Tanzquartier Wien

We are living in challenging times. That much is clear. In her book, The Posthuman, Rosi Braidotti argues that to meet the multiple challenges facing us in this historical moment, thinking differently is not enough; we need to experience ourselves and the world differently. In short, we need new subjectivities. Our subjective experience is, first and foremost, fleshy, embodied, grounded in the perception of and movement through our environment. I believe Contemporary dance is a fertile field where can research and play with shaping new subjectivities.

In this lecture and class series, I will present some of the theories behind my research into subjectivity and share some of the studio practices that I have developed to challenge the everyday experience of ourselves.

We’ll explore how we are continually imagining ourselves into being, and how the culture in which we are embedded shapes our imagining … and hopefully get some glimpses of how we might imagine ourselves and our experience differently.

Wednesday, 29.06.
Biotensegrity – process-based anatomy 

Originating within the medical profession, Biotensegrity offers a simpler, more organic, holistic model of our anatomy that, at the same time, gives rise to more complex and subtle interactions with ourselves and the world.
60 min lecture (10.00–11.00) followed by 120 min practice (11.15–13.15)

Thursday, 30.06.
Extended Mind – inhabiting the perceptual body 

What if we’ve got that mind-body relationship thing the wrong way around? What if it’s not the mind, that lives in the body, but the body that lives within the mind? Alternative models of mind from contemporary consciousness studies.
60 min lecture (10.00–11.00) followed by 120 min practice (11.15–13.15)

Friday 01.07.
Popping the bubble – the politics of somatics

The term ‘somatics’ emerged in the context of the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when individualism was considered a progressive attitude. Might we need to adapt somatic practices to our very different age so they maintain their progressive potential?
60 min lecture (10.00–11.00) followed by 120 min practice (11.15–13.15)

Saturday 02.07.
Radical Calmness – a possible practice for our times

You’ll be guided to experience your expansive perceptual body in a process… something like experiential anatomy, but different, and then encouraged to move to find rest and stillness, in a process… something like authentic movement, but different.
180 min practice (10.00–13.00)