, London

Part of ‘Extra Citizen’ curated by Antonia Alampi and iLiana Fokianaki

Kunsthal Extra City

Eikelstraat 29, 2600 Antwerp

Belgium

€10 voluntary / €5 standard / € 3,60+, groups of 10 or more persons, teachers’ card, oKo / €1 -26s, NICC members, persons with a disability and their guides, unemployed / €0 -13s, ICOM, persons with Omnio status, press

How We Behave

Exhibition

Friday 5 February – Saturday 2 April 2016
Exhibition Opening: Friday 5 February 2016, 20hr
Open daily: Wednesday – Friday 16.30–20.30hr and Saturday 12–17hr

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These three interviews with Athens-based artists and activists Sotirias Bahtsetzis, Kiriakos Spirou and Kostas Tzimoulis are inspired by Michel Foucault’s question: why can’t life be ‘the material for a work of art?’ The focus on how people work on themselves and reflect on their lives and relationships merges here into a foreboding fog in times of crisis and transition and how we politically articulate ourselves within and out of it.

Acknowledgements

Concept and interviews: Grant Watson

Director of photography: Kate McDonough

Curator: Frédérique Bergholtz

Originally commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and funded by the Mondriaan Fund and the Arts Council of England, the latter in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary and The Showroom, London

Part of ‘Through the Fog: Descripting the Present’ curated by Nick Aikens

Special thanks to State of Concept and iLiana Fokianaki

State of Concept

Mpotsari Tousa 19, Athens 117 41

Greece

Free

How We Behave

Exhibition

Wednesday 1 – Saturday 18 July 2015
Exhibition Opening: Tuesday 30 June 2015, 18.30–20.30hr
Researcher Talk: Saturday 11 July 2015, 1416hr
Open daily: Wednesday – Saturday 12–18hr

Inspired by a 1983 Vanity Fair interview of the same name with Michel Foucault, who asked, why can’t life be ‘the material for a work of art?’, Watson conducted over 50 interviews in myriad cities. Several of the filmed portraits on how people work on themselves, and reflect on life and relationships, appear with research material as setting for a discussion on Foucault’s concept of life as work of art.

Acknowledgements

Concept and interviews: Grant Watson

Director of photography: Kate McDonough

Curator: Frédérique Bergholtz

Originally commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and funded by the Mondriaan Fund and the Arts Council of England, the latter in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary and The Showroom, London

Part of ‘How We Behave’ curated by Emily Pethick

The Showroom

63 Penfold St, Marylebone, London NW8 8PQ

United Kingdom

Free

How We Behave

Exhibition & Seminar

Saturday 10 – Saturday 17 January 2015
Exhibition Opening: Friday 9 January 2015, 18hr
Seminar: Saturday 10 January 2015, afternoon
Open daily: Tuesday – Thursday and Saturday, 10–18hr, Friday 10–21hr, Sunday, 11–17hr

Grant Watson, ‘How We Behave’, exhibition, January 2015, Nottingham Contemporary.

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Inspired by an interview with Michel Foucault who asked, why can’t life be ‘the material for a work of art?’, Watson conducted over 50 interviews in myriad cities. Several of the filmed portraits on how people work on themselves, life and relationships appear with research material as setting for a discussion on Foucault’s concept of life as work of art.

Accompanied by a seminar with guests involved in the project.

Acknowledgements

Seminar: Frédérique Bergholtz, David Dibosa, Jean Matthee, Dr Massimiliano Mollona, Christian Nyampeta, Emily Pethick

Originally commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and funded by the Mondriaan Fund and the Arts Council of England, the latter in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary and The Showroom, London

Nottingham Contemporary

Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GB

United Kingdom

Free, reservations required

How We Behave

Book Launch & Exhibition

Performance Days
Friday 28 November 2014, 21–22.30hr

Grant Watson, ‘How We Behave’, exhibition, 28 November 2014, Ruysdaelkade.

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Delving into the ancient Greek philosophies of ‘askesis’ or ‘self-making’ called upon by Michel Foucault amid the 1980s period of neoliberalism, interview-style film portraits are shown, self-reflexive in their production and methodology. Each monologue is a self-conscious performance of the quotidian, communicating belonging and exclusion.

Acknowledgements

Concept and interviews: Grant Watson

Director of photography: Kate McDonough

Curator: Frédérique Bergholtz

Special thank you to all interviewees; Studium Generale Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam; The Kitchen, New York; Casa do Povo and NUCLEO, São Paulo; Roski School of Arts, USC, Human Resources and GuestHaus Residency, Los Angeles; The Showroom, London; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge; and CCA Wattis, San Francisco

Performance Days is supported by Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the municipality of Amsterdam, Ammodo, VSB Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Special thanks also to SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain and SONSBEEK International Foundation

Ruysdaelkade 1072 AG Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€ 17,50 evening programme

(includes one free publication)

How We Behave

Lecture

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication
Sunday 20 January 2013, 14–14.45hr

What does it mean to pick up and reflect on a 1983 interview Michel Foucault had with Vanity Fair? What about the author’s biographical circumstances at the time of publication and theoretical work – in particular his interest in classical antiquity and the idea of an aesthetics of existence? In addition to these quandaries, some of Foucault’s suggestions for how we might appropriate and use concepts from the past are put forth.

Acknowledgements

Seminar: Appropriation and Dedication is supported by the European Union and the Mondriaan Fund

Specials thanks to the Dutch Art Institute/MFA ArtEZ Arnhem and Goethe-Institut Niederlande, Amsterdam

Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Herengracht 470, 1017 CA Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€30, reservations required

(includes breakfast, lunch and publication Reading/Feeling)

How We Behave (rehearsals)

Conversation & Performance

Tuesday 8 May 2012, 20hr

Grant Watson, ‘How We Behave (rehearsals)’, conversation and performance, 8 May 2012, The Kitchen.

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The project departs from a 1983 interview with Michel Foucault around life as work of art. The philosopher has also spoken about gay liberation and the scant pre-given codes of behaviour there are to invent life. The week-long rehearsals with guests and New York residents are based on Foucault’s idea of bios as material for art. Exercises trained on personal activities attempt to interpolate the city’s particular character and personalities.

Acknowledgements

Contributors: Frédérique Bergholtz, Adva Zakai, Veridiana Zurita

The Kitchen

512 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011

United States

Free

Master course

DAI-COOP

Appropriation and Dedication

Course

2013-14

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The course ‘Appropriation and Dedication’ is constructed around sessions with recurring tutor Matthew Lutz-Kinoy and with the commissioned artists from If I Can’t Dance’s Edition V: Gerry Bibby, Sara van der Heide, Snejanka Mihaylova and Emily Roysdon. Each tutor is asked to introduce their work to the students and to take one aspect central to their current methodology as a guiding principle to explore ideas about performance.

All tutors adopt a responsiveness to If I Can’t Dance’s current research field, which expresses an interest in how appropriation, or making something one’s own, might be considered as an act of acknowledgement, homage or mutual influence.

Course tutors: Matthew Lutz-Kinoy and commissioned artists from Edition V – Appropriation and Dedication

Guest tutors: Gerry Bibby, Sara Sejin Chang, Snejanka Mihaylova, Every Ocean Hughes.

Students: Aarti Sunder, Bryony Gillard, Coco Duivenvoorde, Celia Shomal, Bonbon Juan, Constanza Puente, Jan Adriaanse, Kaste Seskeviciute, Maria Barlasov, Monique Hendriksen, Laila Torres Mendieta, and Alireza Keymanesh.

Acknowledgements

Coordination: Tanja Baudoin, Vivian Ziherl and Susan Gibb

Framework: Frederique Bergholtz

Gatherings

If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Chambres des Canaux, Assendelft

Theater aan de Rijn, Arnhem

New Theater, Berlin

2010–12

Affect

Reading Group Amsterdam

Reading Group Sheffield

Reading Group Toronto

Reader

Artist Commissions

Jeremiah Day

(b. 1974, United States. Lives in Berlin) explores site and historical memory through fractured narratives, employing photography, speech and improvisational movement. The artist’s project draws upon the intersection of landscape and history in Europe, with ruins of the Cold War fuelling his method for posing questions about present and future Western political traditions and the meaning of citizenship.

Of All Possible Things

Exhibition & Screening

Friday 2 March – Saturday 14 April 2012
Performance: Friday 2 March 2012
Artist Talk and Screening: Tuesday 28 February 2012

Jeremiah Day, ‘Of All Possible Things’ (2012), performance. Image copyright Site Gallery.

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A checkpoint – the first site to open in the Berlin Wall – is examined for fragments of unresolved Cold War legacies. Research into the site that has since become a Lidl yields photographs, audio recordings, performance documentation and a new video and performance work. The work obliquely or explicitly confronts the nexus of landscape and ideology, local memory and world history. The artists’ book Autonomy documents the making process and Christian Petzold’s Jerichow (2008) is screened.

93 min, col, German with English subtitles

Site Gallery
1 Brown Street, Sheffield, S1 2BS
United Kingdom

Of All Possible Things (I)

Performance

Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 November 2011, 20hr

Jeremiah Day, ‘Of All Possible Things (I)’ (2011), performance. Photo: Nicholas Burrough.

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This structured improvisation with movement, speech and a slide show accompanied by musician Bart de Kroon deals with transmissibility and the conflicts of public life. Questions from an earlier work, a memorial for the squatters, frame the backdrop: And since it seems clear that we have not built it – have not built this space for reflection – what indeed have we built? If we don’t have such a place for discussion, what do we have?

Miles Building
George Gershwinlaan 101, 1082 MT Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€7,50, reservations required

If I Can’t Dance Presents Artists Edition IV

Performance

Friday 10 June 2011, 14.30–15hr

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Curator Jacob Korczynski moderates this day that introduces the projects for Edition IV, which focusses on affect read in the light of continuing investigations into the construction of subjectivity and the politics of identity. Affect illuminates and intensifies the projects allowing for connections to be made where relevant.

Acknowledgements

Developed in collaboration with partner organisations M HKA, Antwerp; Site Gallery, Sheffield Tate Modern, London; Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdańsk

Part of a contribution to Alternativa – International Contemporary Visual Art Festival

Wyspa Institute of Art
ul. Doki 1 building #145 B
80–958 Gdańsk
Poland

Reservations, free

Sung Hwan Kim

(b. 1975, Seoul. Lives in New York City) studied architecture at Seoul National University, received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and art from Williams College, Williamstown, MA and his master of science in visual studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. The artist frequently collaborates with musician David Michael DiGregorio (aka dogr) and here takes as a departure point, the notion of parting.

Some Left

Performance

Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 July 2011, 22.20hr

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Visitors snake up steep stairs to an intimate apartment space where sensuality and materiality are articulated. Without introduction, the artist begins masterfully weaving stories at the entrance to a wider scenography: two figures stand by windows and become sculptural amid a growing acoustic landscape; another chops wood; and still another lies dead on the floor surrounded by voyeurs.

Acknowledgements

Performers: André van Bergen, David Michael DiGregorio (aka dogr), Sung Hwan Kim, Matthew Infante, Jieun Rim

Music: David Michael DiGregorio (aka dogr)

If I Can’t Dance
Ruyschstraat 4–III, Amsterdam 1091 CB
The Netherlands

If I Can’t Dance Presents Artists Edition IV

Performance

Friday 10 June 2011, 13–13.30hr

Sung Hwan Kim, film screening (2011). Photo: Marcel van den Berg.

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Curator Jacob Korczynski moderates this day that introduces the projects for Edition IV, which focusses on affect read in the light of continuing investigations into the construction of subjectivity and the politics of identity. Affect illuminates and intensifies the projects allowing for connections to be made where relevant.

Acknowledgements

Developed in collaboration with partner organisations M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp; Site Gallery, Sheffield Tate Modern, London; Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdańsk

Part of a contribution to Alternativa – International Contemporary Visual Art Festival

Wyspa Institute of Art
ul. Doki 1 building #145 B
80–958 Gdańsk
Poland

Wendelien van Oldenborgh

(b. 1962, Rotterdam. Lives in Rotterdam) is an artist who explores social relations through investigating gesture in the public sphere, often in collaboration and using the format of a public film shoot. A script is written with students exposing how some voices in Dutch society are silenced, and then performed by non-professional actors implicated in the subject; the artist also makes a film with two Brazilian protagonists who push the boundaries of speech and image.

Launch of Wendelien van Oldenborgh’s monograph, with Netherlands premiere of From Left to Night and screening of Bete & Deise, and lecture by David Dibosa

Book Launch, Lecture, Premiere & Screening

Sunday 3 April 2016, 15hr

Wendelien van Oldenborgh, ‘From Left to Night’ (2016), film screening. Photo: Ernst van Deursen.

Wendelien van Oldenborgh in conversation with David Dibosa (2016). Photo: Ernst van Deursen.

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David Dibosa reflects on a monograph of the artist’s work addressing unresolved histories presented with screenings: From Left to Night (2015) sees players in a low-income area of London, which borders its wealthiest enclaves, share disparate knowledges from riots to music videos; and in the montaged film Bete & Deise (2012), actress Bete Mendes and funk singer Deise Tigrona evoke the power at the intersection of public and personal through speaking.

From Left to Night, 32 min, col, English with English subtitles
Bete & Deise, 41 min, col, Portuguese with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Frédérique Bergholtz, director, If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam; Emily Pethick, director, The Showroom, London; Britte Sloothaak, assistant curator, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

The launch of Amateur and the Netherlands premiere of From Left to Night is organised with the artist by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and If I Can’t Dance

Bete & Deise is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Museumplein 10, 1071 DJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€2,50 plus museum fee, reservations required

Wendelien van Oldenborgh: The Work We Do

Lecture

Monday 12 October 2015, 19hr

The artist speaks on her experiment with method and form that often includes a public film shoot, collaboration and co-production of a script. The outcome is at times a film but can also be other forms of projection. Her attempts to identify how her art making is connected with social relations and current conditions, is followed by an interview with If I Can’t Dance director Frédérique Bergholtz on Van Oldenborgh’s development as an artist.

Acknowledgements

Part of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen’s ongoing presentation series, Uit de Kunst

KNAW, Het Trippenhuis
Kloveniersburgwal 29, 1011 JV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free

Bete & Deise

Conversation & Screening

Wednesday 5 August – Wednesday 30 September 2015

Wendelien van Oldenborgh, ‘Bete & Deise’ (2015), film screening.

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Within the context and among the people that brought the film into being, protagonists Bete Mendes and Deise Tigrona engage in a discussion in a Rio building that is under construction; the two give meaning to the idea of a public in their daily lives as, respectively, an actress and funk singer. Through a montage that evocatively combines their voices and image, Van Oldenborgh confronts the relation between cultural production and politics and the power that results when public issues intersect with the personal.

41 min, col, Portuguese with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and supported by the Mondriaan Fund and Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam and shot in Capacete’s new premises in Rio’s Gloria district and presented in Brazil with the support of the Mondriaan Fund

The tour is initiated and organised by If I Can’t Dance and co-produced with Capacete, Casa França-Brasil, Casa do Povo, Fundaj and MAM Rio with thanks to the Goethe-Institut São Paulo

Special thanks to Manuela Moscoso, Moacir dos Anjos (Fundaj), Pablo León de la Barra (Casa França-Brasil), Helmut Batista (Capacete), Patricia Broers (Consulado Geral do Reino dos Países Baixos no Rio de Janeiro), Luis Camillo Osorio and Marta Mestre (MAM Rio), Benjamin Seroussi and Mariana Lorenzi (Casa do Povo), and Max Hinderer, Amilcar Packer, and Suely Rolnik (P.A.C.A.)

Casa do Povo, São Paulo; Fundaj – Arte Contemporânea, Recife; Capacete, Rio de Janeiro; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro; Casa França-Brasil, Rio de Janeiro

Free

Also screened at:

Wednesday 10 December 2014
The Cross Art Projects
8 Llankelly Place, Sydney NSW 2011
Australia

Tuesday 15 July 2014
Irish Film Institute
6 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin, D02 PD85
Ireland

Sunday 29 September – Sunday 8 December 2013
Calvert 22
22 Calvert Avenue
Shoreditch, London E2 7JP
United Kingdom

Tuesday 14 May 2013
With Instruction (2009), Supposing I Love You. And You also Love Me (2011)
Mumok
Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna
Austria

Saturday 26 January – Sunday 14 April 2013
De Vleeshal
Helm 5, 4331 CD Middelburg
The Netherlands

Thursday 29 November 2012 – Sunday 24 February 2013
Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova
Maistrova ulica 3, 1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia

Thursday 8, Friday 9 and Sunday 11 November 2012
M Forum, Playground Festival
L Vanderkelenstraat 28
3000 Leuven
Belgium

Friday 26 October 2012
South London Gallery
65 Peckham Road, London SE5 8UH
United Kingdom

Wednesday 22 August 2012
Transit Display
Dittrichova 337/9, Prague 2, 120 00
Czech Republic

Thursday 16 August 2012
Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art
Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin
Germany

Saturday 26 May 2012
SCREEN Festival
Barcelona

Spain

Resonance and Transmission: From One Voice to Another

Symposium

Friday 21 March 2014, 17–19hr

Wendelien van Oldenborgh, ‘Bete & Deise’ (2014), film still.

1/3

During a day curated by If I Can’t Dance for the conference-festival Studium Generale Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, on voice and its re-articulated relation to the receiver through feminist histories, Bete & Deise (2012) is screened. The film narrates an encounter between Bete Mendes and Deise Tigrona, two women in Rio who have each in their own way given meaning to the idea of a ‘public voice’. The screening is followed by a conversation with the artist.

41 min, col, Portuguese with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Part of a day curated for the conference-festival Studium Generale Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and presented in the framework of Corpus, international network for performance practice

De Brakke Grond
Nes 45, 1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€15 adults / €10 students, reservations required

Bete & Deise, World Premiere

Screening

Friday 27 January 2012, 20hr

Wendelien van Oldenborgh, ‘Bete & Deise’ (2012), film still.

An all-night programme inspired by the production of Bete & Deise (2012) celebrates the artist’s ongoing research into Brazilian cinema. Art historian and writer Eric de Bruyn responds to the film, followed by a concert by Baba Electronica and DJ Lonely, and DJs Marfox and Nervoso. The artist introduces and screens Càncer (1972) by Glauber Rocha to open the evening.

Càncer, 86 min, bw
Bete & Deise, 41 min, col, Portugese with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Bete & Deise is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and supported by the Mondrian Fund and Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam with thanks to Capacete Entretenimentos, Rio de Janeiro

Included in the IFFR short film programme ‘Spectrum: Shorts’

WORM, International Film Festival Rotterdam
The Netherlands

€11, reservations required

If I Can’t Dance Presents Artists Edition IV

Conversation

Friday 10 June 2011, 12.15–12.45hr

Wendelien van Oldenborgh, film screening (2011). Photo: Marcel van den Berg.

1/3

Curator Jacob Korczynski moderates this day that introduces the projects for Edition IV, which focusses on affect read in the light of continuing investigations into the construction of subjectivity and the politics of identity. Affect illuminates and intensifies the projects allowing for connections to be made where relevant.

