Laboratory of Dance / Dance as a Vantage Point

ONLINE SYMPOSIUM

July 1–3, 2020

Lab of Dance aims to build an exchange platform covering contemporary research strategies in dance studies, including, among others, emergent artistic research practices, as well as tool-disciplined cognitive science methodologies, both vividly drawing on a variety of theoretical and philosophical contexts. On such ground, together with the invited keynote speakers and participants of the symposium, we plan to discuss the methodological difficulties and challenges of interdisciplinary dance research and the benefits that can be derived from overcoming them. At the same time, we recognize the expansion of dance and related terms to other branches of knowledge, where it appears as the preferred research material, but also a source of functional concepts and metaphors. Thus, we invite practitioners, researchers and philosophers to jointly study the expanding space of the dance laboratory.

Due to the current epidemiological situation and its unpredictable development in the coming months, the Symposium Organizing Committee decided to change its formula. The symposium has been divided into two parts: the first will be held online in July 2020, and the second is scheduled live in May 2021.

An online symposium will be held from July 1–3. Its program includes online workshop by Nita Little, keynote lecture by Leena Rouhiainen and two thematic sessions. All presentations will be available online as recordings on June 29 for registered participants. Discussions on these proposals will later be conducted online based on the questions added in the comments to the recordings.

In response to the current global situation, a special panel discussion entitled "Dance Laboratory of Crisis" will take place July 3. Kaya Kołodziejczyk (Poland), Eva Maria-Hoerster (Germany) and Colleen Thomas (USA) will, among others, participate in the conversation about the present and future of dance during a pandemic.

Academic discussions will also be accompanied by artistic events, which will be initiated by online watching of the performance of the Polish Dance Theater "Fabula rasa” choreographed by Maciej Kuźmiński. In July, Daniela Komędera and Dominika Wiak will premiere interactive dance film project, and in September the premiere of a site-specific performance "Odyssey" choreographed by Tomasz Ciesielski will be held in Łódź.

A detailed program and information on the methods and conditions of participation in the symposium can be found here. Registration to participate in the symposium takes place via Eventbrite from June 18.

At the same time, we are looking forward to the opportunity of meetings, discussions and workshops happening live in Łódź during the second part of the symposium. Information on this event will be given soon.

Already next week the first, online part of the symposium "Laboratory of Dance / Dance as a Vantage Point" will take place. The second part is scheduled for May 2021.

“Lab of Dance” aims to build an exchange platform covering contemporary research strategies in dance studies, including, among others, emergent artistic research practices, as well as tool-disciplined cognitive science methodologies, both vividly drawing on a variety of theoretical and philosophical contexts. On such ground, together with the invited keynote speakers and participants of the symposium, we plan to discuss the methodological difficulties and challenges of interdisciplinary dance research and the benefits that can be derived from overcoming them. At the same time, we recognize the expansion of dance and related terms to other branches of knowledge, where it appears as the preferred research material, but also a source of functional concepts and metaphors. Thus, we invite researchers, philosophers and practitioners to jointly study the expanding space of “the dance laboratory”.

In July we can take part in Nita Little’s workshop, join the guest lecture by Leena Rouhiainen and two thematic sessions. All presentations will be available for registered users in the form of recordings before the start of the seminar (with the option of adding comments). Among online discussions there will also be a special debate about the current situation and the future of dance in the pandemic time ("Dance Laboratory of Crisis"). Academic discussions will also be accompanied by artistic events (including online watching of the Polish Dance Theater performance "Fabula rasa" choreographed by Maciej Kuźmiński, premiere opening of “Manhattan Interactive Movie” by Dominika Wiak and Daniela Komędera as well as the premiere of the site-specific performance "Odyssey 2021" choreographed by Tomasz Ciesielski.

A detailed program and information on the methods and conditions of participation in the symposium can be found here [soon].

The symposium is co-organized by Institute of Music and Dance.

REGISTRATION

Registration for the symposium is free and should be done via Eventbrite service. NOTICE! Online registration will be open from June 18. Only after registering for the event you will receive links and instructions how to participate.

