Dance Body Protest, Somatic practices against racism

Dance Body Protest, Somatic practices against racism When Sarah Bergh and Sandra Chatterjee asked me to write some thoughts about Dance, Body and Protest, one of the first thing, that I remembered was one of my dance productions called Permanent Prints (1999), premiered at Kampnagel Hamburg. This production was a triptych, constituted of three different choreographic works, one of those pieces, we called it Duett, casted by myself and Cristina Moura. While the audience rushed into the theater space we would be on stage, sitting at a chair, looking at the audience, with an empty look, the set-design was a self-written banner hanging above our heads, on which we could read the statement „We won’t move“. My main concern was to bring up themes for reflection such as multicultural identities (today I would have used the terminology ‚body of cultures‘), gender, racism, sexism, and social political conflicts. Dancer and choreographer Angela Guerreiro has never performed unclothed in her solos or pieces; instead, she has addressed multicultural identity and gender issues, racism, sexism and (social) political conflicts in her work.

Stages

28.03.2023 | by Angela Guerreiro

Crossing the sertões (Backlands) and the Promise of a Miguel Gomes Film

Crossing the sertões (Backlands) and the Promise of a Miguel Gomes Film Nurturing faith and congregating the faithful into groups of followers, all sorts of leaders emerged in the Sertão, often transmuting themselves in the process: from counselors to preachers, from priests to messiahs, from blessed to saints, all combinations were possible. When congregations took on contestations in political dimensions, they quickly came to be seen as a threat to the established order. For the authorities and representatives of official Catholicism, the religious leader then became an impostor, revolutionary, or bandit. The police or the army oversaw reducing the rebels - leader, and followers.

Afroscreen

21.03.2023 | by Anabela Roque

Art has no immunity

Art has no immunity In Portugal we have no racial-ethnic categorization legally approved. That means we are not legally able to identify social inequalities in terms of race. This is an important warning of how Portuguese society works and how this social silence from politics informs us that they are not interested in identifying this problem. But we can do this visually. Just look who are the people that are leading art institutions and curatorship to understand this gap. I created a blog - an informal exercise - where I put some information about this gap.

Mukanda

13.03.2023 | by Rodrigo Ribeiro Saturnino (ROD)

ACARTE: Heteropia, heterochrony, and the construction of the common

ACARTE: Heteropia, heterochrony, and the construction of the common The questions raised by Ana Bigotte, on the contrary, are not formulated in the strict disciplinary framework of art history, but from the porous and open framework of theory and cultural studies, taking as fundamental references the work of authors such as Luís Trindade or Boaventura de Sousa Santos, whose object goes beyond the specific sphere of the artistic to approach culture as a social process with multiple branches. It does so by following the path opened by André Lepecki, who formulated interesting hypotheses about the construction of the Portuguese social "body" from the study of dance and performance. This is another distinctive specificity of the Portuguese case that contrasts with that of the neighboring country: the focus on the arts of the body and the so-called "living arts", such as theater, dance, and music.

Stages

06.03.2023 | by Jesús Carrillo

Embodying escrevivência, wake-work, and Conceição Evaristo’s "Poemas da recordação e outros movimentos"

Embodying escrevivência, wake-work, and Conceição Evaristo’s "Poemas da recordação e outros movimentos"     I argue that by working within the porous intersection between feminism and race, Evaristo writes back against Western phallogocentrism, under whose domain “a man’s body gives credibility to his utterance, whereas a woman’s body takes it away from hers”. Moreover, in re-constructing her own version of the Black female body, Evaristo strives to counter what Spillers describes as the processes by which “the dynamics of signification and representation […unravelled] the gendered female” through the marking of Black woman’s “flesh as a prime commodity of exchange” during slavery. This leads in Poemas to a rejection of sexuality’s lexical crisis under enslavement, or rather, a rejection of the ways in which bodily “dispossession as the loss of gender” translates into Blackness’s “anagrammatical [abuttal]” of the feminine/familial markers ‘woman’ and ‘mother’. Disavowing the ‘American Grammar’ as such allows for Evaristo’s re-vindication of Black flesh, seeing it transfigured into an embodied cipher of shared heritage, unified resistance, and communal healing – a project of re-inscription which, drawing on the theoretical idiom of Christina Sharpe, I shall call ‘wake work’. The kaleidoscopic meanings of ‘wake’ abound in Sharpe’s writing, encompassing “the keeping watch with the dead, the path of a ship, a consequence of something, […] awakening, and consciousness” – at once appealing to the historical traumas of the Middle Passage and the violent slave-plantation economy, ‘wokeness’, and projects of memorialisation.

