The title refers to Ocean Mudra Samadhi, the deepest level of collective consciousness according Buddhist philosopher Dogen Zenji (13th Ce.). This installation is the choreographic chapter following 18 months of research which began as participatory workshops with freelancers asking the question ‘ What do we know about free time?’. Thinking of activity, work and measure, I used wearable tech like fitness monitors, and commercial EEG headbands to measure to the point of absurdity and then to reflect on how the numbers correlate to the experience . During the residency I will be working with a DIY ‘wearable’ made of crocheted conductive thread alongside a commercial EEG headband. Small sensors pick up micro-movements of the body and relay them to a sound interface> Through these sensors I will create a ‘flow space’ where the sound composition can alter the viewer’s brain state as well. I will be developing choreography based on the movement research I did in the free time workshops as well as movement practices that work from the premise of non-intentional action. The concept of the work addresses: • Automatism in art history and how nonconscious modes of sense-making and inspiration are relevant to current developments in neurotechnology and science’s contemporary interest in consciousness due to advances in AI. • The commodification of inner and personal realms of experience in imperceptible processes of data extraction and manipulation through online shopping, social media, and ‘smart’ gadgets, what Shoshana Zuboff calls ‘surveillance capitalism’. • How the brain and bodily rhythms can be entrained through practices of meditation, contemplation and mindfulness, but also paradoxically through repetitive tasks that automate behaviour and responses: the flow state in psychology (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). This is a state of effortlessness and timelessness while being involved in an activity. • The work takes some inspiration from carnival sound systems in creating a space for communal gathering where people can all move to a shared rhythm that has the potential to bring about group flow or trance.
I will test out structural elements that would allow the public to participate as dancers that create within the installation.
I wish to run a public-facing workshop to explore the choreography with local people, dancers and artists.

Presentation en research 23 November 2019 at 19:00 at CLOUD

Short bio

Dominique crafts an aquatic logic through embodied practices aimed at ‘swimming through’ the contemporary impasse. She borrows from Buddhist psychotechnologies for (re)awakening the sensorium to an expanded experience of the absolute present where bodies and things intermingle in a porous encounter of more-than-human eroticism. She works across choreography. installation, performance, film and writing to discover methods of sense-making as visceral and participatory rituals. Dominique is a research candidate in the Art Department at Goldsmiths University.Recent exhibitions and presentations: Chisenhale Dance Space (upcoming 09/2019); Tai Kwun Cultural Centre, Hong Kong;The Gallery, MARs Centre, Goldsmiths University; Tate Exchange.

www.dominiquebb.com

Photo credit: Still from ‘So Tired, the Sea …’ by Prof. Astrida Neimanis (made in collaboration with Dominique Baron-Bonarjee, Prof. Adriana Verges, and Siouxzi Connor). #bodiesofwater #liquidbodyworlds #wobbledynamics #exhausted #oceanicfeeling #hydrofeminism

The residency at Danslab/CLOUD is focused this time on deepening the emerging solo work and on meeting up with two artists Roberta has been working since 2014 – Eli Dijkers/photography (www.elidijkers.nl) and Amund Roe/music composition – and spending studio time to begin making a solid base for the piece POINT OF ASSEMBLAGE which will have its premiere in May 2020 in Slovakia. Project POINT OF ASSEMBLAGE involves also other artists: for light design Pavla Beranová (www.pavlaberanova.com), for doublebass music Romana Uhlíková. The piece POINT OF ASSEMBLAGE has its common ground in the art of instant composition, while the imagery is getting step by step clearly articulated through the works of the involved artists. An important aspect of this work is the co-habitation of the media of sound/music, movement/dance and light design/scenography, so that a desired quality of “being” is reached in the natural creation process.    

The work on Roberta´s solo INFINITE LABIRYNTH is focused on exploring the levels of underneath (the ground), on (the ground) and above (beyond). She is interested in physically touching upon the ´two inner voices´, through the actual dancing she is getting familiar with them, understands their nature and lets the emerging piece be informed by that. The front and the back of the body has been anatomically essential for this theme. 

The work on both projects is supported by Slovak Arts Council.  