Acknowledgements

Developed with partner organisations M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp; Site Gallery, Sheffield Tate Modern, London; Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdańsk

Part of a contribution to Alternativa – International Contemporary Visual Art Festival

Wyspa Institute of Art
ul. Doki 1 building #145 B
80–958 Gdańsk
Poland

Supposing I love you. And you also love me, World Premiere

Film

Friday 3 June – Sunday 27 November 2011

Hannah Arendt wrote that action occurs in ‘the presence of others’. Action is then political. Further, thoughts in the public sphere, are in the realm of action. A ‘de Stijl’-inspired broadcast building by Dutch architect and friend of Gerrit Rietveld, Piet Elling, provides the backdrop for this 2011 polyphonic mini-tragedy. In it, young Dutch and Belgian adults playfully interchange with philosopher Tariq Ramadan on diversity, fear and conflict.

13 min, col, sound, English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Performers: Ahmed Chouyouhi, Hanane Driouchgril, Janne van Eynde, Alberto Mvila, Tariq Ramadan, Annye de Santos
Camera: Ben de Wandel
Sound: Rob Entwistle, Jan Samson
M-Objects programming: Ludo Engels

Co-commissioned with the Danish Arts Council and Wilfried Lentz, with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union, Flamin and the Mondriaan Foundation

‘Speech Matters’, Danish Pavilion
54th Venice Biennale
Calle del Carso, 8, 30122 Venice
Italy

Cinema – this, Television – that

Conference

Tuesday 29 March 2011, 13.30–22hr

Ruth Noack speaking at ‘Cinema – this, Television – that’ (2011), symposium.

Sven Lütticken speaking at ‘Cinema – this, Television – that’ (2011), symposium.

Snejanka Mihaylova speaking at ‘Cinema – this, Television – that’ (2011), symposium.

Jean Fisher speaking at ‘Cinema – this, Television – that’ (2011), symposium

Jean-Luc Godard, ‘Número Deux (Number Two)’ (1975), film still.

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A programme of lectures, screenings and a live script reading composed by Wendelien van Oldenborgh and If I Can’t Dance delve into temporal simultaneity, shared authorship, acting and being. A departure point is Jean-Luc Godard’s film Número Deux in which the film-maker and his wife Anne-Marie Miéville articulate the experience in cinema as the ‘many (together) to be alone in front of the screen’ vs. in television ‘the alone to the many (together) in front of the screen’. With contributions by Jean Fisher, Sven Lütticken, Snejanka Mihaylova and Ruth Noack.

Acknowledgements

Part of the conference-festival Cinema Clash Continuum, Studium Generale Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

Gerrit Rietveld Academie
Fred. Roeskestraat 96, 1076 ED Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Emily Wardill

(b. 1977, Rugby, United Kingdom. Lives in London and Lisbon) is an artist and senior lecturer at Central Saint Martins, London whose films are fostered by collaborative workshops and examine how precarity affects relationships. This feature film presents the story of a woman who constructs a house to accommodate the ghosts of people killed by her father’s firearm company.

Fulll Firearms, Premiere

Screening

Wednesday 14 December 2011, 20hr

Emily Wardill, ‘Fulll Firearms’ (2011), film still.

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In the film a woman constructs a house to accommodate the ghosts of people killed by the guns of her father’s firearm company. The artist joins for a discussion on the work with Dieter Roelstraete, Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago accompanied by a response read by Jacob Korczynksi, curator at the Art Gallery of York University in Toronto.

80 min, col, English

Acknowledgements

Writer and director: Emily Wardill

Director of photography: Taina Galis

Editor: Maya Maffioli

Cast: Edward Akrout, Ariyon Bakare, Holli Dempsey, Elizabeth Elvin, Wolf Kahler, Lloyd Mosengo, Carl Patrick, Catherine Schaub Abkarian, Avin Shah, Danielle Urbas

Co-commissioned with the Serpentine Gallery and Film London’s FLAMIN Productions and co-produced by FLAMIN Productions and City Projects with support from M HKA, Antwerp, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe and FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims

Also supported by Arts Council England through Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network, Culture Programme of the European Union and the Mondriaan Foundation

After the presentation at Cinema Zuid, Fulll Firearms will be shown at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe and in FRAC Champagne-Ardenne in Reims, and in the Netherlands and England in 2012

M hka / Cinema Zuid
Lakenstraat 14, Antwerp
Belgium

Free

Also screened at:

Wednesday 11 September 2019
(company projects)
1237 4th Street NE, Minneapolis
United States

Wednesday 15 May – Thursday 10 June 2013
Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High Street, Shadwell, London E1 7QX
United Kingdom

Wednesday 23 January 2013
Kunsthalle Lissabon
José Sobral Cid 9E, 1900–312 Lisbon
Portugal

Saturday 1 December 2012
The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
The Mall, St. James’s, London SW1Y 5AH
United Kingdom

Saturday 27 October 2012
Liverpool Biennale
The Box (FACT),
88 Wood St, Liverpool L1 4DQ
United Kingdom

Friday 25 May 2012
La Capella, Institut de Cultura de Barcelona
Carrer de l’Hospital, 56, 08001 Barcelona
Spain

Friday 4 May 2012
Iaspis
Maria Skolgata 83, 118 53 Stockholm
Sweden

Thursday 26 April 2012
Serpentine Gallery
London W2 3XA
United Kingdom

Friday 3 February – Sunday 22 April 2012
with The Hands Of A Clock, Even When Out Of Order, Must Know And Let The Dumbest Little Watch Know Where They Stand, Otherwise Neither Is A Dial But Only A White Face With A Trick Mustache
FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims
1 Place Museux, 51100 Reims
France

Friday 9 March – Saturday 14 April 2012
Altman Siegel
1150 25th St, San Francisco, CA 94107
United States

Thursday 26 January – Monday 9 April 2012
Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe
Waldstraße 3, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany

If you shoot a bullet in a vacuum, will it keep travelling forever?

Exhibition

Friday 17 June – Sunday 18 September 2011

Open daily: Tuesday – Wednesday and Friday – Sunday, 11–18hr, Thursday 11–21hr

Emily Wardill, ‘If you shoot a bullet in a vacuum, will it keep travelling forever?’ (2011), exhibition. Photo: Bram Goots.

1/4

Alongside her films The Diamond (Descartes Daughter) (2008) and Gamekeepers Without Game (2009), the artist selects works from the collection. These include installations by Guillaume Bijl and Luc Tuymans, photos by Dirk Braeckman, drawn and painted images by Elly Strik and Marthe Wéry, and three-dimensional images by Cady Noland – all of which reveal a shared slippage between things that are somehow the same but not quite.

The Diamond (Descartes Daughter), 15 min, col, English

Gamekeepers Without Game, 76 min, col, English

Acknowledgements

In collaboration with M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdańsk; Site Gallery, Sheffield and supported by the Mondriaan Foundation and the Culture Programme of the European Union

M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp
Leuvenstraat 32
2000 Antwerp

€12 adults / €7 60+, groups of 10+, students, those seeking employment, the physically challenged, members of the NICC, inhabitants of Antwerp (during construction €3) / €3 <26 years / Free <13 years, Friends of the M HKA, ICOM, CIMAM, Antwerp City Card, escorts of the physically challenged, The Cultivist, Museumpas

If I Can’t Dance Presents Artists Edition IV

Performance

Friday 10 June 2011, 15.15–15.45hr

Emily Wardill, film screening (2011). Photo: Marcel van den Berg

Curator Jacob Korczynski moderates this day that introduces the projects for Edition IV, which focusses on affect read in the light of continuing investigations into the construction of subjectivity and the politics of identity. Affect illuminates and intensifies the projects allowing for connections to be made where relevant.

Acknowledgements

Developed with partner organisations M HKA, Antwerp; Site Gallery, Sheffield; Tate Modern, London; Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdańsk

Part of a contribution to Alternativa – International Contemporary Visual Art Festival

Wyspa Institute of Art
ul. Doki 1 building #145 B
80–958 Gdańsk
Poland

Free

Research Commissions

Marie de Brugerolle

Guy de Cointet (b. Paris, 1934. d. Los Angeles, 1983) wrote over twenty plays investigating the borders between high and low, performance and sculpture, theatre and everyday life. In Five Sisters (1982), the last performance staged during his lifetime, light catalyses emotion. This work is the focal point for art historian, curator and dramatist Marie de Brugerolle (Lives in Lyon), Professor at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and author of the first monograph on De Cointet’s work.

Five Sisters at Culturgest, Lisbon

Performance & Publication

Friday 13 and Saturday 14 May 2016, 12.30hr

Guy de Cointet, ‘Five Sisters’ (2012), performance. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

1/5

First presented in 1982, four sisters meet in their parents’ home and wait for the fifth to arrive, chatting about their lives, doctors, diets, work and holidays. Meanwhile, the California sun mysteriously provokes their reactions, emotions and moods. The restaging addresses questions around the idea of ‘making Five Sisters anew’.

Acknowledgements

Concept play and text: Guy de Cointet
Light and stage design: Eric Orr
Director: Jane Zingale
Dramaturge: Marie de Brugerolle
Performers: Violeta Sanchez, Einat Tuchman, Adva Zakai, Veridiana Zurita
Light and sound: Elizabeth Orr
Wardrobe: moniquevanheist

Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and a collaborative initiative with MUSAC (Léon) and STUK Kunstencentrum (Leuven), financially supported by the municipality of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, the Estate of Guy de Cointet, Étant Donnés and the Mondriaan Fund and coproduced by Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art (New York), MUSAC (Léon), Pompidou Metz, Reina Sofia (Madrid), STUK Kunstencentrum (Leuven) and OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Shenzhen

Special thanks to Yael Davids; Dora Garcìa; the Estate of Eric Orr; Frascati WG, Amsterdam; SMART Project Space, Amsterdam

Culturgest, Lisbon
Edifício-sede da
Caixa Geral de Depósitos
Rua Arco do Cego, 50
1000–300 Lisbon
Portugal

Monday 13 May 2013
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Grabbeplatz 4, 40213 Düsseldorf
Germany

Friday 15 March 2013
Centre Pompidou-Metz
1 Parvis des Droits de l’Homme, 57020 Metz
France

Wednesday 9 – Thursday 10 May 2012
with monologue Espahor ledet ko Uluner! performed by Jane Zingale
Museum of Modern Art
11 W 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019
United States

Saturday 27 April 2012
with monologue Espahor ledet ko Uluner! performed by Jane Zingale
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036
United States

Friday 16 December 2011
with monologue Espahor ledet ko Uluner! performed by Jane Zingale
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Calle de Santa Isabel, 52, 28012 Madrid
Spain

Thursday 3 and Friday 4 November 2011
with monologue Espahor ledet ko Uluner! performed by Jane Zingale
STUK kunstencentrum
Naamsestraat 96, 3000 Leuven
Belgium

Saturday 12 November 2011
MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León

Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24, 24008 León
Spain

Friday 28 and Saturday 29 October 2011
Frascati WG
Marius van Bouwdijk Bastiaansestraat 54, 1054 SP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Five Sisters and Seminar

Performance, Publication & Seminar

Performance: Friday 15 and Saturday 16 November 2013
Seminar: Saturday 16 November 2013

Guy de Cointet, ‘Five Sisters’ (2013), performance. Photo: Nicholas Burrough.

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Four sisters wait for the fifth to arrive, chatting about daily activities while the California sun mysteriously provokes their reactions, emotions and moods. An accompanying seminar explores the biopolitics of the dissonant registers of ‘life’ and ‘lifestyle’ with a performance by artist Sara van der Heide and presentations by Frédérique Bergholtz, Zhao Chuan, Nav Haq, Peter Pál Pelbert and Vivian Ziherl.

Acknowledgements

Concept play and text: Guy de Cointet
Light and stage design: Eric Orr
Director: Jane Zingale
Dramaturge: Marie de Brugerolle
Performers: Violeta Sanchez, Einat Tuchman, Adva Zakai, Veridiana Zurita
Light and sound: Elizabeth Orr
Wardrobe: moniquevanheist

Seminar: Frédérique Bergholtz, Zhao Chuan, Nav Haq, Sara van der Heide, Peter Pál Pelbert, Vivian Ziherl
Language: Mandarin subtitles

The performance and seminar are supported by the International Presentation Programme of the Mondrian Fund, with the generous support of Rebecca Stelhi

The performance is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and a collaborative initiative with MUSAC (Léon) and STUK Kunstencentrum (Leuven), financially supported by the municipality of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, the Estate of Guy de Cointet, Étant Donnés and the Mondriaan Fund and coproduced by Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art (New York), MUSAC (Léon), Pompidou Metz, Reina Sofia (Madrid), STUK Kunstencentrum (Leuven) and OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Shenzhen

Part of the 2013 edition of the programme OCAT Performs

Special thanks to Yael Davids; Dora Garcìa; the Estate of Eric Orr; Frascati WG, Amsterdam; SMART Project Space, Amsterdam

OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal
Overseas Chinese City, Nanshan, Shenzhen
China

Reservations required

Tell a Vision – Seminar about aspects of television’s impact on performing arts

Workshop

18 – 19 October 2012, 10–18hr

The artist, likened to Andy Warhol’s ‘quiet observer’ but also to ‘camp’ as ‘way of seeing and expressing the world’, was greatly informed by soap operas in his plays and drawings. Based on lectures and film excerpts, Marie de Brugerolle and Sandberg students explore how the TV format’s rhythm can be applied to theatre and how, for example, wrestling programmes become a critical tool for exploring performativity.

Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam
Fred. Roeskestraat 96, 1076 ED Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Who’s That Guy? Tell Me More About Guy de Cointet

Screening & Talk

Wednesday 2 May 2012, 19hr

This composite portrait made in 2011 presents the artist in the context of 1970s Los Angeles as told by artist-friends Paul McCarthy, John Baldessari, Richard Jackson, Barbara Smith, Morgan Fisher and others. Original documents, excerpts from plays and interviews reveal dimensions of the work of the ‘Duchamp of L.A.’ Presented in conjunction with the Museum of Modern Art’s performance programme Words in the World.

90 min, col, English

Acknowledgements

Director: Marie de Brugerolle
Producer: Entre2prises

Talk: Marie de Brugerolle; Tim Griffin, director and chief curator, The Kitchen, New York; Connie Butler, chief curator of Department of Drawings, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Adva Zakai and Veridiana Zurita, two actresses performing in Five Sisters at MoMA; Ana Janevski, associate curator, MoMA

Museum of Modern Art
New York

United States

$12 adults / students $10, $8, reservations required

Thursday 27 October 2011
SMART Project Space
Arie Biemondstraat 111
1054 PD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Research Project: Affect

Workshop

Saturday 13 – Sunday 14 November 2010

With Jane Zingale – an advisor on this research project and one of the original actresses from De Cointet’s plays, having starred in Iglu (1977) and Tell Me (1979) as well as Five Sisters – De Brugerolle explores theoretical and practical concerns raised by making a restaging of the play. Part of If I Can’t Dance’s course at the Dutch Art Institute, Arnhem.

de Appel Arts Centre
Eerste Jacob van Campenstraat 59
1072 BD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Who’s that Guy? About Guy de Cointet

Lecture & Screening

Thursday 11 November 2010, 17hr

The researcher introduces De Cointet with her 2010 documentary about the artist in which he is remembered by his artist-friends including John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Richard Jackson, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Barbara Smith and Robert Wilhite. The film becomes a portrait of the underground scene in Los Angeles at the junction of the 1970s and 1980s.

50 min, col, English

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Paulus Potterstraat 13, 1071 CX Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5 plus museum ticket

Iglu, European premiere

Lecture-Performance

Tuesday 9 November 2010, 20hr

Guy de Cointet & Robert Wilhite, ‘Iglu’ (2010), performance. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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The artist’s 1977 play is co-written by Robert Wilhite, who authors the music. Wilhite’s soundtrack features pre-recorded phrases from a Spanish-language course, in tune with De Cointet’s awareness as a Frenchman living in the United States of one’s ability to understand another despite the imprecision of language. For him, language became a medium, with its own rhythm, plot and dynamics. Followed by a talk with the researcher.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Helen Berlant, Allison Byrnes, Carmen Thomas, Leo Tolkin

Co-produced by Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kunstverein, Amsterdam and STUK arts centre, Leuven

Special thanks to Frascati WG, the Guy de Cointet Estate and Air de Paris

Frascati WG
Marius van Bouwdijk Bastiaansestraat 54, 1054 SP Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10, reservations

Thursday 11 November 2010, 22hr and Friday 12 November 2010, 20.30hr
STUK arts centre, Naamsestraat 96, 3000 Leuven
Belgium

Vanessa Desclaux

Artist Matt Mullican (b. 1951, Santa Monica, CA. Lives in Berlin) deals with the perception of reality and representation using drawing, photography, sculpture, bulletin boards, computer-generated city-scapes and video among other media. Vanessa Desclaux (b. 1981. Lives in Paris), curator and practice-based researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, examines the artist’s hypnosis performances in connection to her research at Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht into his use of fiction, fabulation and self-reflection.

The Work in Residence project inventories 30 years of performance and identifies actions, gestures and character traits.

Class of Masters

Seminar

Seminar: Sunday 22 – Monday 23 January 2012
Conversation: Sunday 22 January 2012, 20hr
Presentations: Monday 23 January 2012, 20hr

Matt Mullican, ‘Class of Masters’ (2012), workshop.

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The artist acts out a script to think through repetition, reproduction and character development with choreographer Nicole Beutler, artist Suchan Kinoshita, and theatre director Joachim Robbrecht and participants from the fields of dance, visual arts and theatre, respectively. The sessions are illuminated for the public in a discussion introduced by Mullican between Desclaux and hypnotist Vanessa Fyland on hypnotic practices, and class presentations responded to by theatre director Johan Simons.

Acknowledgements

Co-produced by If I Can’t Dance and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and financially supported by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture

Frascati
Nes 63, 1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Sunday € 10 / Monday € 14 / both, € 3,50 discount per night, reservations required

On Matt Mullican by Vanessa Desclaux

Lecture

Friday 27 May 2011

Mullican’s performance work leans on structure – be it a bulletin board or annotation of a life in short evocative sentences – to materialise his concerns that often hover around empathy. However, the new also perforates these structures. In his hypnosis performances, for instance, each iteration provides uncharted character development. Part of Performance Studies International conference #17: Camillo 2.0: Technology, Memory, Experience.

Centrum Beeldende Kunst Utrecht
Plompetorengracht 4, 3512CC, Utrecht
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Matt Mullican

Lecture

Thursday 5 May 2011, 19.30hr

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The artist speaks about his hypnosis performances, in which he moves further into embodying a fictional character, a mental process of entering the image. Under the claim of being ‘That Person’, an object of wonder according to psychology, a character emerges through recurring emotional states. The artist gives up his identity by occupying a void to which the audience in its mere presence contributes.

Acknowledgements

Co-produced by If I Can’t Dance and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and financially supported by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Paulus Potterstraat 13
1071 CX Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€5 plus museum admission, reservations required

Inti Guerrero

Inti Guerrero (b. Bogotá. Lives in Hong Kong) is a curator who has worked on the 26th and 27th São Paulo Biennials. In 2010 he curated a show based around an urban planning proposal for ‘the nude man’s city’ by Flávio de Carvalho (b. 1899, Bara Mansa, Rio. d. São Paolo, 1973). Guerrero conducts research into the artist and architect nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1939 and who believed that architecture could awaken feelings.

Flávio de Carvalho by Inti Guerrero

Lecture

Friday 27 May 2011

De Carvalho presented The City of the Naked Man in 1930, an urban plan intended to free thought and shirk scholastic taboos. Peppered with laboratories for expanding desire beyond monogamy and heteronormativity, a core Research Centre focussed on wonder, favouring self-emancipation over exploitative labour as the role of the state. These ideas are furthered in his street performances Experiências. Part of Performance Studies International conference #17: Camillo 2.0: Technology, Memory, Experience.

