Photograph of Luanda Carneiro Jacoel by Åsmund Kaupang, used with permission.
Somatic Archiving Symposium
25-26 February 2015,
@ Medea, Malmö University and Malmö Slottsträdgården
Update: View video documentation from the symposium in this post
This is an open invitation to attend a performance and discussion event around the body, somatics and archiving – registration details below.
The “somatic” refers to a deep layer of the body, radiating outwards through physical and affective exchanges with the wider world. This symposium/event opens questions around the somatic, archiving, memory and cultural heritage. Performances by Joan Laage (USA), Boaz Barkan (Denmark) and Luanda Carneiro Jacoel (Brazil/Norway) will be interspersed by round-table discussions with contributions from academics, students and independent professionals.
We do not yet know what Somatic Archiving means. Expanding a performative mode of artistic research, we invite you to join us in posing questions or offering performative provocations to explore the zone where archiving, cultural memory and the body converge.
- How does the body record and archive memories?
- How can we access body memories through dance and somatic practices?
- How can we archive, collect or disseminate corporeal memories?
- What is activated in the body of a performer when they connect with people, memories and experiences of the past?
- Does reawakening the past “pre-mediate” or anticipate future physical and cultural forms?
- What political and social implications are revealed when historical memory is accessed and restaged through the living body?
This dialogue seeks to develop alternative approaches to archiving by focusing on the somatic body – with its memories, cartographies, and affective potential – as a critical actor in the work of historical recovery.
Our intention is to establish a network of researchers, practitioners, archivists and coordinators of cultural events interested in participating in on-going discussions around performance and archiving.
SCHEDULE:
Wednesday 25 February
18:00 performance by Joan Laage followed by warm drinks in the Slottsparken Greenhouse, Malmö, located next to Slottsträdgårdens kafé.
Thursday 26 February
9:30 coffee and registration. Roundtable and performances from 10:15 until 16:30, at the Medea Studio, Malmö University.
Here’s a flyer that you are encouraged to distribute!
For more information, contact elisabet.nilsson@mah.se or susan.kozel@mah.se
This is the first of 3 events planned for 2015 expanding the Performing Memory strand of the Living Archives Research Project.
Performer bios
Luanda Carneiro Jacoel (Brazil/Norway), artistic director of ACTS-laboratory for performance practices, is a dancer-performer seeking to update questions about body-memory, identity and cultural background. Her work researches a dialogue between physicality, metaphors and symbols where the body becomes a vehicle of communication, a place of events and images generated by the interaction between the performer and the viewer in real time. Searching for a hybrid body, the work crosses improvisation, body-installation, performance art and Afro-Brazilian traditional dances. Jacoel has a degree in Communication of Performing Arts – PUC-SP (Brazil) and is certified as a Somatic Movement Coach at Somatic Movement Institute – SMI (Netherlands). Contact: bodytransit.wordpress.com and actspractices.org.
Boaz Barkan (Denmark) is a creator and educator in the field of dance, performance and somatic education. Barkan’s interest is in movement and somatic-presence as transformative mediums for audience and performers. His work centers on initiating and facilitating performative events in diverse situations as well as leading workshops. Barkan has trained in various forms of contemporary dance both in Tel-Aviv and at the California Institute for the Arts, focusing on Body Weather Laboratory since 1992 (a limb of Butoh dance) in LA and in Japan (Min Tanaka and Oguri). He has spent many years working with Anna Halprin, and has worked extensively on projects in various cultural contexts such as the USA, South Africa, France, Denmark, Japan and Israel. Barkan is a certified Feldenkrais practitioner and a certified Iyengar yoga teacher, both principally somatic educations. He teaches at AFUK, and is a guest teacher at the Danske statens scenekunstskole. He is currently working on a project titled ‘May I speak about dance?’, a lecture-performance to be presented in Copenhagen in March this year.
Joan Laage (Kogut) (US) is a longtime Seattle resident, known as a NW butoh pioneer, and is a founding member of DAIPANbutoh Collective. After studying with masters Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa in Tokyo in the late 80s and performing with Ashikawa’s group Gnome, where she met SU-EN, she settled in Seattle and founded Dappin’ Butoh in 1990. While living in Poland she took the performance name of Kogut (rooster). In May 2011, she was featured at the butoh symposium at UCLA. Joan performed at the New York, Chicago, Portland, Boulder, Seattle and Paris butoh festivals. With a Ph.D. in Dance & Related Arts (Texas Woman’s University, 1993), her dissertation focuses on the body in butoh. Joan is featured in Sondra Fraleigh’s books – Dancing into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan and Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy. She frequently creates site-specific work for the Seattle Japanese Garden where she is a docent. Recent projects include the Suitcases Project, a 4Culture Historical Site(s)-Specific Project performed at train depots and The Engendering Project supported in part by the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. In fall 2013, Joan taught a butoh course at Cornish College of the Arts. While traveling in Europe from January through April 2015, Joan is pleased to be sharing her work in an exciting range of venues. Learn more: seattlebutoh-laage.com and daipanbutoh.com.