Somatechnics & Dis/ability
Johannes Birringer, Zhi Xu
Michèle Danjoux & Vera Rosner
Friday
16:30 - 18:00
Aquarium
Workshop
This workshop explores movement and challenges to movement, raising questions about re-embodiment/de-distancing and dis/abilities in post-pandemic society. The primary focus is on techno-choreography and the somatechnical predicaments we face in contemporary practices of movement, dance, and social choreographies, in an era of uncertainty and new challenges in the face of the socio-political, cultural and economic fall-out from virological pandemics. “Techno-choreography” suggests a playful and queering/cripping approach to the “virtual” and the “prosthetic,” not as variations of physical embodiment but as a necessary “augmented” reality, to account for mislocalized sensations or different forms of affect and “handlings” – tactile perceptions of exterior and interior kinetics. The workshop especially invites participants with disabilities to help create a shared environment of deep listening and slow assemblage, to reorient nondisabled performers and adjust cultural and ontological viewpoints.
Johannes Birringer is a choreographer and media artist; he co-directs the Design and Performance-Lab at Brunel University London where he is a Professor of Performance Technologies in the School of Arts. He has created numerous dance-theatre works, video installations and digital projects in collaboration with artists in Europe, the Americas, China, and Japan, and has taught dance-technology workshops all art venues across the world. His last dance work, "Mourning for a dead moon," premiered in late 2019.
Michèle Danjoux is a fashion designer, experienced educator and co-director of DAP-Lab. Currently she is Research Coordinator at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. Danjoux’s artistic interests centre on design through and as performance, and involve collaboration with dancers, choreographers, musicians and media artists.
Zhi Xu is a choreographer, dancer and researcher. He is currently completing a PhD with a focus on dance technology and transcultural identity at Brunel University London. As a choreographer and dancer, he has created more than 20 works touring world-wide in China, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Russia, Belgium, Malaysia and Israel. His works include dance drama, dance theatre, site-specific dance, exhibitions and large-scale projects
Vera Rosner is a DanceAbility trainer, choreographer, dancer and quality manager living in Vienna. She leads a weekly open workshop group and an advanced training group since 2011. She has taught different workshop formats internationally (among others in Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Bremen, Porto, Helsinki, Munich and Bologna). Between 2005 and 2009 she was a dancer with the company Danse Brute. In 2008 she founded the company A.D.A.M., creating the performances 6 tanzen, Auf freiem Fuß, dancing with paints (a collaboration with L.A.C.E. Theatre, Los Angeles), (Ruderal-) Flora and Fuss-Noten. Recently she performed in Jerôme Bel's Gala as well as in Doris Uhlich’s Habitat.