Centrum Beeldende Kunst Utrecht
Plompetorengracht 4, 3512 CC, Utrecht
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Flávio de Carvalho – A Lecture Performance

Lecture-Performance

Tuesday 19 April 2011, 20hr

1/5

Guerrero channels the relationship between the body, psyche and architectural space in De Carvalho’s projects, namely Experiência no. 3 (1956) in which the artist created a ‘New Look’ – a miniskirt and short-sleeve blouse with holes in the armpits designed for the contemporary office worker, which he modelled in the street. The performance is carried out with Ivan Henriques, Hans Schamlé and Vivian Ziherl.

Frascati
Nes 63, 1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Bulegoa z/b

Bulegoa z/b (est. 2010, Bilbao) is a collaborative initiative founded by Beatriz Cavia, Miren Jaio, Isabel de Naverán and Leire Vergara. They reflect on the relation between historisation and performance in the work of conceptual artist Isidoro Valcárcel Medina (b. 1937, Murcia. Lives in Madrid), who creates situations that provide alternatives to those of the art world through performance, sound, architecture, installation and writing that takes form here in a Performance in Resistance dislodging past performances in photos.

18 pictures and 18 stories

Book Launch & Conversation

Friday 4 October 2013, 19–21hr

Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, ‘18 pictures and 18 stories’ (2013), book launch. Photo: Oliver Cowling for Tate Photography.

Isidoro Valcárcel Medina (2013), lecture. Photo: Oliver Cowling for Tate Photography.

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Following his lecture Valcárcel Medina speaks with artists Esther Ferrer and Dora García, led by Catherine Wood, on 22 stories told by guest speakers at art institutions in 2012. Each tale is inspired by a single photo from a series of 18 pictures the artist made in 2011 that depict 18 actions he performed in different cities between 1965 and 1993.

Acknowledgements

Co-produced by BNV Producciones, Seville; CAC Brétigny, Greater Paris; If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam; the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP); Playground Festival in STUK/Museum M, Leuven; Tàpies Foundation, Barcelona; Tate Modern, London; Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam

The performances are realised with the support of Corpus, an international network for performance-related work (CAC Brétigny, Greater Paris; If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam; Playground Festival in STUK arts centre/Museum M, Leuven; Tate Modern, London) financed by the European Union.

Presented as part of BMW Tate Live

Tate Modern
Bankside, London SE1 9TG
United Kingdom

18 pictures and 18 stories: art + document = fiction?

Discussion & Workshop

Discussion: Thursday 29 November 2012, 10.30–16hr

Workshop: Friday 30 November 2012, 10–13hr

The series of 18 photographs dislodging the artist’s past performances from their historical frame present as many actions he performed in different cities between 1965 and 1993. Many were never documented, so that this new work addresses the frictions between the live moment and the document, past and present, fact and fiction.

Acknowledgements

Participants: Frédérique Bergholtz (If I Can’t Dance), Beatriz Cavia, Cristina Freire, Hélio Fervenza, Miren Jaio and Leire Vergara (Bulegoa z/b), María Ivone Santos, Anne Thurmann-Jajes

Museu de Arte Contemporénea da Universidade de São Paulo
MAC USP Cidade Universitária
Rua da Praça do Relógio, 160
Brazil

Free, reservations required

Leuven – 18 pictures and 18 stories

Performance

Sunday 11 November 2012

Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, ’18 pictures and 18 stories (#6)’ 2012, Playground Festival/STUK, Leuven. Photo: Rocío Areán Gutiérrez.

1/5

Here, researcher and writer Koen Brams, artist Dora García, and writer and performance artist Myriam Van Imschoot each continue Valcárcel Medina’s unsettling of the historical past with their fabulations.

Acknowledgements

18 picture and 18 stories

Concept: Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina

Storytellers Playground Festival/STUK: Koen Brams, Dora García, and Myriam Van Imschoot

Supported by Corpus, an international network for performance-related work (CAC Brétigny, Greater Paris; If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam; Playground Festival in STUK arts centre/Museum M, Leuven; Tate Modern, London) financed by the European Union

Playground Festival/STUK
Naamsestraat 96
3000 Leuven
Belgium

Seville – 18 pictures and 18 stories

Performance

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Here, artist Pedro G. Romero, visual artist

Isaías Griñolo, and art critic Miren Jaio

each continue Valcárcel Medina’s unsettling of the historical past with their fabulations.

Acknowledgements

18 pictures and 18 stories

Concept: Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina
Commissioner: If I Can’t Dance
Storytellers BNV Producciones: Pedro G. Romero, Isaías Griñolo, and Miren Jaio

Supported by Corpus, an international network for performance-related work (CAC Brétigny, Greater Paris; If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam; Playground Festival in STUK arts centre/Museum M, Leuven; Tate Modern, London) financed by the European Union

BNV Producciones
Descalzos 8 – bajo. 41003 Seville
Spain

Brétigny sur Orge – 18 pictures and 18 stories

Performance

Saturday 27 October 2012

Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, ’18 pictures and 18 stories (#4)’ 2012, CAC Brétigny, Brétigny sur Orge. Photo: Twongvi Nguyen.

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Here, performance artist Esther Ferrer, artist

Jon Mikel Euba, and curator and essayist

Pierre Bal-Blanc each continue Valcárcel Medina’s unsettling of the historical past with their fabulations.

Acknowledgements

18 pictures and 18 stories

Concept: Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina

Storytellers CAC Brétigny: Esther Ferrer, Jon Mikel Euba, and Pierre Bal-Blanc

CAC Brétigny
Rue Henri Douard, 91220 Brétigny-sur-Orge
France

Barcelona – 18 pictures and 18 stories

Performance

Friday 6 July 2012

Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, ’18 pictures and 18 stories (#3)’, 2012, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona. Photo: Rocío Areán Gutiérrez.

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Here, editor Nuria Enguita Mayo, dance artist Aimar Pérez-Gali, and lawyer Manuel Martínez Ribas each continue Valcárcel Medina’s unsettling of the historical past with their fabulations.

Acknowledgements

18 pictures and 18 stories
Concept: Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina
Storytellers Barcelona: Nuria Enguita Mayo, Aimar Pérez-Gali, and Manuel Martínez Ribas

Supported by Corpus, an international network for performance-related work (CAC Brétigny, Greater Paris; If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam; Playground Festival in STUK arts centre/Museum M, Leuven; Tate Modern, London) financed by the European Union

Fundació Antoni Tàpies
Carrer d’Aragó, 255, 08007 Barcelona
Spain

Bilbao – 18 pictures and 18 stories

Performance

Friday 20 April 2012

Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, ’18 pictures and 18 stories (#2)’, 2012, Bulegoa z/b, Bilbao. Photo: Rocío Areán Gutiérrez.

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Here, artist Azucena Vieites, professor and curator José Díaz Cuyás, and artist Jaime Vallaure each continue Valcárcel Medina’s unsettling of the historical past with their fabulations.

Acknowledgements

Storytellers Bilbao: José Díaz Cuyás, Jaime Vallaure, Azucena Vieites

Concept: Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina

Supported by Corpus, an international network for performance-related work (CAC Brétigny, Greater Paris; If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam; Playground Festival in STUK arts centre/Museum M, Leuven; Tate Modern, London) financed by the European Union

Bulegoa z/b
Solokoetxe Kalea, 8, 48006 Bilbao, Vizcaya
Spain

Amsterdam – 18 pictures and 18 stories

Performance

Sunday 26 February 2012

Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, ‘18 pictures and 18 stories (#1)’, 2012, Het Veem Theater, Amsterdam. Photography: Rocío Areán Gutiérrez.

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A series of 18 photographs dislodge the artist’s past performances from their historical frame presenting as many actions he performed in different cities between 1965 and 1993. Many were never documented, so that this new work addresses the frictions between the live moment and the document, past and present, fact and fiction. The stories are read aloud by different writers, with the artist available by phone at each location.

For the first iteration of 18 pictures and 18 stories, three invited speakers tell a story on the basis of one of the eighteen photographs. Moosje Goosen, Esteban Pujals Gesalí and Emilio Moreno each continue Valcárcel Medina’s unsettling of the historical past with their fabulations.

During their presentations, Valcárcel Medina is available on the phone for any question the audience or speaker might want to ask him.

Acknowledgements

Storytellers: Moosje Goosen, Esteban Pujals Gesalí, Emilio Moreno

Concept: Bulegoa z/b and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina

Supported by Corpus, an international network for performance-related work (CAC Brétigny, Greater Paris; If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam; Playground Festival in STUK arts centre/Museum M, Leuven; Tate Modern, London) financed by the European Union

Special thanks to Cristina Freire, curator, A Cidade e o Estrangeiro

Veem House for Performance
Van Diemenstraat 408-410, 1013 CR Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Performance in Residence

Workshop

19 February 2011

Dutch Art Institute (DAI) participants meet with the artist and Bulegoa z/b as a starting point for a conversation on the glossary of words that the Basque initiative developed in collaboration with the artist. These words, such as ‘knowledge’, ‘production’, ‘performance’ and ‘resistance’, are often used in a self-evident way in a variety of artistic contexts. Part of If I Can’t Dance’s course at the DAI, Arnhem.

If I Can’t Dance
Westerdok 606–608, 1013 BV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Closed session

Study of a Mobile Object in Space and Time: A Visit by Isidoro Valcárcel Medina

Lecture

Friday 18 February 2011, 18hr

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Three members of the collective Bulegoa discuss with the artist their text and audio works. In Conversaciones telefónicas (1973), 80 recorded calls capture the artist offering strangers his number, arbitrarily answering their questions. In Indicios racionales de irracionalidad (Rational signs of irrationality) (2000), held during a workshop, the audience is left wondering what they had been taught. These works in which there is nothing to understand point to the artist’s idea that art cannot be taught, with contributions by Moosje Goosen among others

Acknowledgements

Produced with Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam

Veem House for Performance
Van Diemenstraat 410, 1013 CR Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Reservations required

2008–10

Artist Commissions

Keren Cytter

Keren Cytter (b. 1977, Tel Aviv. Lives in Berlin) makes films, performances, drawings and photographs that address social alienation, language and the individual in predetermined cultural systems through experimental storytelling and human perception. Developed with Dance International Europe Now, which she founded in 2008, the performance features two figures whose unexpected sex changes lead to revolution.

Show Real Drama + Book Launch D.I.E NOW: The True Story of John Webber

Book Launch & Performance

Sunday 1 July 2012

Keren Cytter, ‘Show Real Drama’ (2012), performance. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Keren Cytter, ‘D.I.E. NOW – The True Story of John Webber and His Endless Struggle with the Table of Content’, book launch. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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Based on their real lives, two young actors attempt to find work after graduating from the University of Acting in Salzburg. They make a showreel, emphasising their range through classical drama, existential embarrassment and sometimes violent movement in a collision of personal and professional life. A monograph on the artist’s first performance commissioned by If I Can’t Dance is presented between showtimes.

Acknowledgements

Director: Keren Cytter
Performers: Susie Meyer, Fabian Stumm
Director of photography: Keren Cytter, Mia Meyer
Producer: A.P.E (art projects era) (Maaike Gouwenberg)
Technical support: Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam

The presentation of Show Real Drama in Amsterdam is realised with Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, A.P.E (art projects era) and Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam and financially supported by the Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Performance: 17hr and 20hr
Book Launch: 18.30hr
Veem House for Performance
Van Diemenstraat 408–410
1013 CR Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€12, reservations required
(€5 for buffet dinner)

The True Story of John Webber and His Endless Struggle with the Table of Content, Dutch Premiere

Performance

Episode 4: From Dusk Till Dawn, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
With Performer / Audience / Mirror (2009)
Friday 19 March 2010, 20.30hr and 22.30hr

Keren Cytter, ‘Performer/Audience/Mirror’ (2010), performance. Photo: Nicholas Burrough.

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Developed over two years through live and video works, the dance-theatre play explores masquerade in identity construction, politics and, ultimately, revolution. A political activist and graphic designer are confronted by a radical sex change, which affects their daily lives with dramatic consequences. The insight and humour with which these ideas are addressed is heightened by plays on language, imagery, choreography and light that create a highly stylised presentation.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Luc van Esch, Andrew Kerton, Dafna Maimon, Susie Meyer, Fabian Stumm

Co-produced with Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin; Performa, New York; and Tate Modern, London

Plaza Futura
Leenderweg 65
5614 HL Eindhoven
The Netherlands

€12, reservations required

Also at:

Friday 15 October 2010
Tramway
25 Albert Dr
Glasgow G41 2PE
United Kingdom

Thursday 21 – Sunday 24 January 2010
With Performer / Audience / Mirror (2009) performed by Knut Berger, Susanne Sachsse
Hebbel Am Ufer
Hallesches Ufer 32
10963 Berlin
Germany

Wednesday 11 – Thursday 12 November 2009
(Then called History in the Making)
Performa 09
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10011
United States

Tuesday 3 November 2009
(Then called History in the Making)
Tate Modern
Bankside
London SE1 9TG
United Kingdom

History in the Making or the Secret Diary of Linda Schultz, World Premiere

Performance

Episode 3: Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Friday 12 June 2009, 21.30–22.30hr and Saturday 13 June 2009, 18–19hr

Keren Cytter, ‘History in the Making or The Secret Diaries of Linda Schultz’ (2009), performance.

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A man who wants to change his life divorces his wife and marries another. After a while he notices her face is changing – and, his too, drastically… almost as if it was the face of another man.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Luc van Esch, Andrew Kerton, Dafna Maimon, Susie Meyer

Co-produced with Tate Modern, London; Performa, New York; and Hebbel am Ufer Theatre, Berlin

Project Arts Centre, Space Upstairs
39 Essex St E
Temple Bar
Dublin 2
D02 RD45
Ireland

Free, reservations required

Performer/Audience/Mirror

Performance & Screening

Episode 2: Sala Rekalde, Bilbao
Performance
Thursday 12 March 2009, 18hr and Friday 13 March 2009, 19hr

Keren Cytter, ‘Performer/Audience/Mirror’ (2009), performance.

Keren Cytter, ‘History in the Making. Speaking in Tongues’ (2009), video.

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Previously called Speaking In Tongues, the performance re-interprets Dan Graham’s Performer / Audience / Mirror (1975). Actors Joao Evangelista and Rosa Escudero both experience a sex change; staying close to Graham’s performance, Evangelista describes his features and the audience’s, while Escudero recounts her memories, in a work that gradually shows how even revolution returns to the banal. Video work History in the Making: Speaking in Tongues features Giancarlo Pazzanese and Itz Goni, a culmination of the touring non-professional dance troupe D.I.E. Now and incremental performance rehearsals that developed out of this commission.

col, English

Acknowledgements

Actors (film): Itz Goni, Giancarlo Pazzanese
Performers (live): Rosa Escudero, Joao Evangelista

Light: Vinny Jones
Choreography and sound: Keren Cytter

Producer: Maaike Gouwenberg

Special thanks to all our co-producers and partners Catherine Wood, Kathy Noble, Steve Wald (Tate Modern); RoseLee Goldberg, Esa Nickle, Lillie DeArmon (Performa); Bob Bellerue, Rashida Bombray, Karen Walcott (The Kitchen); Matthias Lilienthal, Katrin Dod, Rahel Haeseler, Maria Kusche (Hebbel am Ufer); Gieske Bienert, Lidy Lathouwers, Dennis Peeters (Plaza Futura)

Centro Cívico San Francisco
Plaza Corazón de María, 4
48003 Bilbao, BI
Spain

Exhibition
Thursday 18 December 2008 – Sunday 19 April 2009
Open daily Tuesday – Saturday, 11–14hr / 17–20.30hr, Sundays and holidays, 11–14hr
Sala Rekalde
Alameda de Recalde, 30
48009 Bilbao, BI
Spain

Free, reservations recommended

History in the Making: Linda Schultz Meets John Webber

Installation & Performance

Episode 1: De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam
[link programme]
Exhibition: Tuesday 23 September – Sunday 9 November 2008

Performance: Sunday 28 September, 14hr

Keren Cytter, ‘History in the Making’ (2008), installation & performance. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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A man who wants to change his life divorces his wife and marries another. After a while he notices her face is changing – and, his too, drastically… almost as if it was the face of another man.

Acknowledgements

Performers (video installation): Daniel Almgren Recén, Luc van Esch, Joao Evangelista, Avi Krispin, Olinda Larraldale, Dafna Maimon
Performance (live): Luc van Esch, Andrew Kerton, Dafna Maimon

De Appel arts centre
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1015 DE Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Performance: Sunday 9 November 2008, 16hr
Restaurant De Peper, OT301
Performance
Overtoom 301
1054 HW Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Prologue Edition III: Keren Cytter

Lecture & Screening

Prologue: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen [link programme]
Saturday 23 August 2008, Part I: 12–14.45hr

Keren Cytter, Prologue (2008), lecture. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Keren Cytter and Lars Bang Larsen, Prologue (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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The artist’s films unite cinema, soap, home video and reality TV. Everyday life merges with absurdity and fiction merges with reality in her dense stories usually situated in private spaces. Her new commission tangles with the rift between the personality of her characters (often friends and acquaintances) and the parts they must play.

Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Neden Vandet 39
1414 Copenhagen
Denmark

Free, reservations required

Jon Mikel Euba

Jon Mikel Euba (b. 1967, Amorebieta, Spain. Lives in Bilbao) grounds his work in drawing as a procedure, sculpture and programmes, which he resolves through the use of diverse media. His ‘concert of images’ begun in 2006 activated by two cameramen, a horse and its guide, and Andy Warhol’s footage of the Velvet Underground, leads to an inexhaustible assembly of these relations in an open score.

Notes for the cameraperson in RE: Horse

Installation & Performance

Episode 4: From Dusk Till Dawn, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Exhibition: Friday 19 March 2010, 05.30hr – Saturday 20 March 2010, 18.45hr
Saturday 20 March 2010, 3.00hr

Jon Mikel Euba, ‘Notes for the cameraperson in RE: Horse’ (2010), installation. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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Situated within the installation in which his score is shown, the artist explains the score to the public live in Spanish, with a direct translation into English by Anna Meneses Dekker. He also addresses an audience in a parallel session elsewhere – MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain – where he is currently at work within primerproforma2010, a collective durational project.

Van Abbemuseum
Bilderdijklaan 10
5611 NH Eindhoven
The Netherlands

€15 / €10 discount (in combination with €12 Plaza Futura Theatre ticket for performance), reservations required
(includes meal)

MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León
Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24
24008 León
Spain

Lecture on RE: Horse

Lecture-Performance

Episode 3: Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Saturday 13 June 2009, 20–23hr
Open daily Monday – Saturday, 11–20hr

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Together with Christina Busquets, Marta Fernández Calvo, Pola Catizone, Borja Chicharro, José Miguel Jiménez, Vanessa Donoso López, Esther Montesinos, Victoria Pazos, Elisa Posadas, Laura Pulido and Noelia Ruiz, the artist analyses the fundamental elements that construct a performance and its witness.

Project Arts Centre, Space Upstairs
39 Essex St E, Temple Bar
Dublin 2, D02 RD45
Ireland

Free, reservations required

Lock-in

Lecture

Episode 2: Sala Rekalde, Bilbao
Performance

The artist worked with art students from the Fine Arts Faculty at the University of the Basque Country and other young artists from Bilbao during a month-long ‘lock-in’ at the Centro Cívico San Francisco, to organise documentation materials of his performance and reconsider its artistic strategies – namely to do with representation and identity.

