T-Talk II at the Tanzmesse

SHAPERS: Challenging perception. Dance in public places in the Euro-Mediterranean – PART II

Partners of the SHAPERS project presented at a ‘T-Talk’ for the second time at the internationale tanzmesse nrw, a biennial gathering of contemporary dance professionals in Düsseldorf, Germany.

The partner organisations of the EU project SHAPERS shared and discussed the experience they gathered over the past 2 years: How do cities and public spaces challenge dance and bodies and how do artists renegotiate the perception and role of the body in the Euro-Mediterranean? Together with eight dancers from France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Morocco, Spain and Egypt, they shared experiences of training, creation and cooperation across the Euro-Mediterranean for contemporary dance in public spaces and unusual locations.

Speakers

Anne Le Batard and Jean Antoine Bigot (choreographers and Ex Nihilo’s co-artistic directors), Anne Rossignol (in8circle’s director), Meryem Jazouli (choreographer and Espace Darja’s artistic director), Emilie Petit (artist and Momkin espaces de possibles & Nassim el Raqs’ artistic director), Maria Gonzales (artistic director of Mes de Danza), Lucien Arino (artistic director of Centre Rézodanse Egypte), Jasmina Prolic (choreographer and ZVRK artistic director)


Internationale tanzmesse nrw gathers artists from more than 50 countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia providing an equal opportunity to present their work to a professional audience. The Tanzmesse is an event dedicated to contemporary dance without any specific geographical focus.

More on the internationale tanzmesse nrw

Performance in Tarragona

Tarragona, Spain

On July 14th, the performance SHAPERS was presented on the Plaça Corsini, in Tarragona as part of the JOCS MEDITERRANIS – TARRAGONA 2018 cultural program, organized by Produccion Trans-Forma and its artistic director Maria Gonzales.

SHAPERS – a performance in adaptation, reinvention, questioned, constantly renewed. Questions for dance, cities, spaces, but especially for others, the group, the community.

 


A piece for public and singular spaces for 8 dancers 45 minutes

Conception: Anne Le Batard and Jean-Antoine Bigot, with assistance from Rolando Rocha and Corinne Pontana – Ex Nihilo dance company

Dancers: Lucia Bocanegra, Mourad Koula, Natacha Kierbel, Shady Abdelahman, Elvira Balboa, Ayoub Kerkal, Aurore Allo, Ahmed Shamel, and Emma Riba.

Music: Pascal Ferrari and Jean-Antoine Bigot


Mes de Danza [Seville, Spain]. Since its first edition in 1994, the main objective of Mes de Danza Festival is to explore dance in its widest and most varied approaches and trends and to link audiences -both familiar and unfamiliar with dance- to the performances. Beyond its role as a festival, Mes de Danza has contributed to shape and strengthen the local dance scene in Andalusia and Spain. www.mesdedanza.es

Masterclass with Ali Salmi

Marseilles, France

At the Cité des arts de la rue, June 29th & 30th & the Ballet National de Marseille, July 1st 2018

 

Since the beginning of the project in 2016, the young dancers participating in the SHAPERS project have had the opportunity to meet various choreographers to discover new aesthetics and deepen their choreographic vocabulary. Open to all other dancers (either professional or in the midst of becoming professional), these masterclasses were also an opportunity for the project participants to meet other dancers from the region.

Within this context, for the last of the project’s series of four masterclasses, Ex Nihilo invited Ali Salmi, dancer, choreographer, and artistic director of the Osmosis Company, to share his approach and relationship to public space.

 


This masterclass was organized within the MP2018 SUMMERSCHOOL programme, a project initiated by the Ballet National de Marseille, marseille objectif DansE, Le Pôle 164, l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure de danse de Marseille, Le Ballet Preljocaj, Le Groupe Grenade, and KLAP Maison pour la Danse.

Performance in Marseilles

In front of the Centre Bourse, in the Belsunce neighborhood

This performance of SHAPERS was within the project’s ‘Focus in Marseilles’, organized by the company Ex Nihilo, from June 23rd to July 1st, including two conferences, the performance, and a masterclass.

Presented as a part of the Dimanches de la Canebière, in partnership with Lieux Publics – a national center for creation in public space, and the Festival de MarseilleSHAPERS was performed in Marseilles on June 24th.

The Dimanches de la Canebière are a cultural event organized by the Mairie of the 1st & 7th arrondissements.