SCHEDULE 2020

IMPORTANT NOTICE: The schedule is given in GMT+1 (Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, Rome) time zone!

ONLINE SYMPOSIUM

29/06/2020 Presentations available online on YouTube channel of the Symposium

1/07/2020:

● 18:00-19:00 Panel 1. Translating dances – moderated by Klara Łucznik

Shannon Cuykendall, Lucia Piquero Alvarez, Dorota Michalak, Paweł Skalski, Rajyashree Ramesh

2/07/2020:

● 17:00-18:00 Panel 2. Situated dance and choreography – moderated by Sandra Frydrysiak

Paulina Wycichowska, Juliana Moraes, Paulina Zarębska, Iza Szostak, Iwona Wojnicka

● 18:30-20:30 Keynote workshop session: Nita Little

3/07/2020:

● 17:00-18:00 Keynote Q&A session: Leena Rouhiainen

● 18:30-20:00 Panel discussion “Dance Laboratory of Crisis” –moderated by Tomasz Ciesielski

Eva Maria-Hoerster, Colleen Thomas, Kaya Kołodziejczak

ADDITIONAL PROGRAM

1/07/2020:

● 19:30 Online theatre: “Fabula rasa” by Maciej Kuźmiński (Polish Dance Theater)

31/07/2020:

● 20:00 PREMIERE: “Manhattan Interactive Movie” by Daniela Komędera and Dominika Wiak

19/09/2020:

● PREMIERE: Live and online theatre: “Odyssey 2021” by Tomasz Ciesielski

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM

1/07/2020

● 18:00-19:00, Panel 1. TRANSLATING DANCES

(moderator: Klara Łucznik)

1. Shannon Cuykendall (Simon Fraser University, Canada) „The Body Behind the Design: Examining Kinesthetic Transmission, Transfer and Translation in Interactive Dance Scores”

2. Lucia Piquero Alvarez (University of Malta, Malta) „Experience, perception, emotion: fighting against the “I didn’t get it” in contemporary dance”

3. Dorota Michalak (independent artist-researcher) „A bee a unicorn”

4. Paweł Skalski (University of Łódź, Poland) „Institutio Oratoria and the creative process. Classical rhetoric as an introduction to the methodology of working on a dance performance.”

5. Rajyashree Ramesh (Global Music Academy Berlin/Europa-University Viadrina, Germany) “Dance in embodied dialogue with current science – a cross-disciplinary analysis with Indian dance theatre”

2/07/2020

● 17:00-18:00, Panel 2. SITUATED DANCE AND CHOREOGRAPHY

(moderator: Sandra Frydrysiak)

1. Paulina Wycichowska (Poznań University of Physical Education, Poland) and Jarek Kordaczuk (Wytwórnia Zdarzeń Sonokinetycznych, Poland) „Ekphrasis”

2. Juliana Moraes (University of Campinas, Brazil) „EU ELAS [I HER]: The dancers’ body experienced as a network of environmental relations to be exposed, acknowledged, tensioned and disrupted through choreography.”

3. Paulina Zarębska (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Poland) „Choreographic dance-related problems: the role of embodied metaphors”

4. Iza Szostak (independent artist-researcher) "skaj is the limit"

5. Iwona Wojnicka (Research Center of Performing Practices at Huddersfield University, UK) “Gesture for Gesture”

● 18:30-20:30 KEYNOTE WORKSHOP SESSION: Nita Little

3/07/2020

● 17:00-18:00, KEYNOTE Q&A SESSION: Leena Rouhiainen "On embodiment and the alien: phenomenological insights for artistic research in dance and choreography"

● 18:30-20:00, Panel discussion DANCE LABORATORY OF CRISIS

(moderated by Tomasz Ciesielski)

1. Eva Maria-Hoerster German dramaturg, producer and from 2013 managing director of HZT Berlin.

2. Colleen Thomas New York based choreographer and performing artist, Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College of Columbia University.

