Artistic Research through movement(s)
dance, movement practices, somatic attention, perception, movement as a generator of possibilities, writing, mentoring, collective lab
In 2024 Im_flieger offers the third edition of > SCHULE@Im_flieger, a hybrid format that combines transgenerational and transdisciplinary knowledge transfer, artistic research, production and discourse. Under the artistic direction and mentoring of the Spanish choreographer, dancer and teacher Laura Vilar, the year will be dedicated to the topic Artistic Research through movement(s). The aim of this part-time, year-long program is to facilitate a collective learning experience for a small group revolving around
Research through movement(s)
Research from the movement
Research with the movement
Research about the movement
Research in the heat of movement(s)
. Among others these questions are aimed at accompanying the research processes: What do we move when we dance/perform? How to insist on the deepening of the attention towards, from, within the movement to let other ways of doing, being, generate, emerge? How do we turn movement into dance, performance, or practices? What (values) do we embody with our movement(s)? How to generate a movement study practice that contains a potential for emancipation?
The study and somatic listening to the movement will be the nuclear place from which to branch out the investigations, taking them towards processes that can take very different forms and ways of sharing and presenting itself. The intention is to rely on the creative process from the body as a tool for personal, social and poetic transformation.
Personal as well as collective movement research will be generated. Laura Vilar will share her broad movement experience both practical and discursive research and the implications on the personal and political level. The specific approach will contain questions as: Which qualities, forms, and implication emerge when we shift our attention to the in-between and processes while moving? Next to the intensive week research spaces within the core-group she will support the participants mentoring each process one-to-one. The guest researcher Eva-Maria Schaller, Pierre-Michaël Faure, Martina De Dominicis and Andrea Soto Calderó, will share their specific approaches in weekend workshops. The participants will document and deepen the developed movement material within a residency and share it with a wider public.
More thoughts from Laura Vilar:
The temporary school for Artistic research through movement(s) addresses artists, as well as people from other professional fields with an interest in investigating a personal/specific topic, and place the exploration and research of movement as a central axis of the process.
Artistic research through movement(s) is proposed as a space that supports the own investigation of the participants through different work devices combining: the formation of a study-practice group, personal mentoring, workshops, and work residencies. The proposal is designed to insist on a sustained attention to the individual and collective processes focusing on the body movement as a main theme.
The starting point for the research will be the body movement that is able generates potentially dance(s) performances, pedagogical practices, theoretical discourses, among others. The attention will be focused on the processes and movement practices that happens, with, through and between the body movement which it is possible to understand, attend to and develop the research in progress. The research can go through somatic attention, to writing, to dance, to archiving, to shared conversations, to reading, to translating, to practices, and so on. The proposal is to approach the study of the self-movement from different perspectives such as anatomical, somatic attention, choreographic-performative composition also giving space to aspects such as perception, imagination, or memory, letting all these experiences guide the own research.
This research space is proposed as a collective laboratory. The group is proposed as a support element and with the agency to generate knowledge. At the same time, individual accompaniment will be very present to support the generation of devices, practices, and processes to go deep in the personal research. The proposal of guidelines is to support each person to make emerge different materials which could have different formats.
Beyond the expected materiality of the investigations, there is the possibility of multiple instances of creation during the processes, instances that can be a result (in process) of different natures, formats, and forms of presentation. Methodologically and epistemologically will be committed to give consistency and place to the diversity of ways in which research practices are carried out from body movement.
The main objective is to accompany personal research creating together a journey that can account for the specifics of each investigation as well as the common aspects of the work from, in, with and between movement(s).
working together _ intensives week research space
working one to one _ mentoring each process
working _ with guest-researchers
generating personal research
generating collective research
Abstract of Laura Vilar’s last research (2022)
“This doctoral research comprises a performance and a textual corpus. It has been, is and will be an attempt in and between writings that make visible layers, levels, forms, voices, materials and explorations of an extensive process of immersion. The text is weaved into five Attempts to (dis)appear, a device created to think about what emerges in an (inter)ceptive experience, a notion that I propose pointing to the possibility of conceiving, from movement, singularity and difference as well as multiplicity and what is common. The (inter)ceptive space is relational and transitive, it is perceived, appears and allows itself to be touched by training a specific attentional state.