To read

09.12.2022 | by Isobel Jones

“To play music, it is necessary to read people”, an interview with artist and Dj Lucky

“To play music, it is necessary to read people”, an interview with artist and Dj Lucky Balanced between various cultures, he has lived for 31 years in a more open and diverse Lisbon, an openness and diversity to which people like Lucky have contributed so much, from building the city to making the city dance. This is a city of hard times, but also of encounters and possibilities with which he has grown up. In this text, we are led by the memories of Dj Lucky, between various sound tracks of quisange, semba, and afro blues, and multiple tracks on the floor, from Kinshasa to the Graça neighborhood, passing through Luanda, Cova da Moura, and Bairro Alto.

Face to face

15.11.2022 | by Marta Lança

Does America Vote Too Much?

Does America Vote Too Much? Why does this matter? Some experts argue that the saturation of elections has significant downsides — exhausting voters and hurting the quality of governance by pushing lawmakers toward more campaigning, fund-raising and short-term thinking.

Games Without Borders

08.11.2022 | by German Lopez

Mixed

Mixed At its heart, MIXED is an exploration of racial and cultural identity. MIXED deals specifically with people that have mixed heritage, delving into the experiences of each subject that also echo his own. The series addresses the existential feeling of not fully belonging, while examining the cost of assimilation within society. The conversations focus especially on the contradiction of fitting in everywhere but nowhere at the same time and the resulting shoot is a collaboration that encompasses the themes considered.

Stages

02.11.2022 | by Theo Gould

An impression of Documenta Fifteen

An impression of Documenta Fifteen Always identified with audacity, - or, as seen in the international press, marked with “controversies” and even “scandals” - the event is among the largest and most important in the art world. The fifteenth edition that was recently carried out was not exempt from a “scandal”: the unanimity of the German press in its judgment of anti-Semitism.

To read

02.11.2022 | by Cheong Kin Man

“Europa Oxalá”, tales of Europe

“Europa Oxalá”, tales of Europe This exhibition presents around 60 works by 21 artists whose family origins lie in the former colonies in Africa. Born and raised in a post-colonial context, they are artists whose works have become unavoidable in European contemporary art, proposing a reflection on their heritage, their memories and their identities.

To read

01.11.2022 | by Marta Lança

Brazil’s violent caste system

Brazil’s violent caste system Growing up, Felipe Adão had to navigate two worlds: one as a Brazilian, the other as an Afro-Brazilian. He studied at private schools, but lived in an underprivileged area of Campinas, a city in the state of São Paulo. Both his friends from school and his friends from the street had an influence on his upbringing.

Games Without Borders

21.10.2022 | by Jessy Damba Diamba

Contemporary Polish Photography In Germany

Contemporary Polish Photography In Germany The exhibition, which aims to give voice to a young generation of photographers in Poland, also includes the work of Irena Kalicka, a young artist who is critical of her country’s tendency to turn to the extreme right. I had the opportunity to present a photograph of her in the magazine “Fantasia Macau” last year.

To read

21.10.2022 | by Cheong Kin Man

Jîna ‘Mahsa’ Amini Was Kurdish And That Matters. Say her Kurdish name.

Jîna ‘Mahsa’ Amini Was Kurdish And That Matters. Say her Kurdish name. Shortly after Amini’s violent death on 16 September, protests broke out and spread from the Kurdish parts of Iran to the whole country and the world. Demonstrators chanted the Kurdish slogan “jin, jiyan, azadî” – “woman, life, freedom”. But in news reports, particularly Western ones, Jîna Amini’s Kurdish identity has been erased – she is described as an Iranian woman and her ‘official’ Persian name ‘Mahsa’ – which for her family and friends existed only on state-documents –is the one in headlines. Calls to “say her name” echo in real life and across social media but unwittingly obscure Jîna’s real name and, in doing so, her Kurdish identity.

Games Without Borders

18.10.2022 | by Meral Çiçek

Why Students Joining Iran's Protest Wave Matters

Why Students Joining Iran's Protest Wave Matters In the aftermath of Mahsa Amini’s death under Iran’s state custody, students have recently given a new energy to the weeks-long protests. They launched large demonstrations at Tehran University on Saturday and Sharif University on Sunday, according to a stream of videos that continue to be released. Protests were also reported at campuses in the central city of Isfahan, Kerman in the south, Mashhad in the northeast, Tabriz in the northwest, and elsewhere.