3. Kaya Kołodziejczak Polish dancer, choreographer and dance activist.

KEYNOTE Q&A SESSION: LEENA ROUHIAINEN

On embodiment and the alien: phenomenological insights for artistic research in dance and choreography

Artistic research occasions a tense relationship between the singular sensuous qualities artistic processes entail and the scholarly articulation or knowledge production that research conventionally involves. This presentation readdresses this uneasiness on the basis of Bernhard Waldenfels’ phenomenology of the alien. He details alien experience in a manner that shows it to be pivotal for creative processes and thinking. Alien experiences move us in unexpected ways. They receive un-intentional articulation in sensations and embodied gestures, repetitious bodily stirrings as aftereffects of a contact with the elsewhere. Therefore, understanding these experiences can be germane for forwarding diverse processual undertakings in artistic research in dance and choreography. In detailing Waldenfels’ conceptions, the presentation aims pointing out that the ungraspable or inarticulate belongs to the structure of experience and that instead of rejecting it artistic research specifically should appreciate it in a responsible manner.

LEENA ROUHIAINEN is Professor in Artistic Research at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki where she has also acted as Vice Dean in Research. She is a dancer and choreographer whose research interests lie in somatics, performance, choreography, experimental writing, phenomenology and artistic research. She has published many articles in these areas and has likewise continued to do collaborative art projects. The latest Internet -based work, The Air Journey, is together with choreographer Riikka Theresa Innanen and sound artist Antti Nykyri and will be completed in fall 2020. She has co-edited several books, among others Dance Spaces: Practices of Movement (2012) with Susanne Ravn and Tanssiva tutkimus:tanssitutkimuksen menetelmiä ja lähestymistapoja (Dancing Research: Approaches to and methods in dance research) (2014) with Hanna Järvinen. She is on the editorial board of Nordic Journal of Dance, Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices as well as Dance Articulated. She was chair of the board of Nordic Forum for Dance Research (NOFOD) between 2008-2010 and Executive Board Member of Society for Artistic Research (SAR) between 2015–2020.

KEYNOTE WORKSHOP SESSION - NITA LITTLE

Response-Ability requires building New Attentional Tools

This is an era in which Response-Ability is a critical issue to our social and environmental responsibility. However, little seems to be understood about its practice. For example, what is understood about the relationship between our physical embodiment and our ability to be inclusive? Or, about spatial tactility and our empathy? Or, about our ability to build networks not just between the human but inclusive of the non-human? And, where do we think we humans begin and end? Alva Noë asks this question and adds, “where does the rest of the world begin”? And what's this got to do with communication and response-ability? The Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication considers these questions and many more. Thinking beneath the scale of human behavior, on the level of micro-actions, ensembles of dancer researchers are considering anew what a human can be when the embodiment of physical attention is part of the paradigm of "the self." This lecture/presentation/workshop is an invitation into this rethinking that requires actually experiencing what we are coming to know.

Keywords: Response-ability, embodiment, communication, attention, selfhood

NITA LITTLE, PhD is an activist for relational intelligence through improvisational dance practices that began with the emergence of Contact Improvisation (CI) when she worked with Steve Paxton in 1972. A dancer, teacher, choreographer, and dance theorist continues to be a major influence in the development of CI and includes ensemble post-modern dance research. Little received her PhD in Performance Studies in 2014. She tours worldwide on a regular basis working for dance companies, at major international festivals, conferences and universities teaching, lecturing, and choreographing. Her writing investigates ecological actions of attention and the creative potentials present in entangled relations. She initiated the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (the ISSC) in 2016 with dance research ensembles in seven countries globally.