The approach has been, is and will be ecosystemic and interstitial, not separating artistic and pedagogical practice from writing and academic research. Throughout the thesis, some of the central questions were, are and will be: Which qualities and forms of characterization emerge when we shift attention to in-betweens and processes while dancing? Is proprioception the sense that opens possibilities to loop pedagogical collective research practices for performing arts? Could a long-exposure attention to the possibilities of proprioception show the (inter)ceptive spaces, making ‘other ways of looking at the same thing’ emerge? How to generate a movement study practice that contains a potential for emancipation?
For the theoretical development of the attempts, I have worked on key notions such as: long-exposure attention, between, event horizon, trouble, dancing corporeity, pedagogical practice of situated improvisation, gravity, spiral, suspension, among others. This research has deployed itself collectively, between my experiences in workshops, curatorships, cultural management and collective research, between practices that have shaped into performances and diverse textualities.” (more see Bibliography)
Artistic direction Schule@Im_flieger 24 / mentoring: Laura Vilar (ES/AT)
Curation: Anita Kaya, Laura Vilar
Selected artists /participants: Chiara Aprea, Jessica Cottee, Anne Megier, Wanda Petri, Flora Schauer and Sarah Sternat
Guests/Experts: Eva-Maria Schaller (AT), Pierre-Michaël Faure (FR), Martina De Dominicis (IT/AT), Andrea Soto Calderón (CL/ES)
Coordination: Sara Lanner
Direction / project development SCHULE@Im_flieger: Anita Kaya
PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE March – December 2024 // Temporary School for “Artistic Research through movement(s)“
The school year consists of a series of four week-long and three weekend meetings (6 hours/day, 1 hour break included) together with a series of twelve bi-monthly Tuesday evening meetings. All of the weekend workshops are also open for additional participants to join. Within the core group participants there will be extra studio-time offered (residencies in summer and autumn 2024).
Mon 18 – Fri 22 March 2024
Core-group week – Arriving into the Process // Laura Vilar (ES/AT)
This first week is designed to get to know the group and the different interests of the investigation. Movement and writing practices will be proposed to display the first questions of interest, a map of the initial materials that trace the routes and situate the research, both physically and theoretically and proposals for continuity with the work.
Sat 20 – Sun 21 April 2024
“Nobody knows what a body can do” // Eva-Maria Schaller (AT), Pierre-Michaël Faure (FR), Laura Vilar (ES/AT) (open workshop)
What can a body do while dancing? This question, rooted in the affirmation of the philosopher Spinoza “nobody knows what a body can do”, pointing to the unlimited potential of our corporeality, makes us a framework to reflect-experience-feel about what we call “technique” in dance. We wonder if the technical language about movement is still valid today, where are the limits and overflows of dance, and how we manage and share them. Is the pedagogy of forms sufficient for the emancipation of the performers? ? Is the ability to update a sensitive present-thought-experience technical, or is it perhaps necessary to remove or transform the technical word? Ausgehend von diesen Fragen werden wir uns von den Rändern und den unscharfen Räumen als einem situierten Wissen davontragen lassen.
| [ ] | Sat 20.4.24 | Sun 21.4.24 |
| 10 – 10:30h | Writing practice _ Laura | Writing practice _ Laura |
| 10:30h – 12:30h | Practice _ Eva | Practice _ Pierre |
| 12:30h -13:30h | pause | pause |
| 13:30h – 15:30h | Practice _ Pierre | Practice _ Eva |
| 15:30 – 16h | Writing practice _ Laura | conversation |
Sat 25 – Sun 26 May 2024
Ways of Paying Attention // Martina De Dominicis (IT/AT), Andrea Soto Calderón (ES), Laura Vilar (ES/AT) (open workshop)
We propose an intensive space to practice, reflect and feel what and how happens when the attention happens, and which ways of relating and situating ourselves in the world display the different ways of paying attention. Which qualities and forms emerge when we shift the attention to the in-betweens and processes while dancing? Could a long-exposure attention to the possibilities of proprioception let ‘other ways of looking at the same thing’ emerge? Ausgehend von diesen Fragen werden wir uns von den Rändern und den unscharfen Räumen als einem situierten Wissen davontragen lassen.