Acknowledgements

Lock-in participants: Oier Iruretagoiena Arregi, Marion Cruza Le Bihan, Daniel Llaria Gaspar, Alex de las Heras Carballo, Ion Macareno Ramos, Natalia Vegas Moreno, Eva Nerea, Angela Palacios, Elena Aitzkoa Reinoso, Teresa Robles Urdiales, Mar Torre, Miren Elisabeth Varona

Centro Cívico San Francisco
Plaza Corazón de María, 4
48003 Bilbao, BI
Spain

Exhibition
Thursday 18 December 2008 – Sunday 19 April 2009
Open daily Tuesday – Saturday, 11–14hr / 17–20.30hr, Sundays and holidays, 11–14hr
Alameda de Recalde, 30
48009 Bilbao, BI
Spain

Free, reservations recommended

RE: Horse

Exhibition, Lecture-Performance, Performance, Screening & Workshop

Episode 1: De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam
Exhibition: Saturday 26 September – Monday 9 November 2008
Lecture: Sunday 28 September 2008, 13hr

Jon Mikel Euba, ‘RE: Horse’ (2008), performance. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Jon Mikel Euba, ‘Lecture on RE: Horse’ (2008), lecture performance. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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Over the course of a month, the artist presents Lecture on RE: Horse with Ricardo Cuadros and Emilio Corzo; performs RE: Horse with Bart ten Berge, Monique ten Berge, Joris Lindhout, Barbara Staffeleu and Fabel the horse; and leads a writing exercise Rewriting RE: Horse with Hilde de Bruijne, Binna Choi, Mariette Dölle, Christina Li, Lisette Smits, Steven ten Thije and Fatoş Üstek. One Minute of Silence (2006) [see If I Can’t Dance Tonight contribution for more information], is also installed as part of De Appel’s exhibition.

De Appel arts centre
Exhibition and Lecture-Performance
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1017 DB Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam
Lecture and Workshop: Saturday 8 November 2008, 18hr
Rozenstraat 59
1016 NN Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Prologue Edition III: Jon Mikel Euba

Lecture

Prologue: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen [link programme]
Saturday 23 August 2008, Part I, 12–14.45hr

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The artist discusses his commissioned work that will address relationships between stage and audience, and the script and its execution, in fusing live filming with rehearsal. Performers will improvise within the limits of a script that features a white horse in the space and the projection of Andy Warhol’s footage of a Velvet Underground rehearsal – made to be shown during live concerts – in which police burst in rendering it a document of the Factory on that day in 1966.

Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Vandet 17
Copenhagen

Free, reservations required

Olivier Foulon

Olivier Foulon (b. 1976, Brussels. Lives in Berlin) is an artist whose work considers its own critique, role and place in art history to free these entrenched notions and see them anew. Since its 2008 ‘release’ through installation and performance, this project traces the artist’s worldwide journey with camera woman Martina Radwan to film each of Gustave Courbet’s four paintings in Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl (1865) and edit them into one work.

The Soliloquy of the Broom

Book Launch & Screening

Cinéma Arenberg
Saturday 30 October 2010, 12hr and 12.30hr

The great demand for Gustave Courbet’s portrait Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl (1865) – in which artist James Whistler’s mistress and model is seen looking at herself in a mirror – coaxed the painter to make four copies located in collections around the world. Foulon brings these together on 16mm film, commenting on mass production in art and the model as template for a painting that becomes the model for another.

col, 10 min

Galerie de la Reine 26
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Free, reservations required

The Soliloquy of the Broom

Installation

Episode 4: From Dusk Till Dawn, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Exhibition: Friday 19 March 2010, 05.30h – Saturday 20 March 2010, 18.45

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Through selected works from the collection, most notably James Coleman’s So Different…And Yet (1979–80), the artist addresses art as playback, make-up and accessory.

Bilderdijklaan 10
5611 NH Eindhoven
The Netherlands

€15 / €10 discount (in combination with Plaza Futura Ticket), reservations required (includes meal)

The Soliloquy of the Broom

Installation & Screening

Episode 3: Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Exhibition: Friday 8 May – Saturday 20 June 2009
Screening: Thursday 11 June 2009, 20–20.10hr and Saturday 13 June 2009, 15.45–15.55hr

The great demand for Gustave Courbet’s portrait Jo, the Beautiful Irish Girl (1865) – in which artist James Whistler’s mistress and model is seen looking at herself in a mirror – coaxed the painter to make four copies located in collections around the world. Foulon brings these together on 16mm film, commenting on mass production in art and the model as template for a painting that becomes the model for another.

col, 10 min

Project Arts Centre, Space Upstairs
39 Essex St E, Temple Bar
Dublin 2, D02 RD45
Ireland

Free, reservations required

The Soliloquy of the Broom (II)

Installation & Lecture-Performance

Episode 2: Sala Rekalde, Bilbao
Exhibition: Thursday 18 December 2008 – Sunday 19 April 2009
Lecture-Performance: Thursday 12 March 2009, 19hr
Open daily Tuesday – Saturday, 11–14hr / 17–20.30hr, Sundays and holidays, 11–14hr

Olivier Foulon, ‘The Soliloquy Of The Broom (II)’ (2008), installation.

Olivier Foulon, ‘The Soliloquy Of The Broom (II)’ (2008), lecture performance.

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A projection is presented along with two paintings.

Sala Rekalde
Alameda de Recalde, 30
48009 Bilbao, BI
Spain

Free, reservations recommended

The Soliloquy of the Broom (I)

Installation & Lecture-Performance

Episode 1: De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam
Exhibition: Friday 26 September – Sunday 9 November 2008
Lecture-Performance: Saturday 8 November 2008, 17hr

Olivier Foulon, ‘The Soliloquy Of The Broom (I)’ (2008), installation. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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Computer prints Montpelier, New York, Kansas City are shown along with a 16mm film projection and lecture-performance.

De Appel arts centre
1017 DE Amsterdam
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Prologue Edition III: Olivier Foulon

Lecture

Prologue: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen [link programme]
Saturday 23 August 2008, Part III: 18–19.30hr

Olivier Foulon, Prologue (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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The artist introduces his work and its future development.

Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Vandet 17
Copenhagen

Free, reservations required

Tanz auf dem Rändern

Artist talk

Saturday 27 May 2005, 20.30–21.30h

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Interested in the connection between images and words, Tanz auf dem Rändern: Robert Walsers’ ‘Jetzeitstil’ (Dance on the Edges: Robert Walser’s ‘Now Time Style’) (1998) by Peter Utz and an image within Aby Warburg et l’image en mouvement (2004) by Philippe-Alain Michaud of The Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894) are points of departure. The artist starts from the position that neither title nor image come first – they are one.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Suchan Kinoshita

Suchan Kinoshita’s (b. 1960, Tokyo. Lives in Maastricht) theatre, music and visual art background feeds her non-hierarchical performances and exhibitions in which roles shift and the interaction between person and thing is a two-way street. This project literally detours away from habitual patterns in exploring mimesis and mockery and allowing performers to sidestep their personae.

In 10 Minutes

Exhibition

Saturday 9 October 2010 – Sunday 30 January 2011

Three works are presented related to the artist’s rotating platform Inbetweener: Bloomberg Disco, made in cooperation with employees at Bloomberg, London: Pro-Testing, a film by Eva Meyer and Eran Schaerf; and a work-in-progress – presently a scale model – that is a collaboration with Matt Mullican. A coinciding publication Suchan Kinoshita in 10 Minutes includes contributions by Frédérique Bergholtz and Verena Auffermann.

Acknowledgements

Museum Ludwig and the artist received the Fine Arts Prize of the Board of Trustees of the Plastics Industry

The new productions with the Inbetweener are realised with a grant from the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture and produced by If I Can’t Dance

Museum Ludwig
Heinrich-Böll-Platz

50667 Cologne
Germany

Detournement I-II-III

Installation & Performance

Episode 4: From Dusk Till Dawn, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Exhibition: Friday 19 March 2010, 5.30hr – Saturday 20 March 2010, 18.45hr
Performance: Friday 19 March 2010, 20.30hr and Saturday 20 March 2010, 8hr

Suchan Kinoshita, ‘Detournement I-II-III’ (2010), installation. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Suchan Kinoshita, ‘Detournement I-II-III’ (2010), performance. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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The performer is seated in the middle of a circular set, itself encircled by music stands with words placed on them. Any audience member can take the position of performer challenged to create narrative scenes with the random selection of nouns and verbs, pushing past traditional methods of comprehension. The installation remains in situ outside scheduled performances.

Van Abbemuseum
Bilderdijklaan 10
5611 NH Eindhoven
The Netherlands

€15 / €10 discount (in combination with €12 Plaza Futura Theatre ticket for performance), reservations required
(includes meal)

Light Conversations and Support Act

Installation & Screening

Episode 3: Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Exhibition: Friday 8 May – Saturday 20 June 2009
Screening: Thursday 11, Friday 12 and Saturday 13 June 2009, 11–20hr
Open daily Monday – Saturday, 11–20hr

Suchan Kinoshita, ‘Choreographies of Detours. Public IV with Special Skills’ (2008/09), installation. Photo: Sala Rekalde.

The viewer/listener is invited to actively interpret the interplay between light and language and respond to their visual and auditory experience. This work forms the prologue for an installation that embraces the gallery’s light plans used for theatre performance, transforming the white cube into a stage for new encounters. Support Act (2009) is also shown.

Project Arts Centre, Gallery
39 Essex St E, Temple Bar
Dublin 2, D02 RD45
Ireland

Free, reservations required

Choreographies of Detours: Public IV with Special Skills

Installation & Performance

Episode 2: Sala Rekalde, Bilbao
Exhibition: Thursday 18 December 2008 – Sunday 19 April 2009
Performance: Thursday 12 March 2009, 18–21hr and Friday 13 March 2009, 19–24hr
Open daily Tuesday – Saturday, 11–14hr / 17–20.30hr, Sundays and holidays, 11–14hr

Suchan Kinoshita, ‘Support Act’ (2009), video. Photo: Project Arts Centre.

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Six local, classically trained singers work together over a couple of days, sharing knowledge on their practice, training and techniques towards developing a choreography through the exhibition in which they enter at random, look at works and occasionally perform repetitive singing exercises focussed on breathing while sticking to their roles as visitors.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Inigo Martin Alfonso, Izaskun Kintana Arkoitza, Argine Camara Egana, Ana Begona Hernandez Soengas, Marta Velasco Urquia

Sala Rekalde
Alameda de Recalde, 30
48009 Bilbao, BI
Spain

Free, reservations recommended

Detour for an audience, two disco balls, two curtains, rear windows, a physiotherapist, a psychiatrist and a dressing table

Installation & Performance

Episode 1: De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam
Friday 26 September – Sunday 9 November 2008
Performance: Friday 26 September 2008, 18hr

Suchan Kinoshita, ‘Detour for an audience, two disco balls, two curtains, rear windows, a physiotherapist, a psychiatrist and a dressing table’ (2008), installation/performance. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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Twenty-five viewers are seated as part of the installation during the opening of the exhibition.

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1017 DE Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Prologue Edition III: Suchan Kinoshita

Lecture

Prologue: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen [link programme]
Saturday 23 August 2008, Part II: 15.45–17.45hr

Suchan Kinoshita and Lars Bang Larsen, Prologue (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Suchan Kinoshita, Prologue (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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The artist discusses her commission and how staged choreographies consider the institution’s role as an art centre and public space by offering the visitors different positionings through ‘detours’. From distant inquiry to vital embodiment, various ‘registers’ are activated. These connect, on the one hand, to a capitalist vocabulary linked to ‘function’, and on the other, to a social and emancipatory terminology related to ‘agency’.

Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Vandet 17
Copenhagen

Free, reservations required

Joachim Koester

Joachim Koester (b. 1962. Lives in New York and Copenhagen) focusses on mysticism and the surreal within social histories through, primarily, film and photography – the latter of which motivates this project. For a mime player, the artist generates routines derived from Peruvian-American writer Carlos Castanedas’s magical passes and tensegrity system.

I Myself Am Only a Receiving Apparatus

Book Launch & Lecture

Monday 17 December 2012, 19.30hr

The artist touches on past projects to convey his interest in minor histories and how these can take the form of spaces or practices where performative and subversive transformations can emerge. An after talk follows with Marco Pasi, Assistant Professor in the History of Hermetic Philosophy, University of Amsterdam, who contributes to the artists’ book on the performative and the human body in his work.

Acknowledgements

In collaboration with the Sandberg Series and Goethe-Institut Niederlande

Goethe-Institut Niederlande
Herengracht 470
1017 CA Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5 / €3 with discount, reservations required

I Myself Am Only a Receiving Apparatus

Book Launch

Wednesday 12 September 2012, 17hr

The books in the shop are a point of departure for the artist who speaks to their importance for his practice and thinking. The launch coincides with his solo exhibition that is part of the citywide Copenhagen Art Festival.

Acknowledgements

In collaboration with Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover and Kunsthal Charlottenborg

Motto Distribution, Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Kongens Nytorv 1
1050 Copenhagen
Denmark

Free

To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness (movements generated from the Magical Passes of Carlos Castaneda)

Screening

Episode 4: From Dusk Till Dawn, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven [link programme]
Friday 19 March 2010, 5.30hr – Saturday 20 March 2010, 18.45hr
With video Demonology (2010)

Joachim Koester, ‘To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness (movements generated from the Magical Passes of Carlos Castaneda)’ (2010), film screening. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

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On a 16mm loop, a mime player’s routine movements are constructed out of the so-called magical passes and tensegrity system of Peruvian-American writer Carlos Castanedas. Castanedas has written extensively on the shaman/charlatan Don Juan Matus, whose status and existence are both highly contested. Commission premiered in the From Dusk Till Dawn programme.

3 min 22 sec, bw

Van Abbemuseum
Bilderdijklaan 10
5611 NH Eindhoven
The Netherlands

€15 / €10 discount (in combination with €12 Plaza Futura Theatre ticket for performance), reservations required (includes meal)

Also screened at:

Kestner Gesellschaft
2010
Goseriede 11
30159 Hanover
Germany

Episode 3: Project Arts Centre, Dublin [link programme]
Friday 8 May – Saturday 20 June 2009
Open daily Monday – Saturday, 11–20hr
Project Arts Centre, Corridor
39 Essex St E, Temple Bar
Dublin 2, D02 RD45
Ireland

Free, reservations required

Figures of Different Characters (16mm film on dvd)

Screening

Episode 2: Sala Rekalde, Bilbao [link programme]
Exhibition: Thursday 18 December 2008 – Sunday 19 April 2009

Open daily Tuesday – Saturday, 11–14hr / 17–20.30hr, Sundays and holidays, 11–14hr
Screening: Friday 13 March 2009, 20hr

Joachim Koester, ‘Figures of Different Characters’ (2008/09), film screening. Photo: Maaike Gouwenberg

1/3

Study for To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness (movements generated from the Magical Passes of Carlos Castaneda).

Sala Rekalde
Alameda de Recalde, 30
48009 Bilbao, BI
Spain

Free, reservations recommended

Tarantism

Exhibition & Screening

Episode 1: De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam [link programme]

Friday 26 September – Sunday 9 November 2008

Joachim Koester, ‘Tarantism’ (2008), film screening. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/8

Tarantism (observed in southern Italy) results from the bite of a wolf spider, or tarantula, which causes nausea, difficulties in speech, delirium and heightened excitability. The 2007 film captures this compulsive dance in six individually choreographed parts where the body ‘released’ from control explores its own ‘terra incognita’. Presented with the artist’s photographic series Morning of the Magicians (2006) on the occult as history of the obscure.

9 min, 7 sec, bw

De Appel arts centre
1017 DE Amsterdam
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Prologue Edition III: Joachim Koester

Lecture

Prologue: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen [link programme]
Saturday 23 August 2008, Part II: 15.45–17.45hr

Prologue (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Joachim Koester and Lars Bang Larsen, Prologue (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/3

The artist discusses his new commission.

Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Vandet 17
Copenhagen

Denmark

Free, reservations required

Sarah Pierce

Sarah Pierce (b. 1968, Connecticut. Lives in Dublin) engages with archives, creating situations for debate as part of her work made under the umbrella term: The Metropolitan Complex. Shot in the Basque Country – where local art, sociology and politics students discussed Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch’s Chronique d’un été (1961) – her project expresses her longing for political and aesthetic engagement and belief in self-expression.

Sarah Pierce & Kevin Atherton in Dialogue

Conversation & Screening

Episode 4: From Dusk Till Dawn, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Open daily Friday 19 March 2010, 05.30hr – Saturday 20 March 2010, 18.45hr
Conversation: Friday 19 March 2010, 21hr
Screening: Friday 19, 05.30hr – Saturday 20 March 2010, 18.45hr

Sarah Pierce and Kevin Atherton in dialogue (2010). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/6

In follow-up to Pierce’s presentation last year of Are There Any Questions? – a performance from 1979 by artist Kevin Atherton – she invited Atherton to engage in person in a dialogue about his work, specifically the relationships between conceptual practice, self-reflexivity, audience and time. These notions are articulated in Pierce’s own practice, often in debate situations amid a search for the individual voice. Presented throughout the two days is Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch’s Chronique d’un été (1961) – where non-actors and patients engage in a sociological experiment in Paris, one of which asking passers-by ‘Are you happy?’ – aware of the systemic flaw in the exercise: the camera.

80 min, bw, French with English subtitles

Van Abbemuseum
Bilderdijklaan 10
5611 NH Eindhoven
The Netherlands

€15 / €10 discount (in combination with €12 Plaza Futura Theatre ticket for performance), reservations required (includes meal)

The Question Would Be the Answer to the Question Are You Happy?

Installation & Lecture

Episode 2: Sala Rekalde, Bilbao
Installation: Thursday 18 December 2008 – Sunday 19 April 2009
Open daily Tuesday – Saturday, 11–14hr and 17–20.30 hr, Sundays and holidays, 11–14hr
Lecture: Thursday 12 March 2009, 20hr

Sarah Pierce, ‘The Question Would Be The Answer To The Question Are You Happy?’ (2009), installation.

Sarah Pierce, ‘We Won’t Fade Away’ (2009), lecture.

1/4

The artist delivers a lecture titled We Won’t Fade Away on her work that addresses archives, debate and student activism, and the film that inspired it, which is then screened. In Chronique d’un été (1961), non-actors engage in a sociological experiment in Paris seeing one ask passers-by: ‘Are you happy?’, which the film-makers – sociologist Edgar Morin and anthropologist and Jean Rouch – ultimately analyse with those involved in the production.

80 min, bw, French with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

The Question Would Be the Answer to the Question Are You Happy? was produced with a grant from the Arts Council, Ireland

Sala Rekalde
Alameda de Recalde, 30
48009 Bilbao, BI
Spain

Free, reservations recommended

An Artwork in the Third Person

Installation, Performance & Screening

Episode 3: Project Arts Centre, Dublin
Exhibition, Cube: Friday 8 May – Saturday 20 June 2009
Open daily Monday – Saturday, 11–20hr
Performance (Are There Any Questions?), Space Upstairs: Thursday 11 June 2009, 20.30–21.30hr
Screening/Discussion, Cube: Friday 12 June 2009, 17–20hr
Performance, Cube: Saturday 13 June 2009, 16–16.30hr

Sarah Pierce, ‘An Artwork in the Third Person’ (2009), installation.

