Seminar 4: 28 - 30 May 2024

How can practice becoming a living archive of support structures, resistance and collectivity as moving bodies? The question remains: how can we move together politically and learn how to think and move beyond western individualism? This confluence will focus on moving together politically in relation to dance and protest.

We will continue to tackle these questions from the departure point of our bodies in dialogue and movement with each other. Following the trajectories from our first gathering at Nida, we will deepen the conversation with Natalie Yon Mik, crossing pedagogies of embodied knowledge of dance and resistance, moving through vulnerabilities and ongoing questions of support structures in relation to protest.

Connor Schumacher, who was invited by the students, will be present to tap into questions of dance floor politics and facilitate movement exercises in a mad social choreographic lecture.

From dance floor politics, we will move into the cosmologies of voguing, entangled with struggles for liberation and space for queer power transformation. Kenjji Benjii is a dancer, performer and choreographer who will facilitate movement exercises bringing to light the essence of voguing and the ballroom poetics and politics of body and spaces, to discover our own cuntyness.

We will move a lot and see how this will influence the collective rehearsals and sessions to share and co-learn.

The sessions will include material by Gabeba Baderoon, Ocean Vuong, Camae Ayewa, Bhanu Kapil, Johanna Hedva, Audre Lorde, Judith Butler, André Lepecki, Petra Kuppers, Susan Leigh Foster, Sandahl, and Carrie and Philip Auslander. 

The sessions will be facilitated by Lilia Di Bella, Yon Natalie Mik, Connor Schumacher and Kenjii Benjii.

28 May

Morning session

10:30–11:00

Assembly

Introduction of program

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella with Samira Ghoualmia and Chiara Figone (both online)

Dance and Resistance accompanied by Yon Natalie Mik

A social choreography of resistance emerges by bringing bodies, non-bodies and spirits in dialogue, examining what it means to build fragile support structures, to protest from a place of vulnerability, and to acknowledge the inherent violence in movement. Bodies become porous archives for anti-ableist lives and we let ourselves dissolve for a more inclusive practice of moving together.

11:00 – 13:00 Part I Kinetic Knowledge

Movement-based exercises to identify and collect bodily knowledge. Followed by short rounds of sharing and reflection between each exercise.

Accompanied by Yon Natalie Mik

Afternoon session

15:00 – 18:00 Part II Social Choreography 

Questions of social choreography, support structures, resistance that draws from and builds on ideas of fragility and vulnerability, and resistance through movement-based exercises and collective readings.

Accompanied by Yon Natalie Mik

SNACK BREAK

18.30 – 20.30 Part III Performative Resistance

Coming together for sharing, watching, listening, and reading other examples of dance as forms of resistance.

Accompanied by Yon Natalie Mik

29 May

Morning session

10.30 – 13.00

Student Rehearsal

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella

Afternoon session

14:30-17:30

HIMT (High Intensity Metaphoric Training)

From personal, interpersonal and environmental skills - dance is where we practice what makes us essentially human. What do we want from intentionally shaped dancefloors? And how do metaphors make those intentions not only possible, but essential. A stark raving mad social choreographic lecture.

Accompanied by Connor Schumacher (invited by the students)

SNACK BREAK

18.00 – 20.30

Student Rehearsal

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella

30 MAY

Morning session

11.00 – 13.00 Culture

Movements and elements calling to discover your cuntyness

Accompanied by Kenjji Benjii

Afternoon session

15.00 – 18.00  Lab Cunty

Movements and elements calling to discover your cuntyness

Accompanied by Kenjji Benjii

SNACK BREAK

18.30 – 20.30

COOP Rehearsal

Dance Floor

Accompanied by Kenjji Benjii and Lilia Di Bella

Seminar 3: 24 - 26 April 2024

"I don't tell stories just to pass the time. It is the stories that come to me, inhabit me and transform me. I need to get them out of my body to free up overloaded boxes and receive new stories." (The Sand Child,  Taher Ben Jelloun)

How do you embrace memory and the collective body as living archives in our practices and in relation to Choreopoetics? How do we come together– collectively creating spaces of co-learning, sharing tools within community-building and environments of gathering that can merge into forms of transgressive pedagogies? How do these energies inhibit us in ourselves and as bodies in dialogue with each other?

During this confluence, we will learn about the performative nature of possession in relation to protest and community building. As we tackle these questions, to learn about our desire for radical pedagogies of liberation and alternative pathways of knowledge transmission and community building, we will learn about the ritual and performance practice of Gnawa that are locally engrained in Essaouira.

Gnawa ceremonies are practiced to embody collective relationships to the divine. Through the performatively crossing dislocation, rootedness and belonging in sonic and performative rituals, ancestors are called on to heal.

Together, we wish to find a web of crisscrossings between the idea of moving politically, protest, dance and modality of poetic expression as active tools of disobedience.

The sessions will include material by Josefine Báz, Mohammed Khaïr- Eddine, bell hooks, Sobonfu Somé, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Etel Adnan, Éduard Glissant, Kopano Maroga, M. Jacqui Alexander, and Taher Ben Jelloun. 

The sessions will be facilitated by Chiara Figone, Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, and Samira Ghoualmia.

24 April

Morning session
10.30-11.00
Assembly

Introduction of program and guests tutors

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

11.00-11.20

Movement exercise

We invite you to share movement based exercises of gathering, forming a collective body and interconnectedness between each other. 

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

11.20-12.30 
Collective walk

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

Lunch
13.00-14.00

Afternoon session

14.30-16.00

We will never be defeated: collective practices in the protest’s language

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

16.00–18.00
Investigating posture. Act in protest.