| Sat 25.5.24 | Sun 26.5.24 | |
| 10 – 10:30h | Writing practice _ Laura | Writing practice _ Laura |
| 10:30h – 12:30h | Practice _ Martina | Practice _ Andrea |
| 12:30h -13:30h | pause | pause |
| 13:30h – 15:30h | Practice _ Andrea | Practice _ Martina |
| 15:30 – 16h | Writing practice _ Laura | conversation |
Mon 24 – Fri 28 June 2024 // Laura Vilar (ES/AT)
Core-group week / Sharing within
Returning to the core group for a longer meeting to give us a chance to reflect on the personal and collective process and work together before the summer break. The focus will be on sharing each of the research generating an exchanging space, and the possibility of collecting new inputs to continue.
summer break
Mon 2 – Fri 6 September 2024 // Laura Vilar (ES/AT)
Core-group week / Regathering
After the summer break we will meet to situate again the research preparing the next months of work. We will put our attention in the practices that can help to develop the different materiality’s of the research.
October 2024 – Open Lab of 3 days // Laura Vilar (ES/AT)
Specific dates and context will be fixed in relation to the interests of the core group.
Mon 9 – Sat 14 December 2024 // Laura Vilar (ES/AT)
Core-group week / Sharing with the public
This full week will be focused on prepare the public presentations. The proposal is to present a process of the research. Every format of presentation is welcome.
Regularly Tuesday meetings // Laura Vilar (ES/AT)
Every 2nd Tuesday 17h – 21h (open warmup / closed group research) 2 April – 25 June & 17 September – 26 November 2024.
The regular evening meetings will be proposed in two parts, one as a movement practice open to the public, sharing a warmup, and a second part working on the research with the core group. (We ask for a 75% of the days commitment)
Personal Mentoring // Laura Vilar (ES/AT)
15h One-to-One- mentoring during the weeks of residency. Schedule to agree with the artists.
Bibliography
Bainbridge Cohen, B. (2012) Sensing, Feeling, and Action, The experimental anatomy of the Body-Mind Centering, Contact Editions, Northampton.
Bainbridge Cohen, B. (2020) An introduction to Body-mind centering® https://www.bodymindcentering.com/introduction/
Bardet, M. (2012). With Descartes, against dualism https://www.academia.edu/13817348/With_Descartes_against_dualism
Bigé, R. (Ed) (2019) Steve Paxton: Drafting Interior Techniques, Godard, H y Bigé, R. Study in gravity, chapter 4: Moving-moved. Culturgest, Lisboa
Federici, S. (2016) In Praise of the Dancing Body. Gods and Radicals, s/n. Traducción de Juan Verde. “En alabanza al cuerpo danzante” Brujería Salvaje, s/n (junio de 2017). Recuperado el 19/07/2017 de: http://brujeriasalvaje.blogspot.com.ar/2017/06/en-alabanza-del-cuerpo-danzante por.html?m=1>
Garaloces M. Zuain J. (2019) Procesos de escritura y puesta en escena. Catálogo Los textos de la Danza. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Segunda En Papel Editora.
Godard, H. (2004) Gesture and its perception, in Writings on dance, vol n° 22, 57-61.
Haraway, D. (1988) Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 575-599 Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3178066 Recuperado el 17/04/2021
Haraway, D. (2019) Staying with the Trouble Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Ed consonni, Bilbao.
Noë, A. (2015) Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, Ed Hill and Wang, New York.
Rancière, J. (2008) Thinking between disciplines: an aesthetics of knowledge, nº 0 revista Inaesthetik, junio 2008, (p. 81-101) https://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia01/parrhesia01_ranciere.pdf
Rolnik, S. Godard, H. (2005) Regard aveugle. Entretien avec Hubert Godard, Lygia Clark de l’œuvre à l’événement.Éditions du Musée Des Beaux-Arts de Nantes/Les Presses du Réel, (p. 73-78)
Urdaneta, I. (2022) What is Resonance and Why is it so Important? Physicist at Resonance Science Foundation, july 22, 2022. Resonance Science Foundation. Recuperado de: https://www.resonancescience.org/blog/what-is-resonance-and-why-is-it-so-important
Andrea Soto Calderón (CL/ES) , PhD in Philosophy, professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory. She works as a teacher at the Barcelona University and at the Pompeu Fabra University. She has developed her research in Valparaíso, Barcelona, Lisbon and Paris. In addition to her teaching activity, she carries out an artistic research project in relation to the performativity of images at La Virreina Center de la Imatge, in Barcelona. Her recent publications include her book Le travail des images with Jacques Rancière, Les presses du réel, 2019 and The performativity of images, Metales Pesados, 2020.