Nita Little, fot. Fabio Flecha

DANCE LABORATORY OF CRISIS

EVA-MARIA HOERSTER - dramaturge, curator, organiser and educator. Since 2006 she has been working at the Inter-University Centre for Dance / HZT Berlin, first as the founding managing director until 2013 then as a project developer and coordinator. From 2003-06 she was the artistic director of the Tanzfabrik Berlin, where she had previously worked in the fields of dramaturgy and production. She was involved in the transformation of the Tanzfabrik from an artist collective to a production and research centre. Since 2016 she has been curating the programme series AUSUFERN at Uferstudios, which produces and presents socially engaged art projects. Additional curatorial projects include the international dance festival passage-recherche for the German National Theatre Weimar (2013) and the interdisciplinary program Berliner Ermittlungen (Berlin Investigations) in the frame of the EU network apap (2006). She was co-initiator and co-curator of the „TanzNacht Berlin” and the forum “Tanz made in Berlin“ from 2000-2004. For many years she has been engaged in Berlin cultural politics striving to improve the structural conditions for dance as an art form. First as a founding and board member of the umbrella association (ztb e.V.) for contemporary dance Berlin and then as co-initiator of the TanzRaumBerlin network. In addition, she has been a member of the Berlin ‘Rat für die Künste’ since March 2014.

KAYA KOŁODZIEJCZYK - Choreographer, dancer and movement director. The dancing character you will meet in the VR experience “Nightsss”. Her organic movement was recorded in motion capture technique. Kaya's choreography became the starting point for studying the affective dimension of movement in the storytelling with the use of virtual space. Kaya's work with the new VR medium was possible thanks to her extensive experience in creating choreography for theater performances, television theaters and film productions. She worked choreographically on films of Agnieszka Smoczyńska (The Lure, 2015, Fague, 2018) and on various artistic projects with Pola Dwurnik and Jacek Sienkiewicz. A longtime dancer in Rosas, a company from Belgium. She performed in performances created by the most important choreographers of the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries: Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Trisha Brown and William Forsythe. She collaborated on performances of such artists as Mette Ingvartsen, Kris Verdonck, Szymon Rogiński, David Wampach and Aleksandra Wasilkowska. In Warsaw, she performs at the Grand Theater - National Opera in the spectacle of Mariusz Treliński The Flying Dutchman (2012) and performances by the theater director Maja Kleczewska: Głos ludzki (2016), Rage (2016) and Golem (2017). In the 2018/2019 artistic season, she plays in The Painted Bird by Maja Kleczewska on the stage of the Polish Theater in Poznań and in The Himalayas directed by Robert Talarczykat for The Silesian Theater in Katowice.

COLLEEN THOMAS - New York-based choreographer and performing artist. She is the director of Colleen Thomas Dance, co-director of Bill Young/ Colleen Thomas Co., and co- curator for LIT (loft into theater). Her work has been seen throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Asia, and South America. Her recent research includes: a new evening length work with artists from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and USA that premiered at La MaMa Theater in May 2019 and a recent published scientific study looking at brain activity in contact improvisers with Dr. Andrew Goldman (Goldman, A., Thomas, C., & Sajda, P. (2019). Contact improvisation dance practice predicts greater mu rhythm desynchronization during action observation. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aca0000255.) In her newest work, light and desire, Thomas joins five women artists from Venezuela (Carla Forte), Hungary/Germany (Ildiko Toth), Poland (Joanna Lesnierowska), Albania/ Greece (Ermira Goro), and North America (Rosalynde LeBlanc), taking a personal and universal look at how women artists cope under oppressive and manipulative power structures. This feminist collective looks at the many moments of transition and asks how women hold, embody and express power. The world premiere performances will take place at New York Live Arts in New York City from April14-17, 2021 once we have come through this.

She also continues to make work with her husband and friends and is a Professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College of Columbia University.

TOMASZ CIESIELSKI (moderator) - Choreographer, performer and dance researcher from Łódź. Student of choreography at the Academy of Music in Łódź and PhD student at the University of Łódź. He works at the interface between art and science, combines choreographic strategies with methods drawn from cognitive sciences and cultural studies. Creator of internationally presented performances: Sense-action; Eligible Costs/Dance, My love; Idyllusion; Karaoke and others. Dancer in professional companies. Between 2011 and 2016 dancer at Granhøj Dans (performances Men & Mahler and Rite of Spring Extended, both awarded the prestigious Årets Reumert 2013 and 2014). Member of the CHOREA Theater (projects: Oratorium Dance Project, Antic/Dance in Re-Construction, Touched/Moved). As a performer, he also collaborated with Rob Hayden, Tomasz Rodowicz, Mikołaj Mikołajczyk, Liwia Bargieł, Wojtek Mochniej and Anna Piotrowska.