Sarah Pierce, ‘Are There Any Questions?’ (2009), performance.

Sarah Pierce and Caroline Hancock in dialogue (2009), conversation and film screening.

1/12

Nine interviews with art students deal with performance and ‘presentness’ against a backdrop of the host institution’s archival material, addressing visibility and disappearance to highlight the potential for dissent. A screening of Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch’s Chronique d’un été (1961) – where non-actors engage in a sociological experiment in Paris, one of which asking passers-by: ‘Are you happy?’ – is followed by a discussion with curator Caroline Hancock on the artist’s idea of ‘being student’ as a state of immediacy.

80 min, bw, French with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Installation with: Buba Cvoric, Teresa María Díaz Nerio, Tzvika Gutter, Rana Hamadeh, Seda Manavoglu, Barbara Philipp, Eva Schippers, James Skunca, Marina Tomic, Yen Yitzu, Veridiana Zurita (all Dutch Art Institute, Enschede)

Project Arts Centre, Cube
39 Essex St E, Temple Bar
Dublin 2, D02 RD45
Ireland

Free, reservations required

It’s Palpable in the Air

Installation

Episode 1: De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam
Friday 26 September – Sunday 9 November 2008

1/4

Video, audio, projections, coloured sheets and presentation furniture with pieces from De Appel’s archive are part of It’s Time Man. It Feels Imminent (2008 – ongoing), which interrogates the emptying-out of the political gesture and the way in which agency is negotiated in public space. Here, this research is expanded to think about how people organise (their political and social commitment) around and through institutions.

De Appel arts centre
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1015 DE Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Prologue Edition III: Sarah Pierce

Lecture

Prologue: Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen [link programme]
Saturday 23 August 2008, Part III, 18–19.30hr

1/2

The artist introduces The Metropolitan Complex, a term she uses to describe her work. Despite its institutional resonance, this title does not signify an organisation. Instead, it demonstrates the artist’s broad understanding of cultural work, articulated through various discursive working methods involving papers, interviews, archives, talks and exhibitions.

Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art
Vandet 17
1414 Copenhagen
Denmark

Free, reservations required

Masquerade

Reading Group Amsterdam

Reading Group Bilbao

Radio Emma

Reader

Programme

Ruth Buchanan

Ruth Buchanan (b. 1980, New Plymouth. Lives in Berlin) uses prints, texts, sculptures, films, performances and audio to interrogate the powerful social organisation systems of exhibition spaces.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Ruth Buchanan: Circular Facts – Lying Freely Part II

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Wednesday 21 October 2009, 20hr

1/11

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days. She was found in a hotel under a false name, claiming amnesia. Years later, the mystery was attributed to fugue, which causes a person to flee their current circumstances and often their identity. Among the artist’s ‘meetings’ with the practices of well-known women writers in Lying Freely – also Virginia Woolf and Janet Frame – the work considers the desire to disappear and the presence required to remain so.

Acknowledgements

Co-produced with Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht; Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht; and the Showroom, London

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10 / €7,50 discount, reservations required

Keren Cytter

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Keren Cytter

Performance & Screening

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Sunday 21 December 2008, 16hr

Keren Cytter, film screening (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Melanie Bonajo & Irina Birger, performance (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/21

This selection of films made by the artist – some never before shown – relate to her commission History in the Making, which evolves through live and video works into a dance-theatre play that addresses the encounter of performing and filming. In History, protagonists in a process of radical gender change attempt societal change and test out new identities in social life. Concluded with a contribution by artists Melanie Bonajo (music) and Irina Birger (dance) in which the audience is invited to participate.

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Yael Davids

Yael Davids (b. 1968, Jerusalem. Lives in Amsterdam) creates work in which the human body plays a central part, informed by her studies in visual arts, choreography and dance education.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Yael Davids: Learning to Imitate

Lecture-Performance & Seminar

If I Can’t Dance Tonight

Wednesday 25 November 2009, 20hr

Lecture-Performance

1/11

The artist circumvents the ‘lecture’ format by analysing its components – audience, stage, voice, space – in order to articulate ideas in their seminal state. Through theatre, cinema, literature and law, the voice is considered and ‘work’ is positioned at the core of action. The following day in a seminar with critic and curator Lars Bang Larsen and Bloomberg Space, London curator Vanessa Desclaux, the artist reflects on the performance.

Frascati

Nes 63

1012 KD Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€10 / €7,50 discount, reservations required

Thursday 26 November 2009

Seminar

Piet Zwart Institute

Karel Doormanhof 45

3012 GC Rotterdam

The Netherlands

Closed seminar

Jon Mikel Euba

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Jon Mikel Euba

Performance & Screening

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Wednesday 14 May 2008, 20–24hr

Jon Mikel Euba, ‘One Minute’ (2008), video. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Melanie Bonajo & Voin de Voin, futuristic folkloric dance (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/23

The six video works in One Minute of Silence (2006) shot from 2003–05 in Korea, Spain and Turkey and based on the artist’s eponymous book capture Euba’s fascination with the gestures and poses of rock stars, and the mistakes and breaks of the rehearsal. The screening of the videos is followed by a conversation with curator and writer Peio Aguirre. The evening is concluded by a contribution by artist Melanie Bonajo and a futuristic folkloric dance with the audience, directed by Voin de Voin.

Acknowledgements

One Per Minute, Seven Minutes in Istanbul, 2005, col, 7 min, col

One Per Minute, Five Minutes in Istanbul, 2005, 5 min, col

Busan, 2005, col, 27 min, col

One Minute in Busan, 2005, 15 min, col

Neska, 2005, 22 min, col

Neska La Noche, 2005, 20 min, col

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Luca Frei

Luca Frei (b. 1976, Lugano, Switzerland. Lives in Malmö) makes work that often concerns pedagogy and play in the shape of architectural interventions, narrative or presentation structures that invite dialogue with the audience.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Luca Frei: 1012 KD

Performative Installation

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Tuesday 16 February 2010, 20hr

1/13

Small groups of audience members are invited to walk through a dense forest of coloured transparent and opaque partition walls that hang from the ceiling, some of which rotating in place. Visitors are also allowed to come upstairs into the lighting box to have a view from above, crossing over conventional orientations within the theatre space. Performer Tanja Baudoin calmly manoeuvres through the labyrinth on a fast bike.

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10 / €7,50 discount, reservations required

Aurélien Froment

Aurélien Froment (b. 1976, Angers, France. Lives in Dublin) explores how the periphery of display systems, understood in a broad way, operate from the gallery to the screen to the page in a work performed by Youri Dirkx (b. 1972, Belgium. Lives in Brussels) who is a member of the Brussels-based theatre company Tristero.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Youri Dirkx and Aurélien Froment: In Order of Appearance

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Tuesday 26 January 2010, 20hr

1/10

A draft version of the gallery space is the abstract playground where objects in transit (from 2009 exhibitions at venues including Gasworks, London and CCA Wattis, San Francisco) are handled and artworks are transformed several times to interpolate their identity and function. The piece explores the changing view of objects depending on context.

Acknowledgements

Performer: Youri Dirkx
Models, props and artworks: courtesy Aurélien Froment and Motive Gallery, Amsterdam
Dramaturgy consultant: Myriam Van Imschoot

Coproduced with Playground and STUK, Leuven and supported by Etant Donnés and the Kadist Art Foundation

Frascati, Frascati II
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10 / €7,50 discount, reservations required

The Otolith Group

The Otolith Group (est. 2002 by Kodwo Eshun (b. 1966, London) and Anjalika Sagar (b. 1968, London). Based in London) create films, installations and performances that are driven by extensive research into the histories of science fiction and the legacies of transnationalism.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with the Otolith Group: Otolith III and A Long Time Between Suns

Book Launch & Screening & Talk

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Tuesday 15 December 2009, 20–23hr

The Otolith Group, ‘A Long Time Between Suns’ (2009), book launch. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

The Otolith Group, ‘Otolith III’ (2009), film screening. Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/7

In Otolith III, film-maker Satyajit Ray’s unrealised screenplay The Alien (1967) is replayed as competing past potential futures. The artists discuss the film and their book A Long Time Between Suns with its designer Will Holder, joined by curator Grant Watson and If I Can’t Dance director Frédérique Bergholtz. Long Time details their eponymous first solo show in London and includes contributions by T.J. Demos, Jean Matthee, Diana McCarty and Mark Sinker.

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€10 / €7,50 discount, reservations required

Emma Hedditch

Emma Hedditch (b. 1972, Somerset. Lives in London) is a visual artist whose work focusses on daily practice, culture and distribution of knowledge as political actions; she is an active member of Cinenova, dedicated to the distributing of films and videos made by women.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Emma Hedditch: When I Do This, Can You Feel Something?

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Sunday 29 March 2009, 16–20hr

1/2

This exploration of the rituals and behaviours produced by performance engages with the social aspect it incites together with the audience. The artist is interested in investigating ‘how the situation of performance throws up possibilities to explore with a group of people, in a given time and space, the limits and affects of this experience, indexically’.

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Suchan Kinoshita

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Suchan Kinoshita

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Wednesday 18 June 2008, 20–23hr

Melanie Bonajo & Kinga Kielczynska, trance dance (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/17

In conversation with dramaturg Igor Dobričić, the artist revisits relations between beholder, performer and artist/director in former works. Several moments during her professional life pass in revue and introduce interlocutors who have taken her in new directions. She reads a piece by John Cage and performs over a loudspeaker with If I Can’t Dance curators Frédérique Bergholtz and Annie Fletcher.

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Joachim Koester

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Joachim Koester

Conversation, Lecture & Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Sunday 28 September 2008, 16–18hr

Joachim Koester, lecture (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

Melanie Bonajo & Janneke Raaphorst, jive performance (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/12

Providing insight into his fascination with hypnagogia, the transitional state between sleep and wakefulness, the artist reads from his work Nanking Restaurant: Tracing Opium in Calcutta (2006) followed by a conversation with writer and curator Lars Bang Larsen on the subconscious. At the close of the afternoon artists Melanie Bonajo and Janneke Raaphorst invite the audience into the world of jive.

Frascati, Frascati III
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Ivana Müller

Ivana Müller (b. Croatia. Lives in Amsterdam and Paris) makes dance and theatre performances, installations, text works, video-lectures, audio pieces, guided tours and web works that concern the body and its representation, self-invention, imaginary and imagination, authorship and the relationship between performer and spectator.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Ivana Müller: Thank You For Making Me the Artist IM

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Tuesday 16 June 2009, 20hr

1/7

To look at ‘biography’ and ‘expectation’, practitioners propose what they think the artist would or should do for this commission. In the invitation to these contributors, the artist writes: ‘It seems to me that a short biography is a piece of conventional writing that is always on the verge of fiction because through it, although it should mostly contain facts, we always have to (re)invent ourselves.’

Acknowledgements

Made by: Bill Aitchison, Frédérique Bergholtz, Andrea Božić, Nils De Coster, Katja Dreyer, Martin Kaffarnik, Bojana Kunst, Barbara Van Lindt, Gaëlle Obiégly, Paz Rojo, Robert Steijn, David Weber-Krebs and many others

Co-produced with I’M’COMPANY and supported by the Netherlands Fund for Performing Arts

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Maria Pask

Maria Pask (b. 1969, Cardiff. Lives in Amsterdam) investigates collective creativity, empowerment and the live moment through open formats and social structures that involve everything from sculpture and film to workshops, scripts, live performances and events.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Maria Pask: 4 F-ER

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Tuesday 21 April 2009, 20hr

1/3

The result of workshops with young Dutch women and musicians, the main characters and concerns are connected with the ‘Four F’s’ that denote the four basic drives humans have adapted over the course of evolution: feeding, fighting, fleeing and fertility. The script follows reflections on what to do and be, with choreography of gestures aroused by the 4 F’s.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Inger Koerselman, Steven Leijen, Anne-Marie van Rees, Adriënne Wennekes
Musicians: David Hazeleger, Marijn Jongewaard, Steven Leijen
Choreography: Esther de Vlam
Script: Maria Pask

Co-produced with M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp

Special thanks: Helena Pask, David Powell, Adva Zakai

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Thursday 4 December 2008, 20hr
M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp
Leuvenstraat 32
2000 Antwerp
Belgium

Sarah Pierce

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Sarah Pierce

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Sunday 30 November 2008, 16–18hr

Anne de Vries & Voin de Voin, disco spirit (2008). Photo: Sal Kroonenberg.

1/16

Part of It’s Time Man. It Feels Imminent (2008 – ongoing) in which the artist interrogates the emptying-out of the political gesture and agency in public space, the work engages with how people speak about the political in art and 1970s Conceptual art. Pierce re-enacts Kevin Atherton’s 1979 artist talk ‘Are There Any Questions?’ as stand-in for her performance, later inviting the artist for a conversation. Following artists Anne de Vries (music) and Voin de Voin (dance) initiate a dance session focussing on ‘disco spirit’.

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Jimmy Robert

Jimmy Robert (b. 1975, Guadeloupe. Lives in Brussels) explores the corporeal potential of a range of media including photography, drawing, film, video, sculpture and performance.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with Jimmy Robert: Figure de Style

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Wednesday 27 May 2009, 20hr

1/9

Yoko Ono’s seminal Cut Piece from 1964 is reworked with a gender switch and a modification that changes it from a ‘cut’ piece to a ‘rip’ piece centred around the politics of touching and being touched and which embodies an interest in literature and gesture.

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Teresa María Díaz Nerio and Stefanie Seibold

Teresa María Díaz Nerio (b. 1982, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Lives in Amsterdam) works with language, text, performance and video, and together with Stefanie Seibold (b. 1967, Stuttgart. Lives in Vienna) creates installations and performances that question strategies of visibility and defer fixed areas of meaning in order to provide new narrative structures.

If I Can’t Dance Tonight with S. Seibold and T. M. Díaz Nerio: ~~the jungle is a skyscraper~~

Performance

If I Can’t Dance Tonight
Tuesday 22 September 2009, 20hr

1/7

The costume politics of legendary jazz formation Sun Ra Arkestra combine music, politics and science fiction towards emancipatory narratives such as afro-futurism. With this as starting point, consonance and dissonance, shape and shapelessness or the known and the unknown, are renegotiated within objects and newly combined in sounds, surfaces, textures and materials as the locus of the

Acknowledgements

Co-produced with M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp

Special thanks: Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten

Frascati
Nes 63
1012 KD Amsterdam
The Netherlands

€5, reservations required

Also at:

Friday 10 December 2010, 20hr
Part of Textiles – Art and the Social Fabric, 10 September 2009–3 January 2010
Curated by Grant Watson
M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp
Leuvenstraat 32
2000 Antwerp
Belgium

2006–08

Edition II

Feminist Legacies and Potentials

Programme

March 2006 – January 2008

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the programme of Edition II – Feminist Legacies and Potentials in Contemporary Art Practice.

What is valid for all the practices of the artists involved in the programme is their approach to the legacy of feminism as a vivid source for extrapolating ideas for change, and ideas of difference. Jacques Derrida recognized that Emma Goldman’s statement “If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution” had both potential for feminism and for the re-consideration of the status quo. We recognize a relation between the artistic practices of the artists we work with and Goldman’s statement, as they connote the power to open up new, non-determined registers. Registers which come into being by and are opened up through both acts of construction and contestation.

Feminist Legacies and Potentials is developed in collaboration with Huis a/d Werf (Utrecht), de Appel (Amsterdam), and M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp).

Venues across The Netherlands and Belgium

Artist Commissions

Alexandra Bachzetsis

Alexandra Bachzetsis (b. 1974, Zurich. Lives in Basel) is a performance artist and choreographer interested in the representation of femininity and the mass-cultural infatuation with the female body. She has authored and co-authored several works and in 2008 co-founded the artist collective Company with Tina Bleulern and Lies Vanborm.

Act

Performance

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel Performance Programme

Thursday 16 November 2006

1/4

Artist collective Company lock their gaze on the ultra-feminine art of slowly taking off your clothes. Two young women dressed in pedestrian grey mirror each other in a robotic striptease that ends amid a wicked stroboscopic light show. Amusing instead of arousing, the work maintains a certain sexiness as it dissects the gestures that define the pleasurable art of disrobing.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Alexandra Bachzetsis, Tina Bleuler, Lies Vanborm
Music: Steve Slingeneyer, Stefaan Van Leuven
Costumes: Tatiana Vilkitskaia
Production: We Love Productions

Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, the work is co-produced with De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam and supported by Pro Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland, Kulturstiftung des Bundes/DE, Kanton Zurich and Pact Zollverein Essen

Special thanks to Les Ballets C de la B, Gent; Vooruit, Ghent; Rote Fabrik, Zurich; Gessnerallee, Zürich; Athanasios Bachzetsis; Alfred Bleuler; Julia Born and Graphic Design Department, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam; Ann Demeester; Stephen Dewaele, David Blum, Helga Duchamps, Martena Duss, Pascale Gatzen and Fashion Department ArtEZ, Arnhem; Patrick Frank; Catja Loepfe; Laura Vanborm; Marc Vanborm; Yasmien Wenger

Zonnehuis, Amsterdam

Zonneplein 30

1033 EK Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Musical

Performance

Episode 1: Huis a/d Werf

Tuesday 23 – Wednesday 24 May 2006, 20:00hr

1/6

A series of classic musicals and elaborated karaoke style-video works mimic and refer to particular scenes or moods from musicals stretching from the 1920s to the 1990s that favoured ‘clear cut’ male and female roles played out in love stories. Characterization is rigidly determined by sexuality rendering women coquettish, graceful, funny, ditzy – at times sophisticated and seductive – but always gendered.

Acknowledgements

Concept and choreography: Alexandra Bachzetsis
Music: Lies Vanborm
Video: Hans Van Nuffel, Rutger De Brabander
Costumes: Frederick Denis, Isabelle Lhoas
Performers: Vela Arbutina, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Philippe Beloul, Anna Geering, Otobong Nkanga, Ayelen Parolin, Diederik Peeters, Gosie Vervloessem, Voin de Voin
Artistic advice: Lies Vanborm, Vela Arbutina, David Blum, mentors DasArts, Helga Duchamps, Joffrey Moolhuizen, Own, Julia Born, Martin Zimmermann, Katrin Glaus, Tina Bleuler, Jasmin Wenger
Production: Helga Duchamps, Brussel

Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance and co-produced with Vooruit, Gent; Theater Gessnerallee, Zurich; Huis a/d Werf, Utrecht; and DasArts Final Project, Amsterdam

Supported by Pro-Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland, Präsidialdepartment der Stadt Zürich and Mondriaan Foundation

Special thanks to Kaaitheaterstudio’s, Jonathan Wannyn

Huis a/d Werf, Utrecht

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Gold

Performance

Sunday 22 May 2005, 20.30–21h

1/4

This ‘sun-tanned tits and ass proposition’ focusses on the eroticised feminine body in R&B culture, deconstructing visual and verbal strategies used in the music videos. The viewer’s expectation of closeness with the dancer’s body is foiled by the performer’s sudden shifts, pulling back or moving forward, and the further level of mediation through a video projection.