Roberta Legros Štěpánková
www.robertastepankova.com

performer, choreographer, body oriented psychotherapist

In her performative, pedagogic and therapeutic work, moving body is an essential source of information and meaning. Attention to it provides richness to our being at any moment, it gives volume to our imagination. When teaching, she aims at sensitizing both the perceptive and expressive pathways in making dance. The deep trust in the emergent movement has a crucial role within both the artistic and introspective work she proposes.

Roberta has studied, lived and created in Spain and The Netherlands. Now she is based in Brno, Czech Republic. She works as a performer, dance teacher and a body oriented psychotherapist. Her dance training is based in improvisation technique and Skinner Releasing technique. She believes in the full potential of our selves we can reach by involving the body awareness in our work, creation and life. Within her creation, Roberta makes solo pieces, initiates international interdisciplinary arts collaborations. Amongst the last collaborations, there has been FROM BEHIND HORIZONS, INDIGO with Gianna Gruenig (2019), RIEKA POD RIEKOU with Romana Uhlíková (2018), NA BREHU, JANUS with Ivan Palacký (2018), SNENIE KAMEŇA (2017), THE CROSSROADS with Amund Roe (2016).

In 2017, she co-founded ORBITA, the platform for the development, creation and research of dance and physical arts in Brno.  

Friday 27 September at 19:00 at CLOUD/danslab

With the 2nd HUBS IMMERSIVE Festival coming up on 8 and 9 November in The Hague, we organise a number of Creative HUBS Exchanges in co-operation with our program partners.

This time Hilde Tuinstra invites you to contribute to her project Safe Zone – A resilience course. In a poetic musical experience, Safe Zone examines the security industry and how we can defend ourselves against collective fear. With her new interdisciplinary theatre group Shift Happens, Hilde Tuinstra creates site-specific theatre productions, bringing to life possible future scenarios and showing shifts in society with and through technological developments.

You are warmly invited! Please let us know in advance you will attend by sending an e-mail, mentioning your name and the number of people you will bring, to [hubs.immersive@gmail.com].

” We meet each other on the verge of reality, somewhere on the street or at the end of the party. The different meetings are like resets, attempts to conncet with each other. Our bodies, so as our characters, relate in different ways. Each of these attempts takes a new form, a different expressivity. How do we experience an ambivalent look or an off-putting celebration of feathers and who are we for each other in this inconsistent reality? ”

Keren will give open class at CLOUD/Danslab,
you are welcome to join!
For any question about it please contact her
benshachar.keren {at} gmail.com

Contemporary dance class
Tuesday 9 July 9:00-10:30
Thursday 11 July 9:00-10:30
Tuesday 16 July 9:00-10:30
Thursday 18 July 9:00-10:30

Presentation residency research
Saturday 19 July at 17:00

On February 2018 we, Keren and Eliott, started working on the Duet ”And all that Pop” in Riksteatern Stockholm (SE). During the residency at CLOUD/Danslab we will keep developing our work.

We are interested in the coexistence of seriousness and humor as well as oddness and normality. We found that humor is a key to communicate and allow the audience to access our world. Playing with physical and theatrical intentions (‘states’) and shifting/ transforming between them we will be exploring different ways of communication. We will research the ambivalence that lies in communication using voice, body and intentions in contradictory ways. How a subtle smile or a distant look can change our reaction and the way the action will be perceived. 

Twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday between 9:00 – 11:30 we invite you to join our warm up! We will be sharing some ideas and exercises which we use for our research. We will explore the body as a medium of communication through use of voice, ‘states’, imagination and ‘theatrical’ elements. Using these elements, we will research the themes of humor, sense-making, absurdity and narrative.

About us

Keren Ben Shacharis a dancer, performer and maker living in the Netherlands. 
She was born in Haifa, Israel (1992). She completed her studies at ArtEZ University of Arts, Arnhem (NL), BA Dancer/Maker (2018).

As a dancer/ performer, Keren worked with the maker Lorenzo Capodieci and performed the trio ‘Dis-is’, participated at the video dance ‘Point of Change’ by PRIME collective – Daniel Barkan & Enrico Meijer. She performed at different art installations by the Dutch visual artist Cindy Moorman and by Chataine Moekardanoein her work ‘Stage Vivant'(NL). 

