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ABOUT DANCE v1 Ep2: Work & Play
May 29th 2021 – May 30th 2021
In many ways this was a forum built around questions and answers. The event took the form of a call and response between moderators and guest presenters on the one hand, participants online and live on the other. To get a sense of the second forum’s launching points – and to keep the dialogue alive – EXPAND these boxes, watch the video trailer, or better yet, gather some playmates and let the documentation spark new collective conversations on work and play.
The ABOUT DANCE, Vol 1 Episode 2 participants spent two days discussing labor, work, play, virtuosity, and new tenets for an ideal cultural economy. Prompted into various forms of dialogue by forum moderators, Kareth Schaffer and Olympia Bukkakis, excited by the articulations of presenters Marcela Giesche and Annelies van Assche, and inspired by the dancing/thinking bodies of Mădălina Dan and Kasia Wolinska, the participants were led through a rich landscape of listening, talking, observing and sharing. Floating between Lake Studio’s new outdoor studio space, the sprawling garden, and the nearby Mueggelsee, live participants wandered in and out of formal and casual conversations while online viewers posted comments and questions via digital chat. Old colleagues reunited, new connections were made. One live participant, in reference to the talk by Annelies van Assche, said, “Community conversation like this is the immaterial compensation that keeps me engaged in the field”
Another live participant, Tsuki, felt that immaterial compensation lies in the growth and development of the spirit — a way to manage and navigate society as one’s true self. Another participant, Fergus, left the forum thinking about the interplay between the necessity of work, the pleasure of labor, and the neoliberal structures that underlie it all. They said:
“i find myself then wondering ‚what can we do?‘ and my gut feeling is that some answers lie in the collective… that if we are being exploited as individuals, that if hierarchies of auteurship are isolating us… we can subvert those structures by refusing to play the game, not conceptualising ourselves as sovereign artists but instead as playmates who depend on each other to survive and thrive.”
Other participants’ concerns lay with stepping back into work, in the aftermath of a pandemic, with a sense of power. Some spoke of the need for professional therapy to maintain sanity in their work/life balance. Others simply expressed gratitude for the chance the forum offered to collectively imagine both attainable and far-fetched utopias for artistic working conditions.
UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS
(Do we) how do we teach the ability to play?
What is the role of art in society? Is the artist working, playing, growing during all of life?
How should I find my own voice in a pre-determined theme festival open call?
Navigating the Desire (and need) to reject the principle of work-wage while being paid enough to survive?
How to keeping (the freedom) reflecting the social and political emerging questions of our collective time?
How to quantify the impact of the artistic/choreographic work?
What kind of work, artistic activity could matter? Where? For whom?
What collecive projects can we undertake to establish more ethical work projects?
How can I, and do I, want to enter the arts/dance industry and how can I do it?
Bridge between “community” and “industry”, between “ritual” and “traditional/structural” spaces.
How to have time to practice a lot, rehearse less and perform more?
Should one expect to survive (financially) from art work alone?
(Roughly) 86 (collectively sourced) steps towards an ideal cultural economy (ecology)**
**Inspired by the 2016 handbook on how to ‘Become the ideal cultural worker in 86 steps’ – a performance-text that was part of Choreographing Calculation (2012) that premiered at the CoFestival in Ljublijana, Slovenia.
1x performance art production per year for EVERYONE (kids in school, adults on paid leave) || Provide artistic events in the work place || Somatic experience spaces for free in public spaces (docked to libraries) || Sharing knowledge about producing art is imperative || Measure art with art || ALL art is important || Culture/Dance inhabits a legitimate, liminal space || Multi-culturalism is embraced diversity || Daily naps is normalized || Decentralize artistic practice/production (rural spaces?) || Rotate artistic practices (and administrative practices?) || Universal Basic Income || Take a break || Special privilege for risky art practice …
Universal Basic Income || 100% inheritance tax || Equal ground distribution || Reichensteuer || Basic human necessities are secured – don’t work to live, live to work ||Space for sharing! ||Space for exchange! Daily open training || Space for practicing together! || Space for dancing together! || Space for not-producing, antispace, being! Breath || E.G. juries to be representational, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-ableist || Manifested by E.G. quotas || Recycling of production (perform more) || Longterm production process || Sustainable production || Mindset of slower and less consumption || Global safety and facilities to secure peace (psychological / at work place / safety) …
No shame || Mistakes are allowed || Cooperation || Decide which part(s) of your practice(s) could be realized w/out monetary exchange || Try out the gift economy || Circle economy || Focus on intergenerational exchange || Make the economic system art || Take a piece of land || Think you are one of the runners of the system || Have a garden together || Make it a choreography || We can make everything a choreography || Dance More || Light a fire! || Keep the pressure … and dance more || Make rituals … and dance more || Have a rave once in a while – to receive grace … and dance more || Find new ways of measuring time … and dance more || Let things grow … and dance more || Hands off … and dance more || Grow roots … and dance more || Degrowth … and dance more || Keep on dreaming … and dance more || Stop looking for the answers … and dance more || Keep asking questions … and dance more || Practice the practical … and dance more || Have a baby … and dance more || Donate a portion of your success … and dance more || Recognize interdependency … and dance more || Give space … … and dance more!