ADDITIONAL ARTISTIC PROGRAM

The artistic program is funded by the Institute of Music and Dance.

FABULA RASA by Maciej Kuźmiński, Polish Dance Theater

"In the ice of solitude man becomes

most inexorably

a question to himself."

Martin Buber

This performance is inspired by the book, Fabula Rasa, the last work of the post-war poet and novelist Edward Stachura who took his own life in 1979. Born and raised in France, before resettling in Poland, he spent his adult life writing poetry and prose, and restlessly wandering the world, a stranger, a tramp, a vagabond, a mystic, a misfit, an exile who suffered from both ecstatic visions and terrifying hallucinations. In his forward to Fabula Rasa he wrote “This book is a description of something that is. That something is the immortally living life. You can discover it if you don’t get stuck on words... If you get lost farther, beyond the word, beyond the grave.”

Choreography, concept: Maciej Kuźmiński

Music: Zbigniew Kozub, Stanisław Moniuszko

Costumes, scenography: Ilona Binarsch

Dramaturgy: Paul Bargetto

Lighting: Paweł Murlik

Premiere cast: Amy Basley, Evelyn Blue, Kacper Bożek, Julia Hałka, Agnieszka Jachym, Paulina Jaksim, Jerzy Kaźmierczak, Zbigniew Kocięba, Katarzyna Kulmińska, Dominik Kupka, Paweł Malicki, Daniel Michna, Michał Przybyła, Katarzyna Rzetelska, Sandra Szatan, Emily Wong-Adryańczyk

Production: Polski Teatr Tańca 2019

MACIEJ KUŹMIŃSKI - Choreographer, performer, educator, producer. Artistic director of Maciej Kuźmiński Company. Founder and director of the Polish Dance Network. Enblish Dance Tabs magazine described Room 40 by Kuźmiński as 'bridging concept and beauty', a remark that well describes the style of the choreographer. His works, formally daring with grounded, dynamic movement, have been presented over 140 times in 20 countries. The multi-award winning artist has claimed among others the prestigious Audience Award at the Polish Dance Platform 2014, or 2nd Prize and Special Prize at the International Choreographic Competition in Hannover 2018. Maciej Kuźmiński graduated with Distinction from MA Choreography studies and BA Dance Theatre studies from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. Pedagogue at Codarts, Trinity Laban, University of Calgary, Belgrade Dance Institute, Dance Departament in Bytom, Poland.

Dofinansowano ze środków Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego pochodzących z Funduszu Promocji Kultury w ramach programu „Moniuszko - Promesa 2019”, realizowanego przez Instytut Muzyki i Tańca.

Andrzej Grabowski: Fabula Rasa

Odyssey 2021

In the Odyssey 2021 project, we want – through performance, dance and the use of multimedia – to check to what extent the mythical pattern of Odysseus is important for a modern Pole and European. We want to look for the remnants of the intuition of the experience of the transforming journey in our viewers, emphasizing the moments of pause: moments of doubt, internal and external blockades, obstacles. In this sense, the project addresses the social and cultural problems of contemporaneity: migration; aging of the West; concerns related to climate change and dynamic geopolitical situation. Finally, a global pandemic has also become the topic of this project at the last minute.