Together with her colleague Johanna Tengan, they participated in PA.R.T.S summer residencies (BE), investigating physical methods to develop body/mind presence and awareness. She created the group piece ‘MASScontemplation’ together with her colleagueHellen Boyko for Kibbutzim College (IL).  Together with the collective Sneezy Sneakers she created and performed the Trio ‘Prelude’ which performed at Hooge80 festival (NL) and Summer Stage PT (2017). She worked as a rehearsal assistant with Amos Ben-Tal for the creation ‘The Appearance of things’ at ArtEZ Academy (NL) and was invited by ArtEZ Master of Architecture to teach at the Proprioception Workshop, Tromsø(NO). Supported by the Israeli fund ‘Mifal HaPais for Culture and Arts’ she participated in two intensive workshops by David Zambranno (GR, PT).

As performer and choreographer Keren is interested to create different experiences that will both touch and challenge her audiences. She loves working with movement; visual images; physical theatre and she often uses the elements of irony, absurdity, human morals and emotions in her works.

Eliott Marmousetis a dancer, performer and maker, currently based in Stockholm (SE). He was born in Fontainebleau (FR) in 1994. He completed a Dancer/ Maker BA in ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem (NL) in 2018. Prior to that, he graduated from a Product Design study at the ENSAAMA in Paris (FR) in 2014. 

For the season 2019-2020 he will be working with Cullberg-Ballet in Stockholm (SE). With them he has had a year internship and a guest contract for the last two years where he worked with makers such as: Mathias Anderson, Eleanor Bauer in collaboration with rap artist «Yung lean », Ludvig Daae, Jefta Van Dinther, Deborah Hay, and Alma Soderberg. 

Besides that Eliott has been working as a freelance dancer on a piece by Albert Quesada produced by «Mercat de les flores »during winter 2019 in Barcelona (ES). 

As a maker he has collaborated with Hellen Boyko on «skype duet »a piece dealing with abstraction and «in between the form in between »a piece on aspirations dreams and all sorts of ambitions. Within the collective «sneezy sneakers »he has co-created «Prelude »a trio that explores the making of emotions, and proposes a hectic journey through them. 

Facebook event

Photo : Eric Kellerman

The edges of the voice

8th and 9th of December

Guest Readers: Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman and Amelia Groom

Texts by: Anne Carson and Eduardo Kohn

In this cluster we will be delving into texts and practices that explore the limits and potentials of vocal expression. We will be looking at two texts that approach questions of voice and silence/ing through very different entry points; that of the non-human semiotic worlds of the rainforest, and that of the gendered politics inherent in determining how and whether voices are heard. Departing from their respective practices dealing with the question of the voice, Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman and Amelia Groom will guide us through experimental and in-depth discourses that may broaden our perceptions of where we hear voices, when we speak up, and when we deliberately deploy silence.

The second part of the cluster is a workshop led by artist/vocalist Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman, in which we will explore the texts and our many voices, by assembling an experimental “non-human choir”. Aurélie will guide us through physical and vocal exercises focusing on onomatopoeia, non-linguistic sounds, and the untapped possibilities within the repertoires of our non-adult and non-human voices (baby, animal, spirits, etc.). The workshop is suitable for complete beginners as well as professionals in the fields of vocal practice, and is open to participants of any age.

Note from the curators

There are a limited number of spaces available for this event. As this is a discussion, you are expected to have read the provided texts before attending. Please reserve a spot by sending an email to platformtm@gmail.com. We will also provide you with a copy of the texts once you have RSVP’d.

The Reading Room is organised by Jonathan Reus, Sissel Marie Tonn and Flora Reznik. With thanks to support from Stroom Den Haag and the Dutch Creative Industries Fund, and our production partner the Instrument Inventors Initiative.

Invited Guests

Amelia Groom is a Berlin-based writer, and currently a postdoctoral research fellow at ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, where she is working on an art historical project about stones. Since 2014 she has taught on the Critical Studies MA at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, and she was also the theory tutor for the Master of Voice programme at the Sandberg (2016-2018).

Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman’s oeuvre balances between radio, installation, performance, vocal art and composition, with her extensive collection of unique field recordings and soundscapes from rural and urban East-Africa serving as the common denominator. Soundbite by soundbite she transforms and molds all those sounds into something she describes as “Afrique Concrète”. In addition to this, she constantly premieres new music by emerging young composers from around the globe in a multiplicity of styles. Lierman is a former radio maker and host at the national Belgian broadcasting corporation and co-created two Nurse With Wound albums.

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