Anne Mégier (FR/AT/IT) is a dance performer, dance and movement pedagogue, Shiatsu practitioner, landscape whisperer, sustainability activist, sometimes translator, mother, grandmother. All these different understandings of being and dealing with life create the base of a research of movement as a dialogue with ourselves and our surroundings, as a surface of projection and materialization of this relationship and diverse languages. Authentic Movement and cognitive Trance are reliable partners for creative und personal hygiene processes. 2014 Founding member of KOLLEKTIV KLAUS, since then creation and performance of pieces and interventions for unconventional/ public places. Cooperations with different artists: Andreas Jähnert/Theater Mutante, Theatercombinat/Claudia Bosse, Doris Uhlich, Johanna Tatzgern/Goldfuss Unlimited, Elina Lautamäki, Bouchra Ouizgem, Nada Productions/Amanda Piña, Art in Process/Bello Benischauer, Mathilde Monnier.
Chiara Aprea (IT/AT) has always been fascinated by the potential of both verbal and non-verbal communication. For this reason, she moved from Naples to Vienna, where she completed a BA in Contemporary Dance at MUK and one in Transcultural Communication at ZTW. After finishing her dance studies, she was part of “Femenine” by Eva Maria Schaller and more recently of the Erasmus+ funded project “Exit the Room”, in the context of which she developed a short performance for young audiences in collaboration with other artists. Now, she’s pursuing an MA in Translation, while still deepening her dance practice and beginning to investigate ways to connect the two. She finds continuous inspiration in the idea of a body able to think and a mind able to move.
Eva Schaller (AT) is a freelance dancer, teacher and choreographer based in Vienna. Her works deal with female dance-histories, particularly Austrian modernist dance heritages, transmission and embodied memory. In her dance practice she also explores connections of vocality and moving asking how the dancer’s agency and experience can be articulated, with and without words: attempting poetic bridges between movement, meaning, sound and language. evamariaschaller.jimdofree.com
Flora Schauer (AT) is a musician and physiotherapist based in Vienna. She’s interested in Movement and Sounds of the immediate surrounding and the own body. Above all, her own voice and the variety of timbres, that flow into Flora’s music productions as a solo artist and singer of the band “Flunder”. As a physiotherapist she also works with Body and Sound, focusing on body awareness and the connection of somatic movement, breath work and voice.
Jess Cottee (UK/IE) has been dancing since she was a child. Her professional background is as a humanistic and integrative psychotherapist. For the past ten years she has been dancing butoh with masters including Masaki Iwana and Minako Seki, and in her own teaching and practice has been exploring combinations of imagination, the placement of attention, somatic awareness and movement that bring about shifts in internal states. She is the writer of Minako Seki’s upcoming book and recently completed the Seki Method Teacher Training Programme, for which she was also the writing assistant. In December 2022 she was dancer in residence at the first Hybrid Butoh Vienna Art Festival and in 2023 she was an ATLAS participant at ImpulsTanz Festival.