Focus in Marseilles

Parallel to this performance, two conferences were organized within the ‘FESTIVAL OF IDEAS : MAKING THE CITY TOGETHER #2’ in the 23rd edition of the Festival de Marseille : Artistic practices in public space in the Mediterranean on June 23rd, and Artistic practices co-created with urban stakeholders on July 1st, at the Théâtre des Bernardines. The masterclass with the choreographer Ali Salmi took place at the Cité des Arts de la rue and at the Ballet National de Marseille from June 29th to July 1st.

 


A piece for public and singular spaces for 9 dancers 45 minutes

Conception: Anne Le Batard and Jean-Antoine Bigot, with assistance from Rolando Rocha and Corinne Pontana

Dancers: Lucia Bocanegra, Mourad Koula, Natacha Kierbel, Shady Abdelahman, Elvira Balboa, Ayoub Kerkal, Aurore Allo, Ahmed Shamel, and Emma Riba.

Music: Pascal Ferrari and Jean-Antoine Bigot


Ex Nihilo [Marseille, France] is a contemporary dance company, directed by Anne Le Batard and Jean-Antoine Bigot, founded on a common aim: to make public space a favoured space for creation and performance, placing encounters with a particular context and the people using an environment, such as inhabitants, an audience, and passers-by, at the centre of their artistic approach. www.exnihilodanse.fr

Articles by Alix de Morant


Alix de Morant is the Assistant Professor of Theatre & Choreography at Université Paul Valery Montpellier 3 and Member of RIRRA 21 ( EA4209). She is part of the pedagogic team of EXERCE Master of Choreography (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier/ICI-CCN Montpellier Occitanie-direction Christian Rizzo) and directs the DAPCE Master degree in European Art & Culture Management. In addition to several publications in Art pressAlternatives ThéâtralesBallet/Tanz, COI, Ligeia, Theatre/Public, she is the author with Sylvie Clidière of the essay Exterieur Danse, and contributed to La scène et les images (Paris, CNRS 2001), Butô(s) (Paris, CNRS, 2002), Rythmes, flux, corps. Art et ville contemporaine (CIEREC-Presses Universitaires de Saint Etienne, 2012), La rue comme espace chorégraphique (Presses Universitaires de Rouen, 2017).

Her interest includes site specific experiences, contemporary dance & performance, theatre & cognitive science. Trained as dancer & actress, she is working mainly on the relation between practice and theory.

Performance in Cordoba

SHAPERS was presented in Sevilla and Córdoba on November 5th, 2017, as part of the 24th Edition of the MES DE DANZA Festival at C3A: Contemporary Creation Center of Andalusia, in partnership with the Casa Arabe (Córdoba).

Mes de Danza is an international festival of contemporary dance in Sevilla. Project partner and artistic director of the festival, Maria Gonzales chose to situate this performance in three very different places – at the Pavilion of the future at the historical Sevilla World Fair site, in the Sevilla penitentiary center, and in Cordoba, in front of the C3A: Contemporary Creation Center of Andalusia.

“The locations of each performance were radically different from each other, allowing the piece to explore different subjects and contours as well as to confront different audiences. In Seville, the performance was in the former site of the 1992 Seville World Expo, an abandoned place that came alive through SHAPERS. The other performance in Sevilla in the penitentiary center encountered a particular audience.

The third location, in Cordoba, radically in contrast with the ’92 Expo site, was a recently inaugurated space, the Andalusian Center of Contemporary Creation.

The choice of such divergent spaces highlighted the richness of this artistic project, offering the dancers challenges of different nature in each space.”

– Maria Gonzales, Artistic director of Mes de Danza


Mes de Danza [Seville, Spain]. Since its first edition in 1994, the main objective of Mes de Danza Festival is to explore dance in its widest and most varied approaches and trends and to link audiences -both familiar and unfamiliar with dance- to the performances. Beyond its role as a festival, Mes de Danza has contributed to shape and strengthen the local dance scene in Andalusia and Spain. www.mesdedanza.es

Performances in Sevilla

SHAPERS was presented as part of the 24th Edition of the MES DE DANZA Festival in Sevilla from October 28th – November 2nd, and in Cordoba on November 5th at:

– The Pavilion for the Future from the 1992 International Exhibition, designed by the architect Oriol Bohigas, in Sevilla, October 28th

– The Sevilla penitentiary, on November 2nd

– The C3A: Contemporary creation Center, in partnership with Casa Arabe, in Cordoba, November 5th

The choreographer and dancers adapted the piece to the location at the Pavilion for the Future during two days rehearsing on-site.

“The locations of each performance were radically different from each other, allowing the piece to explore different subjects and contours as well as to confront different audiences.

In Sevilla, the performance was at the former site of the 1992 Seville World Expo, an abandoned place that came alive through SHAPERS. The other performance in Sevilla, at the penitentiary center, encountered a particular audience.