An open dialogue between Laila Sit Aboha and Iman Salem

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

Dinner / Evening session

19.00–20.30 Fermenting knowledge. Convivial dinner chats

We would like to share the ceremony of eating all together, to share, reflect and ferment together the experienced day. This will be an informal gathering where we would like to spend time together to exchange about our crossings and the growing trajectory.

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

20:30 - 22:00 JOINING Palestine teach-out: What is the Future of Art? initiated by COOP ~ Assembling Land: Rehearsals towards Place-making

"This year, the Palestinian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale takes the form of a manifesto, presented as an A3 Xerox pamphlet. Titled "What is the Future of Art?: A Manifesto Against the State of the World," this gesture calls for urgent action in response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It confronts the stark realities shielded by nation-state rhetoric and imperial power. Accompanied by poetry, the manifesto resonates with the themes of dismantling nation-states, reclaiming land, and restoring art and poetry as essential tools of resistance. The unpacking of this timely manifesto, invites participants to join with a selected poem about or relevant to the Palestinian struggle (e.g. Moving Towards Home by June Jordan).  

Participants are invited to join with a poem on or relevant to Palestine."

25 April

Morning session

10.00-10.45 Collective walk

11.00-12.45 Chaos Reading

Accompanied by Samira Ghoualmia

Lunch
13.00-14.00

15.00-15.15

Movement exercise

We invite you to share movement based exercises of gathering, forming a collective body and interconnectedness between each other. 

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

15.20-17.00

Collective Rehearsal

Accompanied by Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

Dinner / Evening session

Evening session

19.00–20.30  Fermenting knowledge. Convivial dinner chats

We would like to share the ceremony of eating all together, to share, reflect and ferment together the experienced day. This will be an informal gathering where we would like to spend time together to exchange about our crossings and the growing trajectory.

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

26 April

Morning session

10.30-10.45

Movement exercise

We invite you to share movement based exercises of gathering, forming a collective body and interconnectedness between each other. 

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

11-13.00 Collective Rehearsal

Accompanied by Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

Afternoon session

15.00-18.00 Gnawa Transmissions

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

Evening session

19.00–20.30 Fermenting knowledge. Convivial dinner chats

We would like to share the ceremony of eating all together, to share, reflect and ferment together the experienced day. This will be an informal gathering where we would like to spend time together to exchange about our crossings and the growing trajectory.

Accompanied by Iman Salem, Laila Sit Aboha, Chiara Figone and Samira Ghoualmia

Seminar 2: 5 - 8 March 2024

During our gathering at PAF, we seek to foster and inquire about embodied pathways to forms of co-learnings and inquiries of moving politically. We wish to rehearse forms of collective movements, thinking about bodies in dialogue traversing into Choreopoetics together.

What does it mean to move together politically in relation to the radical pedagogy of liberation? How can we rehearse Choreopoetics together? What is the relation between undisciplined corporeal practices such as improvisational movements that can nurture the intimacy of different bodies as a collective and protest choreographies?

Drawing from different trajectories of Black feminist practice, poetic expressions such Transbluesency, and other intersections of dance, poetry, and communal practices, we aim to deepen and rehearse pedagogies of liberation as means to (un)write and (un)fix marginalities and create common grounds for networks of solidarity.

The sessions will include material by Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Ntozake Shange, Olu Oguibe, Sarah Ahmed, Sobonfu Somé, and Resma Menakem.

The sessions will be facilitated by Chiara Figone, Emanuela Maltese, Lilia Di Bella, Savanna Morgan and Samira Ghoualmia.

5 March

Morning session

10.30-13.00

Collective Offerings Part 1

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella, Chiara Figone, Savanna Morgan and Samira Ghoualmia

Afternoon session

14.00-16.00

Collective Offerings Part 2

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella, Chiara Figone, Savanna Morgan and Samira Ghoualmia

16.00–18.00

Choreopoetics

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella, Chiara Figone, Savanna Morgan and Samira Ghoualmia

Evening session

20.00–22.00

Merged COOP Invitation Curating Position’s to Screening Eyal Silvan “IZKOR. slaves of memory 1990” + Q&A

6 March

Morning session

11.00-13.00

Crisscross of Chaos reading and Movements 

Reading: The Spirit of Intimacy (Sobonfu Somé)

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella & Samira Ghoualmia

Afternoon session

14.30-16.00

Study Session: Responses to “Indes Galandes”

Readings: bell hooks, Olu Oguibe, Resma Menakem, Sarah Ahmed

Accompanied by Samira Ghoualmia

16.00-18.00

Student led Session

Evening session

20.00–22.00

COOP Dance session

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella, Chiara Figone, Savanna Morgan and Samira Ghoualmia

7 March

Morning session

10.30-13.00/13.30

Transbluesencies: Interactive lecture + Listening Session

Accompanied by Savanna Morgan

Afternoon session

14.00-16.00

Black Feminist Contextualization

Accompanied by Savanna Morgan

16.00–18.00

Screening: Blues for Mrs. by Dr. Anton Juan

Accompanied by Savanna Morgan

Evening session

20.00–22.00

Student led session

8 March

Morning session

11.00-12.00

Annotations “Notes toward a Black Feminist Poethics”

Accompanied by Emanuela Maltese

Afternoon session

14.00-16.00

Student led Session

16.00–18.00

Annotations and collective mappings

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella, Chiara Figone, Savanna Morgan and Samira Ghoualmia

Evening session

COOP Dance session

Accompanied by Lilia Di Bella, Chiara Figone, Savanna Morgan and Samira Ghoualmia

Seminar 1: 23 - 26 January 2024

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