Games Without Borders

12.10.2022 | by Sanya Mansoor

Kim Praise — Photographs capturing the beauty of Angola and its people

Kim Praise — Photographs capturing the beauty of Angola and its people Angola is a nation still recovering from years of war and internal conflict, but photographer Kim Praise has his heart set on capturing the nation’s beauty, and the ways in which it’s evolving for the better. He tells writer Ify Obi about his favorite things about his home, and why he’s determined to paint the country—and its people—in a new light.

To read

12.10.2022 | by Ify Obi

Matter, Memory and Machine: The Politics and Poetics of the Gaze in Edson Chagas’ ‘Factory of Disposable Feelings’

Matter, Memory and Machine: The Politics and Poetics of the Gaze in Edson Chagas’ ‘Factory of Disposable Feelings’ This series continues the investigations that singularise Chagas’ work, namely the attention to the experiential and affective relationships that subjects establish with everyday objects and spaces, countering fast rhythms of consumption through a decelerated gaze that closely scrutinises discarded materials, shapes and textures. However, the series simultaneously marks a kind of turning point, insofar as, unlike previous series carried out in various urban public spaces to the North and South, vaguely identified (the streets and beaches of Luanda, Venice, London and Newport, etc.), in this series, for the first time, the photographer focused on the indoors and outdoors of a specific architecture.

I'll visit

29.09.2022 | by Ana Balona de Oliveira

Yonamine's exhibit "Parla_Mute"

Yonamine's exhibit "Parla_Mute" For PARLA_MUTE his latest show at Michael Janssen Gallery in Berlin, Yonamine presents a series of posters and silkscreens made from a number of phrases and graphic material picked up, once more, from the streets and transformed incessantly through the remix. We should prepare ourselves, once more, for a poignant show filled with seemingly contradictory messages—“It’s expensive to be poor” resonates strongly, or think about the title if one reads it on a bilingual horizon—in which the incessant variations of a handful of themes take centerstage, as they unfold and unfold infinitely.

I'll visit

02.09.2022 | by Yonamine and José Luis Falconi

De/Re-Memorization of Portuguese Colonialism and Dictatorship: Re-Reading the Colonial and the Salazar Era and Its Ramifications Today

De/Re-Memorization of Portuguese Colonialism and Dictatorship: Re-Reading the Colonial and the Salazar Era and Its Ramifications Today I believe that through art we can find a strong path of remembrance. Artists are able to communicate across temporalities and spaces, which traditional historiographical treatment could hardly accomplish. Artists who work with individual and personal history build empathy through works compared to academic research. Colonial monuments and street names left un-vandalized are not neutral spaces. As static as stone and tarmac may seem, memory is a process, not something carved and eternally preserved. New practices of memory preservation, from manifold perspectives, allow for addressing misconceptions and novel understandings of where certain contemporary situations emerge. In the absence of these practices, our imaginary becomes an accomplice to denials of violent that can always be repeated in unexpected ways.

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27.08.2022 | by Marta Lança

Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism, by Ariella Aisha Azoulay (2019)

Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism, by Ariella Aisha Azoulay (2019) Institutionalized violence shapes who people are—victims and perpetrators alike—to an extent that only the recovery of the condition of plurality can undo it. This points to the most basic right immanent to the human condition, which imperialism constantly compromises: the right not to act against others; in its positive formulation: the right to act alongside and with one another. “Accepting this right in its two forms as fundamental is necessary in order to imagine reparations, so the bliss of being active and repairing what was broken can be attained.

Mukanda

11.08.2022 | by Ariella Aisha Azoulay

In Kassel

In Kassel As agitprop, People’s Justice isn’t complex. On the right are the simple citizens, villagers and workers: victims of the regime. On the left are the accused perpetrators and their international accomplices. Representatives of foreign intelligence services – the Australian ASIO, MI5, the CIA – are depicted as dogs, pigs, skeletons and rats. There is even a figure labelled ‘007’. An armed column marches over a pile of skulls, a mass grave. Among the perpetrators is a pig-faced soldier wearing a Star of David and a helmet with ‘Mossad’ written on it. In the background stands a man with sidelocks, a crooked nose, bloodshot eyes and fangs for teeth. He is dressed in a suit, chewing on a cigar and wearing a hat marked ‘SS’: an Orthodox Jew, represented as a rich banker, on trial for war crimes – in Germany, in 2022.

To read

10.08.2022 | by Eyal Weizman