Acknowledgements

Artistic advice: Danai Anesiadou, David Blum, Lies van Borm
Production: Helga Duchamps

Supported by Pro Helvetia Arts Council of Switzerland

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf
Huis a/d Werf, Koepelzaal
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Will Holder

Will Holder (b. 1969, Hatfield, UK. Lives in London) teaches graphic design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and is editor of F.R.DAVID. He is currently editing and designing a biography of Robert Ashley (with Alex Waterman) and rewriting William Morris’s News from Nowhere (An epoch of rest) into a design education and practice guide set in 2135. As an artist, writer, editor and designer he explores transformative processes at play in the act of publishing.

Recital of Gertrude Stein’s The Making of the Americans, Being a History of a Family’s Progress

Performance

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel Performance Programme

Saturday 13 – Sunday 14 January 2007

13–19hr

1/4

Will Holder presents a Recital of Gertrude Stein’s The Making of the Americans, Being a History of a Family’s Progress (1925).

De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

News from Nowhere

Performance

Thursday 25 May 2005, 20.30–21.30h

1/2

A reading of News from Nowhere (1890) by William Morris, a utopian tale set in 2003. As it is outdated in language and social construction, Holder is rewriting the text and tale projecting it another 113 years into the future.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf
Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Karl Holmqvist

Karl Holmqvist (b. 1964, Västerås, Sweden. Lives in Berlin and Stockholm) works with language-based art, presented in exhibitions both in written formats and as spoken word performances. For his commission he deepens his investigation of spoken word performance with concrete poetry gleaning insight from feminist artists.

Facehug

Performance

Episode 4: M HKA, De Appel, De Balie, Huis a/d Werf

Friday 2 and Saturday 3 November 2007 22.15–22.45hr

1/5

Holmqvist refers to works by Martha Rosler, Lucy McKenzie and others. The performance is related to his eponymous publication in which he invites artists who in their work take a position towards the practices of other artists. The first issue consists of photo collages and poetry.

Huis a/d Werf

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

€13 / €15 (with meal) provides entry to all performances on one evening, reservations required

Kusama Forever

Performance

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel Performance Programme

Saturday 18 November 2006, 16.15–16.45

Appropriation and identity through writing are explored in this new work in which the artist reads the writing of artist Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929).

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Hilde de Bruijn

De Balie

Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10

1017 RR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Scumbags & Cie

Installation

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel Performance Programme

Thursday 16 November – Sunday 7 January 2007

Open daily Tuesday – Sunday, 11–18hr

Opening: 16 November 2006, 17–20hr

Holmqvist pays homage to the artist Yayoi Kusama by remaking certain elements of her spectacular visceral installations. Fetish-like objects appear on plinths, for example, Black Kusama Shoes and a bag called Black Kusama Refugee Bag. The presentation connotes her distinctive style but is rendered by Holmqvist’s own hand. He accompanies the installation with a large print called Joke Painting and a photocopy edition called Sex and Drugs.

De Appel arts centre

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

I ON A LION IN ZION

Performance

Prologue: Saturday 11 March 2006

1/2

The spoken word performance involves a reading from the artist’s book of the same name, which makes use of the ‘cut-up’ technique (first invented by Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs) and mixes excerpts of texts from three centuries and over thirty different writers.

Huis a/d Werf

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Jutta Koether

Jutta Koether (b. Cologne, 1958. Lives in New York) works in the field of painting, performance, music and art criticism. She is equally ‘multipurpose’ with her use of translucent colour fields, gestural brushstroke, foreboding black landscapes, female form and the appropriation of poetry, lyrics and imagery from history and pop culture. Her work flips between an exuberant visual experience and a witty, rigorous critique of aesthetics.

Leibhaftige Malerei

Installation

Episode 4: M HKA, De Appel, De Balie, Huis a/d Werf

Friday 26 October 2007 – Sunday 6 January 2008

1/5

This installation includes four paintings that reinterpret two paintings by Rubens, giving form to the artist’s interest in ‘European history when painting was still innovative’. While Koether’s role has long been reduced to a feminist response to the Cologne scene of the late 1980s, her paintings reflect a critical position both towards the production and the reception of art.

M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp

Leuvenstraat 32

2000 Antwerp

Belgium

Touch and Resist

Performance and Exhibition

Episode 3: Huis a/d Werf

Performance: Sunday 21 – Monday 22 May 2007

Exhibition: Friday 18 – Sunday 27 May 2007

1/4

For Koether, painting is not an autonomous medium, but rather a ‘vehicle’. She has said that painting, for her, could as easily be a flyer, piece of scenery or music. The artist’s work is an intense exploration of feminist ideas in relation to painting.

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Attestation (What was it before it exploded)?

Exhibition

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel Performance Programme

Thursday 16 November – Sunday 7 January 2007

Open daily Tuesday – Sunday, 11–18hr

Opening: 16 November 2007, 17–20hr

1/2

An intense reworking of paintings communicate the artist’s interest ‘in European history when painting was still innovative’. Her reinterpretation of Courbet’s canonical Origine du Monde (after Courbet) is added to a series of paintings and drawings that include the two versions La Femme (after Cezanne) and small La Femme (after Cezanne).

De Appel arts centre

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

The Otolith Group

The Otolith Group (est. 2002 by Kodwo Eshun (b. 1966, London) and Anjalika Sagar (b. 1968, London) create films, installations and performances that are driven by extensive research into the histories of science fiction and the legacies of transnationalism.

Otolith II, Dutch Premiere

Screening

Episode 3: Huis a/d Werf

Introduction by the artists:

Thursday 17 May 2007, 20hr

Screenings:

Daily Friday 18 – Sunday 20 May 2007 15hr, 16hr, 17hr, 18hr, 19hr, 20hr

1/4

An archive left by Anjalika Sagar’s grandmother – a leading feminist in 1960s India – moved the collective to place new and existing footage within a fictional framework, showing how women of the lowest castes in India drive Bombay’s impressive shanty towns as cities of the future. This architectural history is narrated by a fictional narrator from the twenty-second century, an apt follow-up to 1950s-centric Otolith I, with its photographic archive of communist Indian feminists.

48 min 42 sec, col, English and Hindi, with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Co-produced with Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht; ARGOS Centre for Art & Media, Brussels; and Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels

Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory

Nieuwekade 213–215
3511 RW Utrecht

The Netherlands

Stedelijk Insert: Just in Time

Screening

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel Performance Programme

1 December 2006 – 11 March 2007

As part of the exhibition Just in Time (Gemeenteaankopen), If I Can’t Dance proposes a contribution in response to curator Maxine Kopsa’s question: ‘what is necessary?’ Answering ‘global feminism’, we put forth the Otolith Group’s selection from the archive of Anjalika Sagar’s grandmother – a leading feminist in 1960s India – used in the film Otolith II. With De Appel archivist Nell Donkers, IICD also presents feminist-informed exhibition documents related to the Stedelijk in an installation by Stefanie Siebold.

Stedelijk Museum CS, Amsterdam

Oosterdokskade 5

1011AB Amsterdam

Free, reservations required

Otolith I

Performance

Episode 1: Huis a/d Werf

Wednesday 23 – Thursday 24 May 2006, 21:30hr

1/3

The Otolith Group’s collaboration with artist Richard Couzins results in this 2003 film essay that embodies the ‘otolith’ – the small particle in the middle ear that provides balance – narrated by Dr Usha Adelbaran Sagar from space in 2103. In reflection on utopian projects, the fictional descendant of Anjalika Sagar looks back at the Sagar women including Anjalika’s grandmother who met with cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, amid images of mushroom clouds, London peace marches and 1970s home videos in London and Haridwar.

22 min, col, English

Huis a/d Werf

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Maria Pask

Maria Pask (b. 1969, Cardiff. Lives in Amsterdam) investigates collective creativity, empowerment and the live moment through open formats and social structures that involve everything from sculpture and film to workshops, scripts, live performances and events.

The Birds and the Bees

Performance

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel Performance Programme

Saturday 13 January 2007, 17.30–18hr

1/7

By thinking about reproduction as part of classic feminist discourse, the artist investigates the nuts and bolts of procreation with Esther de Vlam.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Vela Arbutina, Melanie Bonajo, Carolin Reichert, Tania Theodorou, Marianne Vierø
Percussion: Simon de Swaaf

De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Family Stars

Conversation & Performance

Tuesday 23 May 2005, 20–21h

1/5

This project has seen families from Amsterdam Zuid Oost create short plays or songs with a serious personal or political issue presented in a light-hearted way to other family members and friends. The artist speaks on how the positive aspects of family life can resurface unknown talents towards creating something together and trying out new things in forgetting former embarrassments. Veronica van de Kamp and Pius Mensah perform an example of the project’s results titled Closed Doors.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf
Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Sarah Pierce

Sarah Pierce (b. 1968) works with installation, performance, archives, talks and papers, often opening these up to the personal and the incidental in ways that challenge received histories and accepted forms. Her interests include radical pedagogies and student work, art historical legacies and figures such as El Lissitzky, August Rodin, and Eva Hesse, and theories of community and love founded in Maurice Blanchot and Georges Bataille.

‘Untitled’

Installation

Episode 4: M HKA, De Appel, De Balie, Huis a/d Werf

Exhibition: Friday 26 October 2007 – Sunday 6 January 2008

1/5

A meticulous re-creation of Hesse’s Untitled (Rope Piece) (1970) hangs from the ceiling, along with archival material from the Kent State University shootings of 1970 and student drawings by Pierce’s mother, who worked around the same time as Hesse. The work enacts a kind of forensic examination of the cultural and political conditions that define and frame an artist’s practice.

M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp

Leuvenstraat 32

2000 Antwerp

Belgium

Reading from ‘The Meaning of Greatness’

Conversation

Episode 2: De Appel

Performance Programme

Saturday 13 – Sunday 14 January 2007, 15–16hr

1/3

The artist performs in relation to iconic artists of the twentieth-century in an attempt to recuperate or critique the figure and the work itself on its own terms rather than accepting how they were critically read in the past as women rather than artists. Pierce carries out a series of readings over the course of this edition called ‘The Meaning of Greatness’ in which she negotiates her own relationship to the figure of Eva Hesse.

De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Falke Pisano

Falke Pisano (b. 1978, Amsterdam) lives and works in Berlin. Her diagrammatic works expose a loop, in which shifting abstract sculptural forms are conceived directly in relation to written and spoken language, implying an ongoing and morphing production of meaning.

Chillida (Forms & Feelings)

Installation

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel

Thursday 16 November – Sunday 7 January 2007

Open daily Tuesday – Sunday, 11–18hr

Opening: 16 November 2007, 17–20hr

1/4

Addressing the question that permeates the exhibition – ‘where am I in this?’ – the artist’s slide and sound piece reflects on her own and others’ interpretative relationship with a ‘classic’ work of abstract sculpture: Eduardo Chillida’s Come of the Winds (1977).

De Appel arts centre

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Introduction to the Possibilities of Abstraction

Lecture

Thursday 25 May 2005, 21.30–22h

1/3

As methodically and visibly as possible, the artist performs the act of thinking, however random, looking at how we produce knowledge in wandering through associations. The process is not stream of consciousness, but meticulously systematized and scripted as a way to order her thinking.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf
Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Stefanie Seibold

Stefanie Siebold (b. 1967, Lives in Linz) is an artist and teacher who works with performance, collage, sound, and video installations. In her work, she often engages in the recontextualisation of (historical) images, texts, and quotes. She also teaches in the Fine Arts Department of the Art University of Linz.

Crystal C Don’t Copy Me

Performance

Episode 4: M HKA, De Appel, De Balie, Huis a/d Werf

Symposium: Feminist Legacies and Potentials

Sunday 28 October 2007, 18–18.30hr

1/5

The performance links diverse materials, costumes, music, found-footage and quotations to references from pop-queer-everyday-normal-life cultural elements into a loosely knitted web of doppelgänger-souls, mirrored images, bad copies and corrupted twins. It is a notation of collapsing dances, cut out songs, fetishisized representations and intricate text-fragments performed in the classic neutral-doer style.

Acknowledgements

With Stefanie Seibold and Christine Lemke

De Balie

Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10

1017 RR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

€15 (includes meal), reservations required

A READER – Wallpaper

Installation

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel

Archive De Appel: Thursday 16 November – Sunday 7 January 2007

Open daily Tuesday – Sunday, 11–18hr

Opening: 16 November 2007, 17–20hr

1/5

De Appel archivist Nell Donkers and If I Can’t Dance excavate elements of the De Appel archive since its founding in 1975 when it began a feminist trajectory under the guidance of Wies Smals and later Saskia Bos. The artist’s installation houses these texts and other ephemera by artists such as Carolee Schneemann, Moniek Toebosch, Martha Wilson, Gina Pane and Joan Jonas.

De Appel arts centre

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

I am not half the man I used to be

Performance

Episode 1: Huis a/d Werf

Friday 26 May – Saturday 27 May 2006

1/9

The performance explores the possibilities of meaning-making in connection to gender and sexuality by placing a range of signs and symbols in new contexts. A common thread in the artist’s work is the question of how gender and sex are constructed. By presenting symbols in certain combinations and thus evoking unexpected associations, she makes it clear that gender and sex are constructions rather than natural essences. In her performance, Seibold looks for the gaps and cracks in these constructions; because it is precisely in these interstices that alternative meanings can be located, a potential that reveals itself within what she calls a ‘carnivalesque logic.’

Acknowledgements

With Stefanie Seibold and Margit Brünner

Huis a/d Werf, Utrecht

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

A READER

Publication

Episode 1: Huis a/d Werf

Friday 26 May – Saturday 27 May 2006

1/2

A READER is a bundle with three posters that is freely distributed to festival visitors when

purchasing a ticket. The posters are an arrangement of various materials – ranging from photos to newspaper articles, from drawings to posters, from quotes to song lyrics, from propaganda slogans to manifestos and works and samples from the artist herself. What started as a bulletin board with documentation from the artist grew into a larger work that can be read as an image atlas. It is a visual archive that goes beyond storing and collecting. A READER creates new meanings by actively drawing connections between disparate materials, thereby making visible the performative processes of arranging and restructuring gendered signs.

Huis a/d Werf, Utrecht

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

I am not half the man I used to be

Performance

Tuesday 23 May 2005, 21–21.30h

1/4

In her new project, the performance ‘I’m not half the man I used to be’, Stefanie Seibold explores the possibilities of meaning-making in connection to gender and sexuality by placing a range of signs and symbols in new contexts. A common thread in Seibold’s work is the question of how gender and sex are constructed. By presenting symbols in certain combinations and thus evoking unexpected associations, she makes it clear that gender and sex are constructions rather than natural essences. In her performance, Seibold looks for the gaps and cracks in these constructions; because it is precisely in these interstices that alternative meanings can be located, a potential that reveals itself within what she calls a ‘carnivalesque logic’.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf
Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Frances Stark

Frances Stark (b. 1967, California) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, whose work centers on the use and meaning of language, and the translation of this process into the creative act.

Structures That Fit My Opening

Film

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel

Thursday 16 November – Sunday 7 January 2007

Open daily Tuesday – Sunday, 11–18hr

Opening: 16 November 2007, 17–20hr

1/5

An intense positionality is communicated through the balancing act as artist, teacher, woman and mother, in a consideration of how to reflect and produce in a complex manner beyond the prescribed limits of each role. This performative strength is present also in the writings and drawing within her book The Architect and the Housewife.

De Appel arts centre

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Haegue Yang

Haegue Yang (b.1971, Seoul) works with a wide range of media, including collage, performance, installation, and sculpture. Yang’s body of work often features quotidian and domestic found objects ranging from tea cozies to cans of Spam. The artist dissociates such materials from their original contexts, rearranging them into abstract compositions that build upon a unique and personal visual vocabulary.

Suppression and Distraction

Installation

Episode 4: M HKA, De Appel, De Balie, Huis a/d Werf

28 October 2007 – 6 January 2008

1/4

In her installation, the artist engages with systems of order and standard products. What basic assumptions and behavioural expectations are manifested in them and thus passed on to users? Which elements is identity made of? By means of small changes to the available things (furniture, Filofax inserts and graph paper, for instance, formed the basis for previous works), she makes these implications visible. At the same time she makes an attempt to liberate useful objects from their functional context and give them other connotations.

M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp

Leuvenstraat 32

2000 Antwerp

Belgium

Storage Piece

Installation & Performance

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie

Performance Programme

Saturday 13 – Sunday 14 January 2007

16–16.30hr

1/4

Two actors embody the pragmatics of transporting and exhibiting art, asking how this ‘work’ might be valued. The artist’s complex explorations of her singularity in relation to place, memory and family are developed as an installation that re-renders a work by Marcel Broodthaers pointing to artists’ tendency to inscribe their own relationship to art and its histories.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Sara Vanhee, Art-Jan de Vries

De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1015 DE Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Gymnastics of the Foldables

Installation

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel

Thursday 16 November – Sunday 7 January 2007

1/4

‘Gymnastics of the Foldables’ is a series of black and white photographs, which depict a clothes rack in many different positions. The rack develops almost a human quality as its stretches and bends like a human body does. It might also refer to Martha Rosler’s famous work ‘Semiotics of the Kitchen’.

De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1015 DE Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Free, reservations required

Afterimage

Installation

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie, De Appel
Archive De Appel: Thursday 16 November – Sunday 7 January 2007

1/3

In her installation the artist re-explores her project ‘Sadong 30’, which is the address of her derelict and abonded family home in Incehon. This project negotiates this very particular construction of a place, a possible home, interwoven with the condition of her personal history, that house and the underdeveloped suburban city.

De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1015 DE Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Free, reservations required

Katarina Zdjelar

Katarina Zdjelar (b. 1979, Belgrade. Lives in Rotterdam) studied at the art academy (1999–2004) and the Center for Theatre, Performance Art and Art Theory in Belgrade (2001–02) and the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (2004–06). She received the Dimitrije Basicevic Mangelos prize for young Serbian artists including a residency in ISCP, New York and has exhibited at TENT, Rotterdam and Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht.

India Song

Performance

Episode 4: M HKA, De Appel, De Balie, Huis a/d Werf Performance Programme

Saturday 3 November 2007, 21–22hr

1/4

The work departs from India Song by Marguerite Duras, which takes place in 1930s India and deals with the impossible love between the wife of the French ambassador and the vice-consul in Lahore. Performers translate the text as a novel or theatre text and as a film script inviting the viewer to imagine different stories to carry them away while Duras’s often comic stage directions place them solidly back on the ground.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Oziem Altin, Maja Bekan, Lina Issa, Ruthh Legg

Dramaturgy: Igor Dobricic

Co-produced with Huis a/d Werf

Huis a/d Werf

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Feminist Legacies and Potentials

Reading Group

Symposium

Programme

Prologue

Programme

Saturday 11 March 2006

1/11

Keynote lectures:

Jan Verwoert; Dorothea von Hantelmann

Panel discussion:

Eva Rothschild, Xavier LeRoy and Sarah Pierce

Studies & stories:

The Otolith Group; Marijn van der Jagt; Frances Stark; Karl Holmqvist

Film screening:

Francesco Bernardelli introduces 3 films by Yvonne Rainer: ‘Hand’, ‘Trio A’ and ‘A Film About A Woman Who’

In-house presentations: Vera Chytilova, ‘Daisies’; Laura Cottingham, ‘Not For Sale’; Stefanie Seibold, ‘A Reader’

Huis a/d Werf
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Episode 1: Huis a/d Werf

Performance Programme

Programme

Thursday 18 – Saturday 27 May 2006

1/6

Episode I of Edition II consists of a performance programme with Alexandra Bachzetsis, Rabih Mroué, Lina Saneh, Stefanie Seibold and The Otolith Group; and interventions by Stefanie Seibold and Mårten Spångberg.

