Amsterdam, Summer 2024

Dear reader,

Summer has arrived, time for an update on what our programme the coming weeks and months has to offer.

Last Saturday, our yearly Open Rehearsal programme kicked off with a powerful, deeply resonating performance by Yin Yin Wong. It was a memorable afternoon, not only because the artist presented a very strong performance, but also, thanks to the audiences’ incredibly sensitive and attuned feedback. The lively after-talk offered Wong much imput for further developing their piece, and we were so happy with the rich and generative conversation that occurred in and around the work between all those present: exactly what we aim for with this programme. The next two Open Rehearsals, again facilitated by curators Anik Fournier, Sara Giannini, and Mini Maxwell, will take place on 6 July – with Artun Alaska Arasli performing together with his mother Mahinur Songül Çenetoğlu – and on 13 July – with Rebecca Lillich//Krüger. All are very welcome, to come and see, and join the conversation!

August will be dedicated to the preparation of the performance by our Dutch Art Institute students, taking place during the DAI Summit on 5, 6 and 7 September in Essaouira, Morocco. If I Can’t Dance is one of five institutions leading a COOP study group for ArtEZ’ Roaming Academy. For the 2023/24 curriculum, our study group programme has been composed by tutors Snejanka Mihaylova and me, together with 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. Between November and May we have gathered in PAF in St. Erme, in Nida in Lithuania, in Vleeshal in Middelburg and in our new WG-space in Amsterdam, as well as, in Essaouira last spring to get a sense of the context we will be working with for our final presentation. Looking back at these five occasions in which we spent a week together – practicing what we call ‘thinking in assembly’, and in the intermittent periods keeping the spirit alive through individual daily practice – we realize we have carved a beautiful path together, also thanks to our guest tutors Lisa Montan and Angelo Custodio. Throughout this trajectory, the terms ‘tutor’ and ‘student’ have not been stable denominators, as we have all constantly been shifting roles.

The DAI Summit will slowly take us to the Fall, yet I want to go back to an important moment that inaugurated Summer for us: the Book Bloc Workshop, an initiative set up by the Book Bloc Brigade, who have been holding workshops in different institutions to create protection tools for the Student Intifada. On 22 June, a session organized together with the Oo(y)ster Mums, took place in our space and this workshop was specifically geared towards children as sweatshop-participants: “‘We want to live as other children live’”, Palestinian children said in a press conference held outside Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital on November 8, 2023 to plead with the world to put a stop to Israel’s bombardments. Almost 8 months later, their demands are still unheard and thousands more children have been mercilessly targeted, injured, killed, starved, maimed, traumatized and harmed in ways beyond imagination. And yet, so many youths have joined pro-Palestine protests across the world, showing what it means to care for each other, demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire as well as an end to the occupation. With this workshop we want to honour this commitment and provide tools for protection as well as an opportunity to gather, reflect and work creatively together across different ages.”

The unbearable fact is that no ceasefire has been reached and famine rages in Gaza, with children suffering the most. In the Netherlands, an extreme-right landscape is in the making – oh shame – giving a wry twist to this year’s Keti Koti commemoration and celebration. There is unfortunately no positive note to fathom in order to end this letter, no light summer greetings, other than,

hold each other,
Frédérique Bergholtz,
with the If I Can’t Dance team