Concept:

Tomek Ciesielski

Choreography created in close cooperation with dancers:

Sarna Natalia Kladziwa, Paweł Urbanowicz, Oscar Mafa

Music:

Kuba Pałys, Sean Palmer

Costumes:

Damian Robert Kretschmer

TOMEK CIESIELSKI - Choreographer, performer and dance researcher from Łódź. Student of choreography at the Academy of Music in Łódź and PhD student at the University of Łódź. He works at the interface between art and science, combines choreographic strategies with methods drawn from cognitive sciences and cultural studies. Creator of internationally presented performances: Sense-action; Eligible Costs/Dance, My love; Idyllusion; Karaoke and others. Dancer in professional companies. Between 2011 and 2016 dancer at Granhøj Dans (performances Men & Mahler and Rite of Spring Extended, both awarded the prestigious Årets Reumert 2013 and 2014). Member of the CHOREA Theater (projects: Oratorium Dance Project, Antic/Dance in Re-Construction, Touched/Moved). As a performer, he also collaborated with Rob Hayden, Tomasz Rodowicz, Mikołaj Mikołajczyk, Liwia Bargieł, Wojtek Mochniej and Anna Piotrowska.

Manhattan Interactive Movie

Project "MANHATTAN INTERACTIVE MOVIE." is an interactive form of short dance film. The subject of the project is the issue of control and choice in the face of the inevitable apocalypse.

Scenario, concept: Daniela Komędera-Miśkiewicz, Dominika Wiak

Director of Photography: Paweł Szymkowiak

Music: Aleksander Wnuk, Michał Lazar

Performing: Daniela Komędera-Miśkiewicz and Dominika Wiak

Video of the explosion: Natan Berkowicz

Narration: Anna Szpaczyńska

Translation: Anna Komęder

Created by: Daniel Komędera-Miśkiewicz, Dominika Wiak

Manhattan fot. Dominik Więcek

Source of the photo at the at the top of the webpage: Sense-action / Tomasz Ciesielski (copyright: Dotknij Teatru, HaWa)

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Laboratory of Dance / Dance as a Vantage Point

ONLINE SYMPOSIUM

July 1–3, 2020

A detailed program and information on the methods and conditions of participation in the symposium can be found here. Registration to participate in the symposium takes place via Eventbrite from June 18.

At the same time, we are looking forward to the opportunity of meetings, discussions and workshops happening live in Łódź during the second part of the symposium. Information on this event will be given soon.

Already next week the first, online part of the symposium "Laboratory of Dance / Dance as a Vantage Point" will take place. The second part is scheduled for May 2021.

A detailed program and information on the methods and conditions of participation in the symposium can be found here [soon].

The symposium is co-organized by Institute of Music and Dance.

REGISTRATION

Registration for the symposium is free and should be done via Eventbrite service. NOTICE! Online registration will be open from June 18. Only after registering for the event you will receive links and instructions how to participate.

SCHEDULE 2020

Book of abstracts

ONLINE SYMPOSIUM

1/07/2020:

2/07/2020:

3/07/2020:

ADDITIONAL PROGRAM

1/07/2020:

31/07/2020:

19/09/2020:

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM

Book of abstracts

1/07/2020

● 18:00-19:00, Panel 1. TRANSLATING DANCES

2/07/2020

● 17:00-18:00, Panel 2. SITUATED DANCE AND CHOREOGRAPHY

● 18:30-20:30 KEYNOTE WORKSHOP SESSION: Nita Little

3/07/2020

● 17:00-18:00, KEYNOTE Q&A SESSION: Leena Rouhiainen "On embodiment and the alien: phenomenological insights for artistic research in dance and choreography"

● 18:30-20:00, Panel discussion DANCE LABORATORY OF CRISIS

KEYNOTE Q&A SESSION: LEENA ROUHIAINEN

On embodiment and the alien: phenomenological insights for artistic research in dance and choreography

KEYNOTE WORKSHOP SESSION - NITA LITTLE

Response-Ability requires building New Attentional Tools

DANCE LABORATORY OF CRISIS

ADDITIONAL ARTISTIC PROGRAM

FABULA RASA by Maciej Kuźmiński, Polish Dance Theater

Odyssey 2021

Manhattan Interactive Movie

Project "MANHATTAN INTERACTIVE MOVIE." is an interactive form of short dance film. The subject of the project is the issue of control and choice in the face of the inevitable apocalypse.