The programme borrows from the language of dance, music, theatre, and archived visual material to create a series of performances rethinking the position and representation of women today. The artists presenting engage with performance and the live moment from an emancipatory perspective. From there the programme examines the legacies and potentials of feminism and the ‘political body’ (whether alone or collective) from a variety of contemporary artistic positions.

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Free, reservations required

Episode 2: De Appel, Stedelijk, De Balie

Performance Weekend

Programme

Saturday 13 – Sunday 14, 2007
13-17hr

1/11

Through this programme, a range of invited artists explore how feminist thinking on all levels (social, artistic, political, theoretical, ideological or structural) may be important to contemporary cultural life.

Judith Hopf takes on the legacy of Dan Graham’s ‘Performance, Audience, Mirror’ performed in De Appel in 1977. Interested in how the protagonist might be re-read, Hopf positions herself as the seer and interpreter of detail in Graham’s place. Designer Will Holder and artist Sarah Pierce each perform in relation to two iconic artists of the 20th century in an attempt to recuperate or critique each figure and the work itself on its own terms, rather than accepting how they were critically read in the past as women rather than artists. Haegue Yang’s performance muses on the pragmatics of transporting and exhibiting art and asks how this ‘work’ might be valued. Meanwhile, Maria Pask investigates the nuts and bolts of procreation in a performance with Esther de Vlam, exploring questions of reproduction and their position in classical feminist discourse. The weekend concludes with a concert performance by musician planningtorock. Selecting and hybridizing elements from the dandy, the cyborg, and the modernist hero, the artist presents us with a portrait of the fabulous and unflappable 21st century woman.

De Appel arts centre
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1074 VM Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Symposium I and II

Symposium

Symposium I: Saturday 18 November 2006, 10–23hr

Symposium II: Thursday 7 December 2006, 19–22.30

1/16

Symposium I

Global Feminisms

The symposium articulates and expands upon concerns surrounding legacies and potentials of feminism in contemporary art practice. The contributions are all loosely centered around the necessity to nuance and question the apparent linear trajectory of feminism often described as generation or ‘waves’ (particularly in the European context). The programme includes a lecture focusing on an inclusive approach to the production of feminist theory, and a lecture of feminist legacies in relation to contemporary art and curating in the context of globalization. Also, in a variety of presentational formats, several artists and a curator investigate influences and reverberations of the recent past in relation to their own practice.

With Karl Holmqvist, Aneta Szylak, Sue Tompkins, Iris van der Tuin, Helena Reckitt, Daria Martin, Frédérique Bergholtz and Annie Fletcher

Symposium II

Curating and Feminism Today

The second symposium aims to shed light on the question of why so many curators have currently developed an interest in the legacies of feminism. The guest speakers have been invited to present their current projects and to share their thoughts and knowledge on the notion of feminist strategies in curating.

With Heike Munder, Bettina Steinbrügge, Mirjam van Westen (Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem), Frédérique Bergholtz, Ann Demeester (de Appel arts centre), Katja Kobolt & Dunja Kukovec (City of Women)

Acknowledgements

Global Feminisms is hosted by De Balie, and is organised in collaboration with Huis & Festival a/d Werf and De Appel.

Curating and Feminism Today is organised in collaboration with Stedelijk Museum CS at Club 11.

De Balie

Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10

1017 RR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Stedelijk Museum CS

Oosterdokskade 5

1011AB Amsterdam

The Netherlands

De Appel Exhibition

Programme

Thursday 16 November 2006 – Sunday 7 January 2007

1/10

This episode revolves around an exhibition at de Appel and includes a performance programme, two symposia, and an insert by The Otolith Group in the exhibition ‘Just in Time’ at the Stedelijk Museum CS.

The exhibition seeks to articulate a historical context for the legacy of feminist thinking and the way it manifests itself in the materiality and language of visual art. Established in 1975, de Appel has a rich history of showing experimental art over the last thirty years and a continued interest in its programming now. Archival documentation exploring feminist legacies from the late 70s and 80s is presented alongside the exhibition, including the likes of Carolee Schneemann, Moniek Toebosch, Martha Wilson, Gina Pane, and Joan Jonas. These practices provide an interesting comparison to the vernacular used by artists today to think through ideas of agency, singularity, and political empowerment.

The exhibition includes works by Bless, Kate Davis, Pascale Gatzen & Myrza de Mynck, Karl Holmqvist, Jutta Koether, Claudia & Julia Müller, Isabel Nolan, Paulina Olowksa, Falke Pisano, Stefanie Seibold, Lucy Skaer, Frances Stark, Lily van der Stokker, Sue Tompkins, Haegue Yang, and Stefanie Seibold (archive).

A performance by Alexandra Bachzetsis and Lies Vanborm tales place on 16 November at Zonnehuis in Amsterdam.

Intervention in exhibition Just in Time

Friday 1 December 2006 – Sunday 11 March 2007

Stedelijk Museum CS, Amsterdam

With The Otolith Group, Stefanie Seibold (De Appel archive)

Film and Performance Programme: The Fantasy of Failed Utopias and a Girls Daydream

Thursday 21 December 2006, 20–late

Stedelijk Museum CS at Club 11, Amsterdam

Curated by Susanne Winterling on the occasion of the launch of the fourth issue of GLU magazine

With Emily Royson (Every Ocean Hughes), Marriage, E.E. Cassidy, Erika Vogt, Kat Ross, Kaucyila Brook, Margo Victor, Lynn Chan, Eve Fowler, planningtorock, Djuna Barnes.

Programme Venues

De Appel arts centre

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10

1074 VM Amsterdam

The Netherlands

De Balie

Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10

1017 RR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Stedelijk Museum CS

Oosterdokskade 5

1011AB Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Club 11

Oosterdokskade 3-5

1011AB Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Episode 3: Huis a/d Werf

Performance Programme

Programme

Performance Programme/Exhibition: Friday 18 – Sunday 27 May 2007

‘Otolith II’ Screening: Thursday 17 – Sunday 20 May 2007

1/7

This May for Festival a/d Werf Utrecht, a new programme of performances by Jutta Koether, Jon Mikel Euba, Itziar Okariz and planningtorock takes place. If I Can’t Dance also premiers the newly commissioned film of The Otolith Group, ‘Otolith II’, at Casco in Utrecht.

Festival a/d Werf

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Episode 4: M HKA, De Appel, De Balie, Huis a/d Werf

Performance Programme

Programme

Friday 2 and Saturday 3 November 2007

1/6

In the performance programme three artists perform an acte de presence. What links them is their fascination with language and their analytic approach to the conventions of performance, which leads them to make unexpected connections amongst different genres. All three are interested in feminist thought and/or reinterpreting the work of women artists.

With Ivana Müller, Katarina Zdjelar, Karl Holmqvist, Kevin Blechdom and continuous video works by Yael Bartana, Andrea Frasner, and Julika Rudelius.

Huis a/d Werf

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Symposium III

Symposium

Sunday 28 October 2007, 11.30–18.30hr

1/7

In the symposium a series of thinkers and cultural practitioners are invited to explore the current political potential of feminism in the age of globalization. Can its methods of enquiry, critique, and activism aid in thinking about contemporary identity? And what do the issues for a global feminism look like today? Keynote speaker Rosi Braidotti outlines the intellectual terrain from her perspective. Then, the debate is opened up in relation to the practice of artists such as Hito Steyerl. Ruth Noack is also invited to speak about developing feminist narratives from a curatorial perspective.

With Rosi Braidotti, Sarah Pierce, Unni Gjertsen, Ruth Noack, Hito Steyerl and Diana McCarthy, Mounira Al Solh, Katarina Zdjelar, Frédérique Bergholtz, Annie Fletcher and a performance by Stefanie Seibold and Christine Lemke.

Acknowledgements

The symposium is generously hosted by De Balie and is a joined initiative of MuHKA, Huis en Festival a/d Werf and De Appel.

De Balie

Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10

1017 RR Amsterdam

The Netherlands

MuHKA Exhibition

Exhibition

Friday 26 October 2007 – Sunday 6 January 2008

1/8

This large-scale exhibition at M HKA combines elements from the collection with a series of works by invited artists who explore the performative potential of various media. The project further unfolds over three cities and includes a film weekend at MuHKA_media Antwerp, a symposium at De Balie and a reading group in De Appel in Amsterdam, and a performance programme at Huis a/d Werf in Utrecht.

As keynote speaker Rosi Braidotti proposes in the ‘Feminist Legacies and Potentials’ symposium, change implies a dis-identification, that is, the loss of cherished habits of thought and representation. Perhaps this statement articulates a kind of constructive alienation, a refusal of the status quo. Like Emma Goldman’s quote “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”, the utterance exemplifies how dis-identifications from dominant models can be productive and creative events.

With Heather Allen, Monica Bonvicini, Lili Dujourie, Jef Geys, Unni Gjertsen, Sanja Ivekovic, Jutta Koether, Sarah Pierce, Falke Pisano, Erik van Lieshout, Frances Stark, Hito Steyerl, Anne-mie van Kerckhoven, Cathy Wilkes, Haegue Yang, Katarina Zdjelar.

Programme:

Film Programme

15 & 16 December 2007

MuHKA_media, Antwerp

Screening Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames; Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven’s Deeper; Annik Leroy’s Cellule; Trinh T. Minh-Ha’s Re-Assemblage; Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s The Riddle of the Sphinx; Ria Pacquée’s Inch’Allah; Hito Steyerl’s Lovely Andrea; Elisabeth Subrin’s The Fancy; Leslie Thorton’s Another Worldly; Joëlle Tuerlinckx’s Aqui Havia Historia – Cultura Agora O; Agnes Varda’s Cléo de 5 á 7.

Video Speakers Corner

6 December 2007

M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp

The Video Speakers Corner is one of the public moments in a self-organised alternative programme initiated by bolwerK. A workshop (FC Poppesnor), local radio interventions (with miss Tigra) and a concert (Gynaika Inbetween Space) are planned to empower the initiative.

M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp

Leuvenstraat 32

2000 Antwerp

Belgium

2005

Artist Commissions

Johanna Billing

Johanna Billing (b. 1973, Jönköping, Sweden. Lives in Stockholm) works mainly with video and group performances and is involved in unique collaborations towards unscripted, spontaneous, collective experience. In her long-term project You Don’t Love Me Yet, which has toured to different international cities between 2002 and 2005, the artist invites musicians to play a live version of a song by Roky Erickson according to their own interpretation.

You Don’t Love Me Yet – Leiden

Performance

Sunday 27 November 2005, 17–21h

1/9

More than twenty bands perform as the grand finale of the artist’s search for the atmosphere and scenario best suited to this ‘repetition-performance’. The intimate gig, concentrated listening situation and individual performance playfully creates transitory communities through the repetition of the same poignant song. Here it closes with the artist’s own interpretation: a video in a music studio with the tune performed by Swedish musicians.

Acknowledgements

Performers: Karl Holmqvist, The Nouns, Major B., Helsinki, Jan Schelink, Paul Devens, Michiel Sonnevijlen & Ijsbrand van ‘t Zand, Rene SG, Love Aktion Machine, Pierson Puppeteers, Keoni Hawaiians, Panic in Detroit, Kismet, Hank the Spy and Jerkstation, Nanoloops, Electric Lane and The VeenFactory, JerryCan, Kremers & the Mark (starring BergBergenKuchlain) and De Rotte Herders among others

Initiated by the Swedish contemporary art foundation Index and the Nordic institution for contemporary art NIFCA in 2022, the song by Roky Erickson was published by the artist in 1984

Special thanks to all participating bands and musicians

Episode 3: De Veenfabriek

De Veenfabriek

Marktsteeg 1

2312 CS Leiden

The Netherlands

You Don’t Love Me Yet – ‘s-Hertogenbosch

Performance

Friday 5 August 2005, 18–20h

The episode opens with this project in which local bands (here over ten acts) sing the same song. The respective city and its music, language and local characteristics are central to each show. Through repetition, a strange space beyond the norms of musical performance is formed. The artist likens the longing within the song, and the act of homage, to contemporary art where ideas of authorship and originality are privileged over repetition and re-enactment.

Acknowledgements

Initiated by the Swedish contemporary art foundation Index and the Nordic institution for contemporary art NIFCA in 2002, the song by Roky Erickson was published by the artist in 1984

Special thanks to all participating bands and musicians

Episode 2: Theaterfestival Boulevard

Theatre a/d Parade

Parade 23

5211 KL ‘s-Hertogenbosch

The Netherlands

You Don’t Love Me Yet – Utrecht

Performance

19 May 2005, 21.30–23h

1/8

After the 4 October 2002 premiere at Index in Stockholm, the project toured for three years through San Sebastian, Helsinki, London, Chicago and Timisoara among other locations. The same song by Roky Erickson, a classic representative of the ups and downs of rock-n-roll life, is repeated. While the 13th Floor Elevators band member wrote many hits, the artist chooses a lesser-known song for its longing, with each performance responding to each port of call.

Acknowledgements

Initiated by the Swedish contemporary art foundation Index and the Nordic institution for contemporary art NIFCA in 2002, the song by Roky Erickson was published by the artist in 1984

Special thanks to all participating bands and musicians

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Huis a/d Werf, Koepelzaal

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Matti Braun

Matti Braun (b. 1968, Berlin. Lives in Cologne) develops his project as a series of stages in which elements of dance, acting and music are explored and framed within the context of his practice. Alienation is looked at in a complex and unexpected way, within the framework of classic theatre, adapting a filmscript by Bengalese filmmaker Satyajit Ray into a play with non-actors and music by composer Li-Chuan Chong and Kantele player Timo Väänänen.

The Alien

Performance

Sunday 20 – Monday 21 November 2005, 20–21h

1/6

After two sketches of certain scenes successively presented in Utrecht and ’s-Hertogenbosch, the complete play is now staged in Leiden. Music is performed by Anna-Karin Korhonen in a stage set with props all designed by the artist that fluctuates between theatrical landscape and autonomous artwork. A full cast of amateur actors gleaned from friends and acquaintances in the art world take the stage as actors.

Acknowledgements

Direction: Matti Braun
Choreography: Henrietta Hale
Music composition: Li-Chuan Chong
Kantele player: Anna-Karin Korhonen

Dramaturgy: Sanja Mitrović

Actors: Beth Healy (The Alien), Mees Jongema (Haba, the boy), Joris Link (Mohan, the journalist), Nathalie Zonnenberg (Kalyani, Mohan’s wife), Felix Janssens (Devlin, the engineer), Roos Gortzak (Bajoria, the entrepreneur), Lily van Ginneken (Haba’s grandmother), Astrid Schumacher (Sarkar, the homeopath), Joris Brouwers (Govinda, the peasant), Zhana Ivanova (Pramanick, the postmaster), Sander Meijers (Battacharji, the Hindu priest), Jelle Bouwhuis (Biswas, the Christian priest), Jo’o Guerreiro (the Sadhu)

The project is initiated by and co-produced with The Showroom/Kirsty Ogg, London and Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Special thanks to Aileen Healy, Marten Jongema, Grant Watson; Boost, Amsterdam; Vincent de Boer and Suzanne Oxenaar, Lloyd Hotel, Amsterdam; Imperium, Leiden; Jörn Bötnagel, BQ gallery, Cologne

Episode 3: De Veenfabriek

De Veenfabriek

Marktsteeg 1

2312 CS Leiden

The Netherlands

The Alien (Sketch)

Performance & Screening

Friday 5 August 2005

Performance: 15–16h

Lecture-Performance: 17–18h

Screening: 20–21.45h

1/5

New sketches developed with choreographer Henriette Hale performed by amateur actors extrapolate on legendary director Satyajit Ray’s unproduced 1963 film The Alien. Inspiring Steven Spielberg’s E.T., an alien stranded in the Indian countryside befriends a young boy, confounding belief systems and drawing attention to new technologies in rural life, quietly addressing modernism, alienation and progress. The day devoted to Braun’s oeuvre features the lecture-performance V.S. on Ray and his film The Music Room (1958).

bw, 100 min, Bengali with English subtitles

Acknowledgements

Choreography: Henrietta Hale
Music composition: Li-Chuan Chong
Kantele players: Anna-Karin Korhonen

Actors: Beth Healy (The Alien), Mees Jongema (Haba, the boy), Joris Link (Mohan, the journalist), Nathalie Zonnenberg (Kalyani, Mohan’s wife), Felix Janssens (Devlin, the engineer), Roos Gortzak (Bajoria, the entrepreneur), Lily van Ginneken (Haba’s grandmother), Astrid Schumacher (Sarkar, the homeopath), Joris Brouwers (Govinda, the peasant), Zhana Ivanova (Pramanick, the postmaster), Sander Meijers (Battacharji, the Hindu priest), Jelle Bouwhuis (Biswas, the Christian priest), Jo’o Guerreiro (the Sadhu)

The project is initiated by and co-produced with The Showroom/Kirsty Ogg, London and Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Special thanks to Aileen Healy, Marten Jongema, Grant Watson; Boost, Amsterdam; Vincent de Boer and Suzanne Oxenaar, Lloyd Hotel, Amsterdam; Imperium, Leiden; Jörn Bötnagel, BQ gallery, Cologne

Episode 2: Theaterfestival Boulevard

Bovenstudio Verkadefabriek

Boschdijkstraat 45

The Netherlands

V.S.

Lecture-Performance

Saturday 21 May 2005, 20.30–21.30h

The artist looks at the influence of Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian space programme, in the writing of director Satyajit Ray’s filmscript The Alien. Through a consideration of cultural developments and productions of the Indian modern movement in the twentieth century, Braun situates the figure of Sarabhai in relation to Ray and his un-filmed screenplay about an alien that descends to Earth from outer space and takes up residence in an Indian village where they befriend a local child.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

The Alien (Sketch)

Performance

Friday 20 May 2005, 20.30–21.30h

1/3

Two choreographed sketches feature the meeting of the alien and the young boy, Haba. Dance, acting and music are explored to stage this encounter and framed within the context of Braun’s wider practice

Acknowledgements

Choreography: Henrietta Hale
Music composition: Li-Chuan Chong
Kantele players: Anna-Karin Korhonen

Actors: Beth Healy (The Alien), Mees Jongema (Haba, the boy), Joris Link (Mohan, the journalist), Nathalie Zonnenberg (Kalyani, Mohan’s wife), Felix Janssens (Devlin, the engineer), Roos Gortzak (Bajoria, the entrepreneur), Lily van Ginneken (Haba’s grandmother), Astrid Schumacher (Sarkar, the homeopath), Joris Brouwers (Govinda, the peasant), Zhana Ivanova (Pramanick, the postmaster), Sander Meijers (Battacharji, the Hindu priest), Jelle Bouwhuis (Biswas, the Christian priest), Jo’o Guerreiro (the Sadhu)

The project is initiated by and co-produced with The Showroom/Kirsty Ogg, London and Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Special thanks to Aileen Healy, Marten Jongema, Grant Watson; Boost, Amsterdam; Vincent de Boer and Suzanne Oxenaar, Lloyd Hotel, Amsterdam; Imperium, Leiden; Jörn Bötnagel, BQ gallery, Cologne

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Huis a/d Werf, Koepelzaal

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Gerard Byrne

Gerard Byrne ( b. 1969, Dublin. Lives in Dublin) works with photographic, video and live art. His project develops through performances towards a film that enacts a Playboy text in which twelve science-fiction writers – including Arthur C. Clarke and Rod Sterling – discuss how we might imagine our future selves and organize society, population control, warfare, genetic modification, religion and the possibility of finding alien life.