The third location, in Cordoba, radically in contrast with the ’92 Expo site, was a recently inaugurated space, the Andalusian Center of Contemporary Creation. The choice of such divergent spaces highlighted the richness of this artistic project, offering the dancers challenges of different nature in each space.”

-Maria Gonzales, Artist director of the Mes de Danza festival


Mes de Danza [Seville, Spain]. Since its first edition in 1994, the main objective of Mes de Danza Festival is to explore dance in its widest and most varied approaches and trends and to link audiences -both familiar and unfamiliar with dance- to the performances. Beyond its role as a festival, Mes de Danza has contributed to shape and strengthen the local dance scene in Andalusia and Spain. www.mesdedanza.es

Conference at the Zvrk Festival

A detailed account by  Smirna Kulenović of the Zvrk Festival conference:

The conference Choreographic art and training in public space took place in the building of the Main Train Station of Sarajevo on September 28th, as a part of ZVRK Festival of Contemporary Dance and Performance. Its goal was to gather local and international professionals from the fields of contemporary choreography, dance and performing arts, but also cultural workers who tackle the issue of Commons in their work within public space.

Some of the leading speakers of the conference included the critic and journalist Jean-Marc Adolphe (France), choreographer and an artistic director of ZVRK festival – Jasmina Prolić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), choreographer and artistic director of Ex Nihilo – Anne Le Batard (France), Meryem Jazouli from Espace Darja (Morocco), María González from Mes de Danza festival (Spain), artistic director of Nassim el Raqs – Emilie Petit (Egypt), Fanni Nannay from PLACCC Festival (Hungary), choreographer Žak Valenta from the International Festival of Dance (Croatia), art director of Street Arts Festival Mostar – Marina Đapić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), choreographer Foofwa d’imobilité (Switzerland) and dancers of the SHAPERS project.

Conference in a train station, Zvrk Festival, September 2017

The act of placing this conference within the open space of the Main Train Station could be seen as an artistic performance by itself, site-specifically created in the context of a paradoxical situation happening in a vivid yet abandoned space. Vivid, in terms of passengers that circulate through its halls to reach the train platforms – but abandoned in terms of lack of any initiatives that would use its open interior as a common good. This abandoned atmosphere within the Main Train Station has been at least shortly transformed on September 28th, by creating new movements and sounds in an artistic discussion that tackled possibilities of transforming, outreaching, bypassing, shifting, and expanding the artistic freedom in public space.

An introduction speech to the conference was given by the French critic and journalist Jean-Marc Adolphe, explaining the importance Shapers – an international project aimed at bringing contemporary dance to unusual locations. During times when Europe can be seen as a fortress trying to protect its walls from the invaders, it becomes extremely important to broaden its borders and work on more inclusive methods of creating cultural projects. In order to do so, an in-depth approach should be accepted with long-term commitment on education and exchange between local and international artists and citizens. With this comes the idea of inhabiting public spaces instead of just passing through them, on a real and metaphorical level – an idea that’s being developed by the project Shapers through contemporary dance. Contemporary choreographic practice here becomes not just a form of art, but also a form of activism, a fight for freedom that’s not only an artistic choice but an actual necessity. In Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, this necessity becomes even more obvious with thousands of refugees that had to flee during the war in the 1990s. But these were times when Europe still welcomed war refugees and gave them a chance to live and work within its borders, far from today.

Photo credit : Zoran Lesic
Performance during the ZVRK festival in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Contemporary Dance as Responsible Inhabiting of Public Space

How to truly inhabit public space through artistic practice? How can choreographed movements of performers who place their bodies in new contexts always take in mind the unique stories of life happening next to them? How can they engage instead of just performing, how can they cooperate amongst each other and the citizens? Choreographer Žak Valenta from the International Festival of Dance (Croatia) concluded that

in-situ performances should be created by well-prepared artists capable of observing everything as language, paying special attention to understanding the adequate context, history, and background of the chosen location. Art, if understood this way, can influence not just individuals but also the political ties of a city or a whole region, by opening up spaces of freedom, exchange, and expression.

