I think much of the meaning of the work I do emerges from all the small choices, associations, transitions, limitations that the work requires to reach an end. Each of these small instances brings to the process again and again interrogations about what is needed to be say and how. Hence, where the work is finally going and how I can help it to go there is responsibility of all the differences and unexpected coming together. This is also a political statement, is the integration of the Otherness yet to come, whatever this Other might be.

stage work

I have addressed in my stage work diverse issues like obstetric violence, perception, family dynamics, computer devices and ecology. A relevant aspect of my poetics is the presence of references to different genres thats go from sci-fi/fantasy or grotesque to dogma 95 film aesthetics. I usually create very physical performances full of images, inviting the audience to experience a physical interaction which is playful and associative. A playfulness which sometimes, through exaggeration, overflows into humour or satire of the problematic it addresses. The images I evoke point in the direction of issues that concern complex problematics, but do not confront them directly with an antagonistic stance. Instead, the pieces work at the level of “What if…”, supposing things work this way, as alternative ways of thinking.

teaching

One of the strong ideas that come to my mind when I offer workhops, is that I do not want to define in advance the central concepts I use. Rather, I hope that its definition is immanent to the very practice that we will go through in the workshops. This does not mean that I do not have preconceptions or sources on which to base these concepts to generate guidelines, it is just that to reveal them in advance can hinder that they are devealed in the class, as a result of a collective and individual construction of all those who participate.

Finally, the workshop is produced and the practice itself generates new knowledge. For me it is a very powerful idea about how knowledge is generated collectively.

All of us who participated in the workshop, facilitators and participants taught each other because each one can contribute a piece of putting together the puzzle.

Alejandro Karasik