Laura Vilar (ES/AT) is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and researcher, based in Vienna and Barcelona. She has a PhD degree from the Philosophy department at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona with an artistic research trough dance(s). She is Co-directing nunArt – artistic research center in Barcelona. She is teacher at the dance pedagogic department at the Institut del Teatre of Barcelona. She has been director of the Professional Training at Area Barcelona dance school from 2017 to 2021. She has taught nationally and internationally at several art centers such as: Bad Lemond’s profi training Münich, CODARTS Rotterdam, Saineb dance co Istanbul, Linz Anton Bruckner University, in Spain: Cobosmika seeds, nunArt Barcelona, Area, Varium, La Caldera; Back Pulver feedback training Vienna, Im_flieger Vienna, among others. She has danced in several companies as: Compagnie Taffanel based in Montpellier (2003-2010), Cobosmika company / Russell Maliphant (2006-2013) toured internationally, Hermanas de Castro, Trànsit (2000-2001), La Inconnexa 2002-2003, Lanònima Imperial (2004), Comediants, Salvatge cor (2006-2008) or Dance Theatre of Ireland (2010), a. o. Her latest works as a choreographer: Tentativas de (des)aparición (2022), #quéhayenelmundo (2021), Voyager (2019-2020), Sanjiao (2017). www.lauravilarblog.wordpress.com, www.guinardo.nunartbcn.com/en
Martina De Dominicis (IT/AT) is Vienna based dance artist and choreographer. After a career with several institutional dance companies across Europe, she begins in 2016 to collaborate with Rafaele Giovanola for Cocoondance company (DE/CH). The ongoing collaboration with the company as performer, outside eye and as researcher in the creation of a movement glossary, stimulated the desire to investigate a methodology that flows in between practice and theory. In line with this aim she is currently carrying out her MA studies in Movement Research at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz. In Vienna she was part of Veza Maria Fernandez’s Amadora Llama (Tanzquartier Wien, 2018) and Georg Blaschke’s Giotto’s Corridors (Brut 2021). She is co- founder of the Backpulver_training and feedback practices project. In 2019 she co-initiated with Alberto Cissello the artistic duo collective Debocs. With the piece yet to be born they have been invited to perform in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Croatia. As a teacher she has been sharing her practice in ZZT Dance University in Köln, Otto Falkenberg Schule Munich, Dancearts Boris Nebyla in Vienna. www.debocs.com
Pierre-Michaël Faure (FR) is an interpreter, choreographer, and pedagogue, Pierre-Michaël trained from a very young age in classical ballet at the Perpignan Conservatory and later at the Marseille Opera School. He opted for contemporary creation and began his career as a performer in several national and international companies, such as the Ballet Atlantique Régine Chopinot or the Compagnie Taffanel. He is currently a teacher in France and abroad, where he develops a specific work with children and adults. Through the foundations of contemporary dance, he implements a sensitive approach, which considers placing “the person” at the center of the work of interpretation, research, and improvisation.
Sarah Sternat (AT) was born in Graz in 1988 and lives in Vienna. She is a visual artist, costume and set designer. In 2022/2023 she completed a dance intensive for contemporary dance with Andrea Nagl. In 2015 she completed her studies in painting, tapestry and animation film with Christian L. Attersee and Judith Eisler at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2014 she founded the performance collective CLUB FORTUNA together with Xenia Lesniewski, Julia Rublow, Kurdwin Ayub and Nana Mandl. In 2020 she had a teaching position in the sculpture class at the Kunstuniversität Linz. Her works have been shown at Brut Wien in the performance Behind my four walls I call you my friend by Veza Fernandez (2022), at Kunsthaus Graz at the exhibition Body and Territory (2023) and at the exhibition MY EYES ARE GREEN CAUSE I EAT A LOT OF VEGETABLES, basement gallery Olomouc, CZ (2023), among others. Most recently she worked as costume and set designer for the production Purple Spheres by Mirjam Soegner, which premiered at Tanzfabrik Berlin in Oktober 2023.
Wanda Petri (DE/AT) born in 1989 in Kamp-Lintfort, lives and works as a dancer, choreographer, and dance educator in Vienna. Throughout her diverse training, she had the opportunity to view and learn dance from various perspectives. She earned her diploma in stage dance from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK) and the Iwanson International School for Contemporary Dance in Munich. In 2018, she completed her academic degree in contemporary dance education at the Private University of the City of Vienna (MUK). After her studies, she worked as a director’s assistant for the schallundrauch agency in the production “Große Sachen” at Dschungel Wien. Additionally, she collaborated with Magdalena Forster on projects such as “Cloud Music,” “CARUIN,” and “Blob.” Blob is an event series for performance art that combines dance, sound, and performance in a club setting, blurring the boundaries between the audience and the performers. Since June 2023, Wanda Petri is a mother of two children and is currently working on a solo performance.