1984 and Beyond, premiere

Screening

Sunday 20 November 2005, 17–18h

1/5

Both film and slides of the work produced in stages appear in a two-room installation collapsing popular culture paradigms of film, theatre, sculpture and architecture to question the credibility of expressing print through film. Eleven Dutch actors enact a conversation between twelve science-fiction writers on the future published in Playboy in 1963, here set within two classic examples of Dutch modernist architecture: Hugh Maaskant’s Provinciehuis, Den Bosch and the Rietveld Pavilion in the Sculpture Garden of the at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo dotted with Barbara Hepworth sculptures.

Acknowledgements

Direction: Gerard Byrne

Camera: Joris Kerbosch, Sal Kroonenberg

Sound: Anneloes Pabbruwee, Chris Westendorp, Sytse Wierenga

Costumes: Marjan Vos

Actors: Herman Boerman, Wim Bouwens, Reinout Bussemaker, Rob van Gestel, Jos van Hulst, Jur van der Lecq, Michiel Nooter, Rien Stegman, Pieter Verhees, Dion Vincken, Leon de Waal

Produced with Momentum – 4th Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art, Moss, 2006

Special thanks to Yvonne Franquinet, Victorien van Hulst, Sarah Pierce, Marieke van Rooy, Dennis Wesselman, Roel Wouters, Rosalie van Loon, Provinciehuis Brabant, ‘s Hertogenbosch; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; SMART Projectspace, Amsterdam; Bowness, Hepworth Estate, London; Gerrit Rietveld, c/o Beeldrecht Amsterdam; Mieke van Schaik, Artis, ‘s Hertogenbosch; Vincent de Boer, Suzanne Oxenaar, Lloyd Hotel, Amsterdam

Episode 3: De Veenfabriek

De Veenfabriek

Marktsteeg 1

2312 CS Leiden

The Netherlands

1984 and Beyond (Script Reading)

Performance

Saturday 13 August 2005, 15–16.30

1/6

In this live reading of a 1963 text from Playboy in which twelve science-fiction writers speak about their vision of the future, actors in costume enact the script. In the background the artist projects a series of black and white slides, recently shot in the United States, which can be seen as archetypical American scenes connoting the late fifties or early sixties life when the original conversation would have taken place.

Acknowledgements

Produced with Momentum – 4th Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art, Moss, 2006

Episode 2: Theaterfestival Boulevard

Artis

Boschveldweg 471

5211 VK ‘s-Hertogenbosch

The Netherlands

Exercise for Two Actors

Performance

Sunday 21 May 2005. 20.30–21.30h

1/4

In the festival’s busy central square two actors talk in an improvised way about being there, review archetypical film conversations and make reference to the festival programme. Relayed to the audience via a single set of headphones passed among the crowd by a helper, the performers could be anybody. The piece is immediately edited as a video work in which the camera searches for the actors, which is displayed in the festival exhibition space.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Neude

3511 AJ Utrecht

The Netherlands

Mariana Castillo Deball

Mariana Castillo Deball (b. 1975, Mexico City. Lives in Berlin) is interested in our need to control our unpredictable existence through archiving, ordering and distribution and the positive disruptive leakages in the margins. Through the impenetrable world of technology – where we know how to work things without knowing how they work – she finds a process that ‘investigates the way scientific and technical work is made invisible by its own success’.

Today: November 20

Installation & Performance

Sunday 20 November 2005, 15–15.45

1/5

Images projected onto a curved ramp structure face another curved ramp opposite on which two readers recount information relating to the day of performance but in different years, adding personal commentary. The audience oscillates between the two information sources like a skateboarder on a halfpipe or ramp. How coexistent temporalities constitute the individual and alternate histories are also evinced in a newspaper with articles that debunk its temporary logic.

Acknowledgements

Design: Mariana Castillo/Manuel Raeder

Performer: Zhana Ivanova

Text editing: Steve Rushton

Episode 3: De Veenfrabriek

De Veenfabriek

Marktsteeg 1

2312 CS Leiden

The Netherlands

Blackboxing

Lecture

Tuesday 24 May 2005, 21–21.45

1/6

Black boxing describes when a technology becomes so successful that it is no longer known how it actually works. It becomes invisible. Through images and drawings, the artist traces her own interest in the performative moment of doubting seamless structures. As catharsis she encourages the audience to smash a large Mobius strip piñata – the classic mathematical shape for infinity.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Yael Davids

Yael Davids (b. 1968, Jerusalem. Lives in Amsterdam) has a background in visual arts, choreography and dance education that informs her work in which the human body is central. Her sculptural installation and performance project changes throughout Edition I and consists of two wooden stage structures (5 x 4 x.5 m), a script, three actors, three musicians and twenty-two participants who manoeuvre the stages.

End on Mouth

Performance

Sunday 27 November 2005, 15–15.30h and 16.30–17h

1/7

The compact closed space at a human scale with its static stage structures changes the choreography such that the stage on the floor is raised and lowered. The focus is on one actor is who partially emerges from within the stage enclosure.Physical endurance is emphasised and refers to 1970s feminist performance art, asking after the tension between the gaze and the voice leading to a discussion.

Acknowledgements

Actors: Joep van der Geest, Lotte Proot, Martijn van der Veen
Musicians: Michele Bagaglio (composition, guitar and voice), Carlos Vaquero Patricio (flute), Sonja Gruys (voice)

Special thanks to all carriers André van Bergen, Marijn van der Jagt, Michiel Kluiters, Astrid Schumacher; Leyla Akinci, Gallery Akinci, Amsterdam

Episode 3: De Veenfabriek

De Veenfabriek

Marktsteeg 1

2312 CS Leiden

The Netherlands

End on Mouth

Performance

Sunday 7 August 2005, 11.30–12.30h, 13.30–14.30h, 17.30–18.30h

1/6

While the music, script, characters and sculpture remain the same, each space changes the presentation. Here the factory hall with massive floor invites more expansive and complex movement. The stage with musicians is lifted up and down repeatedly, and the second with actors is rolled over and over across the room by those manoeuvring these wooden boxes.

Acknowledgements

Execution: André van Bergen, Michiel Kluiters
Actors: Joep van der Geest, Lotte Proot, Martijn van der Veen
Musicians: Michele Bagaglio (composition, guitar and voice), Carlos Vaquero Patricio (flute), Sonja Gruys (voice)

Special thanks to all carriers; Marijn van der Jagt; Astrid Schumacher; Gallery Akinci, Amsterdam

Episode 2: Theaterfestival Boulevard

Theaterfestival Boulevard

Sint Josephstraat 18

5211 NJ ‘s-Hertogenbosch

The Netherlands

End on Mouth

Performance

Saturday 28 May 2005, 16–17h

1/6

A big wooden stage structure is lifted up to eye level by carriers who join from the audience, while a second leans against a wall. Instead of being used as a tool on stage, the three actors and three musicians perform inside it. The confined, concealed position frustrates the desire to identify sound visually, while the script also considers the voice in terms of expression, and through exhale, disappearance. ‘Every time we talk, we die a bit.’

Acknowledgements

Execution: André van Bergen, Michiel Kluiters
Actors: Joep van der Geest, Lotte Proot, Martijn van der Veen
Musicians: Michele Bagaglio (composition, guitar and voice), Carlos Vaquero Patricio (flute), Sonja Gruys (voice)

Special thanks to all carriers; Marijn van der Jagt; Astrid Schumacher; Gallery Akinci, Amsterdam

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Voormalig Gerechtsgebouw

Hamergerstraat 28

3512 NS Utrecht

Radio group LIGNA

LIGNA (est. 2002, Hamburg. Based in Hamburg) is a free radio group that consists of the media theorists and radio artists Ole Frahm, Michael Hüners and Torsten Michelsen working in the broadcast station Freies Sender Kombinat, a free, non-commercial, local radio station in Hamburg. They consider how radio can intervene in public and often controlled spaces through radio ballets that gather through live transmission and claim public space.

De Oorspronkelijke Verstrooiing

Performance

Sunday 20 – Sunday 27 November 2005, 16–16.30

1/7

The historic Scheltema, the venue’s location, is a converted blanket factory for which the group writes a new ballet where participants come to the building and pick up radio sets. The audience is split into three different groups as three different scenarios are transmitted that trace the history and working conditions of the factory with speculations on its new use. The audience unwinds red wool leaving visible traces in the rooms after their departure.

Acknowledgements

Voices: Lotte Proot, Martijn van der Veen, Joep van der Geest, Rosa Reuten

Special thanks to Nicole Roepers, Cor Smit, Reinier Verbeek, Suzanne van der Ven

Episode 3: De Veenfabriek

De Veenfabriek

Marktsteeg 1

2312 CS Leiden

The Netherlands

Invasion of the Radio Listeners

Performance

Friday 12 August 2005, 17–18.30

1/9

A crowd gathers at the festival square and picks up radios and plastic bags full of props and begin to follow instructions. Attending to the city’s role as a consumer centre, the ‘exercise’ takes place in shopping streets where participants challenge privatization through subversive choreographies transmitted live on local airwaves Radio Boschtion.

Episode 2: Theaterfestival Boulevard

Friday 12 August 2005, 17–18.30

Theatre a/d Parade

Parade 23

5211 KL ‘s-Hertogenbosch

The Netherlands

Opening an Uncanny Space: Radio’s Public

Lecture-Performance

Thursday 26 May 2005, 21.30–22.30

1/5

The concept behind their use of radio as catalyst for action and medium for political mobilisation is introduced, and how through dispersion it allows for a collective and individual experience. Each member of the audience is given a small radio, and as the lecture progresses can listen live to LIGNA but also tune into a live transmission of a radio ballet.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Prologue

Programme

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Programme

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf

Sunday 22 May – Saturday 27 May 2005

1/19

Edition I begins in Utrecht with the ‘Prologue’ where artists from various disciplines are invited to explore what performativity might mean to them and their practice. Through a week-long programme of performances, artist talks, lectures, and installations, the Prologue opens up the permutations of performativity, exploring its myriad entanglements with notions of identity, positionality, and empowerment.

With Heather Allen, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Olivier Foulon, Will Holder, Germaine Kruip, Maria Pask, Falke Pisano, Stefanie Seibold and Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan.

Huis a/d Werf, Koepelzaal

Boorstraat 107

3513 SE Utrecht

The Netherlands

Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan

Joanne Tatham (b. 1971, West Yorkshire. Lives in Newscastle) and Tom O’Sullivan (b. 1967, Norfolk. Lives in Newcastle) have worked collaboratively since 1995. They are concerned with the mythic potential of work and draw on disparate narratives and themes manifest in various forms.

The Slapstick Mystics with Sticks and Other Things

Artist talk

Wednesday 24 May 2005, 20–21h

1/4

This ongoing project first performed in 2001 in a church hall in Glasgow takes on different forms. A play at its heart, derived from allegorical folk plays it incorporates found texts from sources including Jacques Lacan and Carolee Schneeman, and uses slapstick and banter to present the classic story of a young man’s journey to establish his identity in the world.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf
Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Heather Allen

Heather Allen (Lives in Belfast) speculates on the redemptive force of human nature and the act of getting through life as heroic, drawing on artist life in Northern Ireland through writing, performance and installation. The emotional terrain is coloured by pop music and visual projects as well as references to literature and hard news in works that are grounded in the oral tradition of poetry and political oratory.

Alexandra Bachzetsis

Alexandra Bachzetsis (b. 1974, Zurich. Lives in Brussels and Amsterdam) is a dancer and choreographer at home in the field of visual arts. She is interested in deconstructing time-space-movement relations and presence as affected by the individual and archetypes, specifically that of the ‘woman’.

Olivier Foulon

Olivier Foulon (b. 1976, Brussels. Lives in Berlin) investigates how artworks and artists are, time and again, represented and restaged. His sketch annotations used to make larger drawings as well as his associative explorations of how the meaning of works change unveils the possibilities of a work’s presence and its representations.

Will Holder

Will Holder (b. 1969, Hatfield, UK. Lives in London) is predominantly interested in how knowledge is shared, or put simply, the act of publishing. Understanding the inflexibility of the printed word he has taken to reading aloud in public as three-dimensional publishing.

Germaine Kruip

Germaine Kruip (b. 1970, Castricum, the Netherlands. Lives in Amsterdam) makes the everyday – gesture, rhythm, behaviour or movement – the specific, noticing moments in time. The artist directs the gaze, subtly manipulating space to make the poetic in the everyday visible.

When Life Becomes Theatre

Installation

Friday 26 May 2005, 20.30–21.30h

1/3

In Kruip’s installations, the audience play an unsolicited role. One appears and finds oneself in a specially designed scenario, where the artist intends that life itself becomes theatre.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf
Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Paulina Olowska

Paulina Olowska (b. 1976, Gdansk. Lives in Rabka Zdroj and Krakow) is inspired by ideas of the Bauhaus and works with collage, painting, posters, music and performance to form installations and other forms of presentation. Foremost a painter, in translating modern traditions she allocates an important role for women within them.

Bauhaus Yoga

Lecture

Saturday 27 May 2005, 21.30–22.30h

1/2

Fascinated by how utopias have been approached in modernism – designs now missing from contemporary society – the artist seeks ideal design in bridging Bauhaus and Yoga as both engender relaxation and improve wellbeing.

Prologue: Festival a/d Werf
Huis a/d Werf, Studio 2
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht
The Netherlands

Maria Pask

Maria Pask (b. 1969, Cardiff. Lives in Amsterdam) investigates collective creativity, empowerment and the live moment through open formats and social structures that involve everything from sculpture and film to workshops, scripts, live performances and events.

Falke Pisano

Falke Pisano (b. 1978, Amsterdam. Lives in Amsterdam and Maastricht) thinks, writes and deals with ‘found’ information and how she appropriates material in the process of making connections.

Stefanie Seibold

Stefanie Siebold (Lives in Linz) is an artist and teacher who uses the means and possibilities of performance to create alternative spaces that allow for a narration of identity. She is interested in feminism and gender in relation to the development of feminist performance art.

Edition I

Theatricality

Programme

2005

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the programme of Edition I –Theatricality and the Live Moment.

In this programme, the conventions of theatre are applied to the visual arts through commissioned productions that are developed over time and presented at multiple moments and locations. The travelling programme includes performances by Matti Braun, Johanna Billing, Gerard Byrne, Yael Davids, Mariana Castillo Deball, and LIGNA that develop and transform through each enactment. All of the artists involved introduce and explore means of performativity in order to articulate, analyse, and contest the conditions in which we live.

Venues across The Netherlands

2012-2013

Master course

DAI-COOP

Occupation – Evacuation – Transmission

Course

2012-13

Appropriation is the claiming of one thing for the purpose of another. It is a play between invisibility and making seen, hovering between a special kind of nothing and something quite specific. Broadly, we could think of it as the application of any kind of copying in artistic practice. But of course, this already raises a whole set of questions: What do we choose to appropriate? Why? What do we know about the thing chosen? What do we want to know about it? Does it too have a resistance, an agency? What of it remains? What kind of copying takes place? What are the implications here for an idea of authorship? Using the resources that our own work and that of others provides, Occupation Evacuation Transmission assumes the model of a research group to explore ways in which such questions might be answered through a performance-based mode of enquiry.

Course tutors: conceived by Ian White, tutored by Emma Hedditch and Jimmy Robert.

Guest tutors: Yael Davids, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, and Teresa María Díaz Nerio.

Students: Abner Preis, Anneke Ingwersen, Mariana Zamarbide, Kim Schonewille, Louis Liu, Momu & No Es, Sarah Jones, Silvia Ulloa, Sofia Ocana Urwitz, and Tommie Soro.

Acknowledgements

Anik Fournier and Cecilia Dino joined for studio visits

Coordination: Tanja Baudoin

Gatherings

DAI, Arnhem

Free University, Copenhagen

If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

2011-2012

Master course

DAI-COOP

practice-theatre

Course

2011-12

1/6

practice-theatre is a cumulative project that seeks to explore and question, through performance, the various aspects of what the place of theatre means to us and how it might be used in our work. Each month the project expands and enacts ideas around a different aspect of theatre – with what’s done one month mapping onto the next – to consider the positions from which we speak, how we act, and what, through different frames, speaking and action might be.

Course tutors: Ian White.

Guest tutors: Emma Hedditch, Jimmy Robert, and Mirjam van Imschoot.

Students: Mercedes Azpilicueta, Rosie Heinrich, Anna Hoetjes, Eden Mitsenmacher Lara Morais, Ane Østrem, Eric Philippoz, Vanja Smiljanic, Marija Sujica, Witta Tjan, Sander Uitdehaag, and Mariana Zamarbide.

Acknowledgements

Coordination: Tanja Baudoin

Gatherings

Dakar, Senegal

École des Sables, Toubab Dialaw, Senegal

Raw Material Company, Dakar

Frascati Theatre, Amsterdam

2010-2011

Master course

DAI-COOP

Affect/Production

Course

2010-11

1/7

The project Affect/Production with tutor Phil Collins is framed theoretically by the field of research of affect, the departure point of If I Can’t Dance’s collaborative investigation for Edition IV. Each meeting consists of a theoretical component concentrated on ‘affect’ in the morning, and a ‘production’ component in the afternoon.

Students explored performative exercises proposed by guest visitors Simon Will, Sanja Mitrovic, Sharon Smith, and Nick Powell.

Course tutor: Phil Collins.

Guest tutors: Simon Will, Sanja Mitrovic, Jane Zingale and Marie de Brugerolle, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina and the Basque collective Bulegoa z/b (Miren Jaio, Isabel de Vaverán, Leire Vergara); Sharon Smith, and Nick Powell.

Students: Ingeborg Entrop, Frederik Gruyaerts, Yunjoo Kwak, Toeh Meisami, Lara Morais, Emilio Moreno, Charlotte Rooijackers, Gonçalo Sena, Vanja Smiljanic, Vittoria Soddu, Witta Tjan, and Barbara Wagner.

Acknowledgements

Coordination: Tanja Baudoin

Gatherings

Bulegoa z/b and Azal Residency, Bilbao

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Veem House, Amsterdam

Frascati, Amsterdam

If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam

2009-2010

Master course

DAI-COOP

Affectionately Yours

Course

2009-10

Affectionately Yours is a one-year research project that explored the notion of affect. The theme of affect is read in the light of If I Can’t Dance’s continuing exploration, since its inception, of certain intellectual paradigms such as feminism and performativity. What interests us in this notion is well articulated by Brian Massumi: “By ‘affect’ I don’t mean ‘emotion’ in the everyday sense, but of the body and its capacity for affecting or being affected. These are not two different capacities – they always go together. When you affect something, you are at the same time opening yourself up to being affected in turn. You have made a transition, however slight. You have stepped over a threshold. Affect is this passing of a threshold.”

The project includs group reading sessions, lectures by guest speakers and the development of new works for a final exhibition in Gdansk, Poland, in collaboration with the Wyspa Institute of Art.

Course tutors: Hito Steyerl and Phil Collins.

Guest tutors: Kodwo Eshun & Anjalika Sagar (the Otolith Group), Marie-Luise Angerer, and Thomas Elsaesser.

Students: Frederik Gruyaert, Taf Hassam, Yunjoo Kwak, Jort van der Laan, Sevgi Ortaç, Eva Schippers, Viki Semou, Vittoria Soddu, Petra Vacková, Barbara Wagner, and Veridiana Zurita.