Performance and choreographic imagination: concepts, themes, works.
Bucharest, May 18-22, 2015
In this theoretical seminar led by Professor André Lepecki in the frame of the “E-Motional: rethinking dance” programme, participants will be discussing the intricate relations between performance art and performance theory in relation to choreographic practices over the last half-century. Each session will focus on a specific concept, around which several works will be discussed. The five structuring concepts are: score, performativity, thing, corporeality, speculation and darkness. Artists discussed include Allan Kaprow, Tatsumi Hijikata, Simone Forti, Helio Oiticica, Tino Sehgal, Mette Ingvartsen, Jérôme Bel, Xavier LeRoy, Tania Bruguera, Meg Stuart, among others. Theoreticians include Mario Perniola, Roberto Esposito, Giorgio Agamben, Gilles Deleuze, Randy Martin, José Gil, among others. The seminar will be held in English. Readings will be sent in advance to all participants.
The workshop is open to dance professionals – artists, curators, writers, producers – from Romania, the E-Motional programme coorganising countries and Eastern Europe. 15 places are reserved for Romanian participants, and 5 for foreign participants. Professionals interested are invited to fill in and send a short application form to contact@e-motional.eu by March 15, 2015. Only a total of 20 applicants shall be invited to participate in the workshop, and all applicants shall be notified about their application status by March 17, 2015.
The registration fee for confirmed participants is 200 lei (Romanian participants) or 50 Eur (foreign participants). 2 participants who do not afford the cost and explain their situation shall be exempt from the registration fee. Accommodation in Bucharest will be covered for foreign participants and for Romanian professionals not based in Bucharest.
The seminar will include morning daily sessions (10:00-13:00) and will be accompanied by a public lecture held by André Lepecki open to larger audiences in Bucharest (May 20), as well as evening cultural programme including Romanian performances.
The workshop is presented by Gabriela Tudor Foundation. Event organised with support from the Culture programme of the European Union. Project supported by the Trust for Mutual Understanding, administered by Movement Research. Cultural project funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. Partner: National Dance Centre Bucharest. With support from ArCuB – the Centre for Cultural Projects of the Bucharest Municipality.
André Lepecki, PhD. Professor in Concept and Composition at SKH, and Associate Professor in Performance Studies at New York University. Main areas of research: dance and performance theory, dance and philosophy, contemporary dance, performance and dance in the visual arts, experimental dramaturgy, curatorial studies, post-colonial theory and performance studies. Editor of the following books: Dance (Whitechapel Gallery / MIT 2012); Planes of Composition: dance, theory and the global (Seagull Press, 2009 with Jenn Joy); The Senses in Performance (2007 with Sally Banes); Of the Presence of the Body (Wesleyan University Press 2004). He is the author of Exhausting Dance: performance and the politics of movement (Routledge 2006) currently translated into 10 languages including German, Turkish, Spanish, Korean, Hebrew, Finnish and Slovenian. His directorial and co-curatorial work of re-doing Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (a commission from Haus der Künst, Munich) received the 2008 AICA Awards for Best Performance. He was the chief curator of the festival IN TRANSIT at Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin in 2008 and 2009. In 2010 he was co-curator of the interactive video archive ‘Dance and Visual Arts since the 1960s’ for the Hayward Gallery in London. Since 2013 he has been curating series of lectures on performance theory and performance history for MoMA-Warsaw. In 2013/4 he was a member of the C-MAP group at MoMA, New York. Selected keynotes include: Princeton University Gauss Seminars, Brown University, University of California Berkeley, Freie Universität, Berlin, MACBA, Museo Reina Sofia, MoMA PS1, MoMA-Warsaw, MAM/Rio de Janeiro. In 2009 he was a Resident Fellow at the Advanced Institute ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’ at Freie Universität, Berlin. In 2013 he was Visiting Professor at the post-graduate program at the School of Communication, UFRJ, with a grant from CAPES. His next single authored book, Singularities, dance and visual arts in the age of performance is under contract with Routledge and scheduled for publication in 2016.
The theoretical workshop led by André Lepecki is a project initiated by Ștefania Ferchedău. E-Motional: rethinking dance is a programme created and lead by Gabriela Tudor Foundation (Bucharest), as project leader, in collaboration with the Association of Professional Dance Choreographers of Latvia (Riga), Fabrica de Movimentos (Porto) and “George Apostu” Cultural Centre (Bacau), and in association with Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois – TROIS C-L (Luxembourg) and “George Enescu” National Museum (Bucharest).