As part of Amsterdam Art Week, If I Can’t Dance’s COOP Study Group at the Dutch Art Institute The Word and Wound: And Now You Are Ready to Sing will convene in our theatre space for a three-day workshop and a public sharing on Friday 23 May. With this event, the group opens up their ongoing practice of ‘thinking-in-assembly’, a method that connects thinking and listening, deepening the relations between personal experiences and collective voice.
Study group tutors Snejanka Mihaylova (artist), Lisa Montan (music composer) and Frédérique Bergholtz (If I Can’t Dance), students Anna Buyvid, Nada Gambier, Patrick Freriksen, Agnese Krivade, Bel McLaughlin, Javier Rodriguez Perez, Alva Roselius, Hannah van der Schaaf, Agnese Spolverini and Mia Tamme, and If I Can’t Dance curators Anik Fournier and Sara Giannini invite you to engage in a conversation about the acts of listening and singing, focusing on their potential as reparational practices in times of grief, violence, and harm.
Taking its cues from the histories, methods, and reflections that the group has encountered in their process of study, the assembly will reflect on questions like: What does it mean to be ready to sing? And 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 and to (bodily) memory? What are the resonances of singing (together) in the context of the present wounds? In what way does singing mobilize our critical, political, and artistic potential? How can singing be not only an emanation of sound but an embodied practice of listening?
The event also marks the launch of a new section on If I Can’t Dance’s website dedicated to our long and rich history in teaching workshops at the Dutch Art Institute. This Master Programme works at the intersections of theory, art, activism, performance and curating, and operates as an itinerant school with the students and tutors convening seven times per year at different places throughout Europe (and beyond) to engage in collective study. Since 2008, If I Can’t Dance has been developing workshops for the DAI, engaging over the years the lustrous course tutors Tanja Baudoin, Phil Collins, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Jon Mikel Euba, Sara Giannini, Susan Gibb, Emma Hedditch, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Snejanka Mihaylova, Sarah Pierce, Rory Pilgrim, Jimmy Robert, Stefanie Seibold, Hito Steyerl, Ian White, Geo Wyex, and Arnisa Zeqo. On our website we have now added an overview of our successive study groups, sharing a wealth of material, including texts, documentation, and syllabi through which you can get an impression of the different thematics, as well as the performance and pedagogical methodologies, these courses have proposed.
In our physical space, you will find a display of DAI student-made publications and a variety of archival material gleaned from our most recent study groups, composed by Anik Fournier and Frédérique Bergholtz, as well as a reading table focusing on the current COOP The Word and the Wound – And Now You Are Ready to Sing.
We look forward to welcoming you in our space and to thinking and singing together!
Image description
Aerial view of a circle of people seated on a floor with blue floral-patterned tiles, surrounded by stone columns. Adjacent to the circle is a slightly elevated surface covered with red-tinted carpets and a white fabric, on which lie threads and other undefined objects. On the sides hang two white fabrics featuring paintings of circles.
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)