Embassy of Foreign Artists     
Workshops & discussions | novembre 2018 | with Mohamad Abbasi, Gavin Krastin, Anastasia Proshutinskaya

 

Mohamad Abbasi | Gavin Krastin | Anastasia Proshutinskaya

Workshops & Discussions  | November 2018
@ Maison des arts du Grütli
Studios de l’ADC | Dans le cadre des 
Rencontres Professionnelles de Danses – Genève

 

Embassy of Foreign Artists is pleased to invite you to a cycle of events with our residents Mohamad AbbasiGavin Krastin and Anastasia Proshutinskaya. These events will take place in the ADC studios at Grütli, rue Général-Dufour 16, free entry except for workshops chf 30.- in the morning and chf 20.- in the afternoon. The whole program is in English


IS DANCE ONE?
Monday, November 19 2018 | 19h00-22h00 | Discussion | 3rd floor studio | Free entry

With Mohamad AbbasiAnastasia Proshutinskaya & Gavin Krastin.

An open discussion in which we explore how a singular approach to dance has emerged as an intersection of multiplicities. Or has it? This includes conversations on style, training and programming. Who represents what and how does a singular or multiple approach impact dance communities, venues, funding arenas and the social stigmas of various dance forms (such as classic, folk, traditional and contemporary – all sorts of contemporary dance)? If various ideologies pertaining to dance exist, how shared or integrated are they, and what are the consequences of this for dancers? The conversations come from four different vantage points (Russian, Iranian, South African and Swiss) where notions of hierarchy, heritage vs art, contemporaneity and geographical preferences within specific dance industries are discussed.


BODY IMAGINATION ET TRANSMIGRATION
Saturday, November 24 2018 | 10h00-13h00 | Workshop 1 | 2d floor studio | CHF 30.-

By Mohamad Abbasi

My mother has never danced in her life. I’d love to see her dancing. I’ve always been asking myself how can I make her dance, so then I imagine myself going inside her body in order to make her dance. If I could go into my mother’s body and dance she would dance as well, It is like a duet for me and mother. The paragraph above describe the idea of a dance piece “ I am my mother”; this piece is how I am dealing performatively with this question. I bring this question also to the workshop, working on this as a material for some movement research.

I will perform the piece in the beginning of the workshop (15 min). Then we enter the workshop working on some questions, through our “body imagination”. What are our movement urgencies? What are impulses that make us move? How we can use our body imagination to replace our body with an “oppressed body” and using oppression that our bodies never experienced as movement impulses?


TO MAKE DANCING DIFFICULT: breaking lines, augmenting the body, disrupting rhythm and and agitating agency through scenographic devices.
Saturday, November 24 2018 | 14h00-16h00 | Workshop 2 | 2d floor studio | CHF 20.-

By Gavin Krastin

This workshop explores ways in which scenography-as-costuming can be utilised not to decorate the body or solidify narrative, but rather how it can produce and augment choreography. Through a series of facilitated tasks, participants will engage with measures that can frustrate flow and impede momentum in order to produce an alternative way of moving that occupies space differently. This is not a technical class, but rather a time for inquisitive play and body-based experimentation. As the title suggests, these experiments aim to disrupt and problematise ideals that dancers often hold dear: clean lines, neat bodies, conventional rhythms and maximum agency.

It is open to all dancers, choreographers and somatic practitioners. All scenographic materials will be provided, but please bring comfortable clothing and an open mind. It runs at two hours, including time to show the materials created.


DOCUMENTARY CHOREOGRAPHY
Monday November 26, 2018 | 19h00-21h00 | Conference | 3d floor studio | Free entry

By Anastasia Proshutinskaya

Narrative is allowed to return back to art. It is probably a reaction to the chaos of information around us, to disorienting relativity and multiplicity – artists and audiences sort of need to make some particular sense of it again. We see this word documentary here and there more often. And as there are documentary cinema and documentary theater already establishing their method and ethos, it is interesting to ask – what is documentary dance, actually? Why it is hard to think of an example right away; has it anything to do with dance itself? In this talk, Anastasia Proshutinskaya, researcher and practicing dance curator, will outline and illustrate various approaches that artists take to documentary dance.

This talk can be of interest for dance artists and dance researchers and will be followed by discussion. The very theme of memory, history and body as an archive opens a vast field for the exchange of opinions and experiences.


These residencies are supported by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, and the Republic and Canton of Geneva.

Special thanks: Association pour la danse contemporaine (ADC) et les Rencontres Professionnelles de Danses de Genève.