New questions about the responsibility of the choreographer were raised in order to put focus on creating works that allow space for the performers to dance together and develop solidarity while dancing with others. This approach could be observed in the artistic choices taken in project SHAPERS – Contemporary dance in unusual locations and serve as a positive example of interaction and direction of movements amongst people in the local community, as well as the artists. On the other side, this kind of responsible artistic practice can also be observed in the work of Foofwa d’imobilité who directly engages with citizens by allowing them to take part in the performance Dance Walk, operating as a community dance marathon in various cities including Sarajevo, Mostar and Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Now! The Necessity of Politically and Socially Engaged Art

On the other side, responsible artistic practice in public space also means constant observation of the socio-political situation within its creational context. It is extremely important to be able to act and react with art, and have the courage to move artistic practices further into the field of political engagement or activism when necessary. Artistic director Fanni Nannay uses her example of PLACCC Festival (Hungary), which had to shift its focus from being “just colorful and playful” during its beginnings in 2008. Since then, the Hungarian government has changed from giving full support to their activities to becoming right-wing, strict and dictatorial. Following this change, the festival also made its program more radical and politically engaged. PLACCC constantly kept promoting site-specific art in public space, but it remained open to change and adapted its activities when it became necessary to react to the autocratic government with its strict laws and regulations.

One of the main focuses of the festival now lies in critical examinations of how public space and public decisions are interconnected and communicating this topic to a wide audience. Public space needs to remain open, needs to include citizens in both physical and intellectual spaces of freedom and mutual cooperation.

Speaking about the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also very important at this moment since the country’s political situation, history, and social issues remain so complex and almost constantly misunderstood and untruthfully communicated by the international media. For an example, the artistic director of ZVRK festival – Jasmina Prolić reminds us how during the war in Bosnia, almost all French media stated that there was a “civil war” happening in the country, while the reality was completely different.

Artists here have to do things by themselves, to react and create their own space since the government provides no support to its citizens, continues Marina Đapić, artistic director of Street Arts Festival in Mostar.

For six years now, she kept bringing international and local artists together in a city destroyed by the war which is now completely transformed through the festival’s activities. Her inspiration came from the architecture of Mostar, full of buildings left empty, destroyed and haunted. These same spaces are now reoccupied and reused, recreated through street art and street performances that bring new life and new hope to the city and its people. Young people are overcoming the fear of the “other” by working together on artistic projects that aim to reoccupy spaces like the old military base Konak, or the avant-garde cultural center OKC Abrašević. These are all proofs of how art can actually trigger political change and unite, despite the nationalist divisions so present within the political structures in Mostar.

“Public space is the only choice we have” became one of the most important statements during this conference, coming from ZVRK Festival’s assistant and cultural worker from Mostar, Jasmina Kazazić, who reminds of the non-existent contemporary dance scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Here, contemporary dance artists never had the chance to “step out of the auditoriums and theaters”, as it was already the case with the dance company Ex Nihilo in 1994. Here, in 1994, buildings were burning, houses were bombed and civilians were killed in the public space, killed while trying to do their daily activities. Maybe the fear of using public space, so present within Bosnia and Herzegovina, becomes more understandable when we keep this in mind. Here, contemporary dance artists still have to fight to prove that what they are doing is even considered to be art, they have to go out on the streets to show their passion and practice because the street is the only place they have, the only place in which they can feel accepted. On one side, in some European countries creating art within public space can be “poetic”, but on the other, this can be seen as an extremely radical, political and revolutionary act.

Morocco is another example of this kind of approach to working within public space, and Meryem Jazouli from Espace Darja (Morocco) reminds how

working with contemporary dance in Morocco means really fighting the law that forbids groups of people to gather in the streets. Cultural workers here necessarily have to be activists, they first need to occupy the space in order to be able to artistically inhabit it, because this also is the only choice they have.

Architecture as a Silent Choreographer

A powerful location that hosted performances by Shapers was also Alexandria, Egypt. The choreographer and artistic director of Ex Nihilo – Anne Le Batard (France) reminded us of their choice to use a tight and busy square as the contextual background for choreographers and dancers to develop their artistic practice in. This tight square as an architectural element wasn’t just about using the space for innovative movements, adds the artistic director of Nassim el Raqs – Emilie Petit (Egypt), it was also about thinking how to involve the passer-bys in the performance. The questions asked were should they involve them in the performance at all, and if yes – what would be the most natural, most organic way to address their movements within such a busy space, without disturbing their daily life, while trying to add up new dimensions and possibilities to it.

Premiere of the dance piece, during Nassim el raqs #7, on the esplanade of Abu el Abbas el Mursi Mosque, Alexandria.
Organized by Momkin-espaces de possibles and Centre Rézodanse – Egypte

This is, of course, one of the most important questions that should guide the creation of any public space performance.

The passer-bys are the most complex part of the whole context since they are the audience who didn’t choose to take part in a performance or watch it, and therefore have to be treated with respect and understanding, while constantly having in mind the various possibilities of different backgrounds they come from.

