Struck by Lightning
The question is as always: how to proceed with exquisite care?
In Transmaterialities, quantum physicist and transfeminist theorist Karen Barad looks at the trajectories of lightning, describing them as ‘a striking response to charged yearnings, a sensual exchange between sky and earth where hesitancy, not-knowing, and questioning, are at the heart of matter’s behaviours. Hesitancy at the core of touch.
Like many other forces and creatures, lightning bolts connect realms, enlivening the in-the-between of things, even at a distance. What kind of lessons about divides and distances, proximities and adjacencies can we study with beings that dwell in these contact zones? And what arts of attention can we learn from the wyrd physics of touch they imply?
Via somatic, sculptural and textual practices, Emma Bigé & A. Livingstone facilitate an intra-action with trans, ecological and tranimal studies, attempting to un/learn movement patterning in proximity with textual and some time material lightning bolts, starfish, frankenfrogs, marine and terrestrial mammals.
From Livingstone’s body of choreographic work, the practices of bibliothèque chimérique / Earotics / snail sex, etc, are offered as practical case studies for the Struck by Lightning sessions.
From Emma’s bookshelf: G. Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera, S. Stryker’s Words to Victor Frankenstein, P.B. Preciado’s Dildotectonics, M. Y. Chen’s Agitation, E. Hayward’s Lessons from the Starfish, and M. Bey’s Anarchoblackness might be cruised with as companion reading materials.
digs, writes, translates, curates, and improvises with contemporary experimental dances and transfeminist philosophies. She used her PhD in philosophy as an excuse to curate two dance retrospective exhibitions on the histories of Contact Improvisation (Musée de la danse, Rennes, 2018) and on the life and works of dance improviser Steve Paxton (Culturgest, Lisboa, 2019). Co-editor of anthologies on improvisation (Steve Paxton: Drafting Interior Techniques, 2019; La perspective de la pomme, 2021) and author of Mouvementements. Écopolitiques de la danse (forthcoming, La Découverte, 2023), she is currently working with trans*ecological studies, investigating the potentials for movement practice to undo modern/colonial binaries and to celebrate alliances betwixt critters of Terra. She irregularly drag-impersonates the position of professor in art epistemology in visual art schools (in (F)rance) and at the Centre national de danse contemporaine in Angers. The rest of the time, she lives in the woods, and, in the lookout for ways of living otherwise, she rolls on the ground.
makes wyrd things/actions/relations often in situ, often in collaboration. Selected works: et ce sera un endroit où… with Emma Bigé, Lafayette Anticipations Paris, 2021; les études (hérésies 1-7) with Nadia Lauro, Rituals of Care, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin 2020; CHAUD with Kizis Nibik / The Poverty Groove – horse work, Fonderie Darling, Montreal; Heavy Handed We Crush the Moment with Jamila Johnson-Small, Barbican London, 2019; Sketches / Notebook / Supernova with Meg Stuart and Damaged Goods, HAU Berlin, 2018; Supernatural with Simone Aughterlony and Hahn Rowe, Leopold Museum, Vienna, 2017; Culture Administration & Trembling with Jennifer Lacey, American Realness NYC, 2016; Insignificant Others: Learning to Look sideways with Ian Kaler, TQW, Vienna, 2012.
9.30
180 min
14.00
120 min
9.30
180 min
14.00
120 min
€ 60/*25 per day
Free admission for refugees