That’s fourteen plus seventeen plus thirty equals sixty-one (61) steps! Ever a work in progress…
ARTIST and PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES
Kareth Schaffer is a choreographer and dramaturg in Berlin, Germany. She makes dance pieces about the things that interest her, most recently Balinese dance, the language of bees, and the demons that attacked the early Christian desert fathers. She is in the midst of founding a dance company, Construction Company. www.karethschaffer.com
Kasia Wolinska is choreographer, dancer, and writer born in Gdańsk and living in Berlin. In the years 2013-2018, she ran a performative project named Hi Mary. Since 2018, she has been writing a blog on dance and politics www.danceisaweapon.com. Together with Faerieda Sandstrom she founded The Future Body At Work. She is a board member of ZTB e.V., the organization representing the interests of the free scene of dance in Berlin.
Mădălina Dan studied choreography and play-writing at the National University of Theater and Film in Bucharest. She was a member of “Oleg Danovski” Ballet Company from 1998 till 2003. In 2008 she received the danceWEB scholarship in Vienna. She was guest artist to the Herberger Institute, School of Dance (Arizona State University) in 2009 and was associated artists at the National Dance Centre in Bucharest in 2016. Her works have been shown at Springdance Festival Utrecht, Tanzquartier Wien, eXplore Dance Festival Bukarest and DTW New York, among others. In 2021 she will continue to develop her ongoing exploration into “The Agency of Touch.”
Annelies van Assche obtained a joint doctoral degree in Art Studies and Social Sciences in 2018 at Ghent University and KU Leuven, on the working and living conditions of contemporary dance artists in Brussels and Berlin. She was production manager at contemporary dance school P.A.R.T.S. from 2011 until 2014. In 2019, she started a postdoctoral research on labor and aesthetics in contemporary dance in Europe’s (Eastern) periphery at Ghent University.
Queen of the Heavens and of the Earth, Empress of Despair, and Architect of Your Eternal Suffering, Olympia Bukkakis is a drag performer, choreographer, and event organiser living in Berlin. Her practice is situated within, and inspired by, the tensions and intersections between queer nightlife and contemporary dance and performance.
Marcela Giesche: www.marcelagiesche.com
Contemporary dance is an art form in which we practice different ways of being (post-)human. This practice occurs both on and off-stage, during rehearsals and performances, in conversations and in improvisations. For most professionals, only a fraction of this practice is remunerated, yet most of it can be considered as a deeply necessary to our work. This forum considers the notions of labour, relating, virtuosity, ethics, exchange, and interdependency that go into the construction of a body of work—and of bodies who work. The forum will be processed by a small group of socially distanced people present at LAKE Studios and freely available to a larger audience via livestream.
With co-hosts Kareth Schaffer and Olympia Bukkakis (both live and online) and contributions from Madalina Dan, Annelies van Assche, Marcela Giesche and surprise guests.
ONLINE Schedule
May 29th
13.30 Kareth Schaffer & Olympia Bukkakis
16.00 Marcela Giesche
17.30: Madalina Dan in dialogue with Kasia Wolinska
May 30th
14.00 Intro with Kareth & Olympia
14:15. Annelies van Assche
15:30 – 18h BREAK
18.00 Final Discussion
ABOUT THE ARTISTS’ CONTRIBUTIONS
Annelies van Assche: A Thin Line. Balancing Autonomy and Precarity in the Symbolic Economy of the Arts
In 2016, five Slovenian performing artists and cultural workers published a two-page ironic handbook on how to ‘Become the ideal cultural worker in 86 steps’, a performance-text that was part of Choreographing Calculation (2012) that premiered at the CoFestival in Ljublijana, Slovenia. As a starting point of their performance, Arhar, Brezavšček, Čičigoj, Rakef and Založnik were involved in an experiment to calculate their work activities to find a precise measure for the value of their work. Unpacking what work goes into artistic and cultural work is also the point of departure within Annelies van Assch’s ongoing research as a performing arts scholar who works at the intersection of dance and performance studies and cultural and labor sociology. Many performing artists have developed a comparable habitus within the European contemporary dance scene. Much in line with neoliberal ideology, their life and labor acutely depend on one another. Within this contribution, I explore how socio-economic precarity is micro-managed by my sample of project-based contemporary dance artists in Brussels and Berlin. For this purpose, I single out a few of the 86 steps that are listed in the performance text as a no-nonsense directive to success in the cultural sector. Engaging with the steps will provide insights into why project workers do what they do and keep doing it despite the lingering precarity, and as such expose the very thin line that exists between autonomy and precarity.
Madalina Dan interviews Kasia Wolinska
In “What (still) moves us?” Mădălina Dan, Berlin and Bucharest based choreographer meets and interviews choreographers, dancers, performers, and artists from the local dance community in Bucharest. For the Lake Studios forum no. 2, WORK, she will be meeting – in a dancing/talking conversation- the Berlin and Gdansk-based choreographer Kasia Wolinska in an adapted version of the format “What (still) moves us?”. The format will facilitate their first dancing encounter but also an opportunity to share thoughts on: ways of working, notions, aesthetics, education, discipline of work engaged in by the two artists, collaboration, dialogue with other arts and humanities fields and the socio-political relevance of their artistic approach.
Marcela Giesche
Marcela will speak about the founding of LAKE Studios and the continued interweaving of artistic and working processes involved in the maintainance of a space for dance and performance.
Hosted by: Kareth Schaffer and Olympia Bukkakis with contributions from Madalina Dan, Annelies van Assche, Marcela Giesche and surprise guests
Artistic Direction: Marcela Giesche
Assistance & Documentation: Maria Kousi, Jessy Tuddenham, Cathy Walsch
Camera & Editing: Noam Gorbat
The ABOUT DANCE, Vol 2 live audience included the following artists:
Maria Baroncea, Madalina Dan, Javier Delarosa, Franzizska Doffin, Fergus Johnson, Enrico L’Abbate, Lola Lustosa, Naïma Mazic, Tsuki.
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