Choreographer Foofwa d’imobilité (Switzerland) adds how during his Dance Walks he always tries to create an atmosphere of trust, so that citizens involved can fully be able to be themselves amongst others, without feeling the pressure to create dance moves of outstanding acrobatic or artistic quality. The artistic quality here lies in the capability of the choreographer to create such an atmosphere amongst all people involved in the workshop.

The Dance Walk is a hybrid construction between dancing and walking that puts focus on using the body itself to create new bonds with the public space around us, allowing new forms of inhabiting it poetically. It operates as a marathon that constantly changes location, since the dancers move throughout the city, chaning theiry rythms, speeds and shapes while using the experience as a spiritual practice rather than a performance made for an audience. Here, the chosen locations also become silent choreographers of the dance, since they shape the dynamics and bodies of the dancers involved.

Choosing the right locations within the city of production also needs to be one of the priorities while choreographing the work. Therefore, not only central locations should be taken as platforms for operation, and an in-depth research of all neighborhoods should be done, which is a research that doesn’t only consist of walking through the city, but also creatively engaging with the locals and getting informed about the actual necessities which could be addressed artistically in certain spaces.

But what is Art in Public Space Today?

In the end, there is no easy answer to what public space is today and what art in public space should be – other than it is up to us to remain constantly sensitive to the life happening around us, whether we are creating a work of art or just inhabiting the space by doing our daily activities. This sensitivity is essential both to artists and all citizens who should constantly be reminded of their role in shaping the material and intellectual forms of public space. Occupation of public space sometimes becomes the only form of expressing our own freedom of existence, which is actually to be found in the ways we are allowed to use this space as an extension of our own being, moving beyond the private sanctuary of our homes.

In times when Europe and the whole world moves into right-wing political approaches which aim to exclude all differences and become narrow-minded fortresses, it is up to artists to find creative ways of expanding not just their own freedom of movement and thought, but freedom of all other people by doing responsible and socially engaged work.

What kind of times are these, when
To talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many horrors?

(Bertolt Brecht, To those born later, 1940.)

Smirna Kulenović


Zvrk [Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina], an association promoting education and new dance initiatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina, launched for the first edition of the Zvrk Festival in 2009. This organisation was founded as the result of a common goal among cultural actors and artists in Bosnia and Herzegovina to develop dance at a local level, through teaching, outreach initiatives, and performances. https://zvrkart.com/

Smirna Kulenović [Contemporary Art Gallery Brodac &  the movement for Art in Public Spaces Dobre Kote] is a young artist, activist, curator and art historian with a professional educational background in art history and philosophy. Smirna works as a curator of an autonomous contemporary art gallery “Brodac” in Sarajevo, and is a founder/creative director of the Movement for Art in Public Spaces “Dobre Kote”.

Performance in Alexandria

Nassim el Raqs#7

Following an artistic residency from April 27th to May 5th, in Alexandria, Egypt, the premiere of SHAPERS took place on the esplanade of the Mosque Abu al-Abbas al Mursi during the 7th edition of the Nassim el Raqs festival/laboratory for in situ creation on May 9th, 2017.

The Abu al-Abbas al Mursi Mosque in Alexandria hosts the tomb of Alexandrine Sufi saint of the same name. After having travelled from Al-Andalus to Morocco, he settled in Alexandria, where he died.

Last May, young dancers trained through the SHAPERS project, Ex Nihilo dance company and the Nassim el-Raqs Festival, had the immense honor of being hosted by the Mosque compound to work on the performance. This experience brought to light important stakes raised by contemporary dance in public and unusual spaces in the euro-med zone today. It demonstrated how certain security and contextual issues, no matter how many constraints they can impose on the development of public space creation, can sometimes be overcome by mobilizing local and international teams, through tight cohesion and forceful ground occupation.

Thank to the support of: CCFD Terres Solidaires, B’saria for Art, The Tourism department of the Alexandrian Governorate, The Swedish Institute, The Spain Embassy in Cairo, Ex Nihilo through The French Institute / the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur Region

Special thanks to : Cheikh Gaber and The Mosque Abu el Abbes el Morsi, General Ahmed Hegazy, Yasmine Hussein

Images : Nassim el Raqs video team / Editing : Carole Lorthiois


Momkin – espaces de possibles [Marseille, France] aims at initiating and accompanying artistic and cultural projects within cities and territories across the Mediterranean region, by creating, producing, and performing artistic works, as well as through the development of cultural and intercultural projects, of training programmes and awareness building campaigns. Since 2011, Momkin has carried out the Nassim el Raqs festival, featuring artistic initiatives linked to the city of Alexandria.