LAB 2004

Discarded Practices

The Laboratory (LAB) ­ IN TRANSIT's creative core ­ takes the Utopian idea driving the festival a step further. Unlike other, traditional programmes, which merely stage events, the LAB ­ the distinguishing feature of IN TRANSIT ­ brings personalities and experts in diverse disciplines from across the globe together in a space for discussion and interaction.

The focus is not on creating a finished product, but on encounters and open-ended exchanges. And the point of departure is a common search for forward-looking forms within the performing arts, for new perspectives in art in the 21st century. Audience members will have the opportunity to attend specific events and gain an impression of the way the LAB works - every year newly conceived. Through direct participation, the audience will be able to comprehend developments and processes unfolding in the LAB. This year's LAB is directed by the Brazilian-American dramaturge and performance-theoretician André Lepecki. He has invited five artists to participate in the LAB and three experts to present papers on the topic of "Discarded Practices", i.e. spiritual body practices that have been exoticised by standard discourse in the west.

André Lepecki: "The presentations will emerge in the meetings, since the artists' individual and collective work - plus the input from participating guests - are processed daily. These events are open sessions for the audience and should be seen more as the LAB opening its doors. The presentations continue, in an open forum, its research. The lectures, too, are meant to be informal, based on conversation with audience and artists alike.

Extracts from the Curatorial Statement

"To think about the body energized is to think about discarded body practices in the West. It is to think about how body-energetics is a concept radically refigured with the constitution of modernity and Enlightenment to become something exclusively physical. There are no spiritual, immanent, or transcendental energies allowed to operate within the discourse of subjectivity in modernity. There are only physical energies - which are the relentless subject of policies, regulations, medicine, and war.

That is why, perhaps, some performance practices in the West have had to develop counter-acts through discarded body practices and through forgotten body techniques. Practices and techniques that often led to vivid dialogues with "the other" - zen, yoga, tantra, candomble, shamanism, etc. - but also led to the development of body techniques within the West such as orgone therapy, mindbody centering, bio-energy, etc.

The idea was to invite different artists for the LAB that have been working at the intersections between art, spirituality, energetics, and politics through their explorations of the body in their work. Some of the techniques used are hypnosis, bio-energy, orgone therapy, meditation, reiki, subtle body, and vibrating body. The question is how do such techniques step out of exoticism and become re-energizing practices for a political ontology of performance? In which ways can they offer possibilities for the performing body to act in relation to the world that surrounds it?

The six guests conducting their work in Berlin for the two first weeks of June 2004 have been developing ground-breaking body work in contemporary performance, dance, and performance art. Their diverse body of work is predicated on alternative explorations of spirituality, ascetic practices, philosophical body projects, performance art, trance, endurance art, and political performance. One of the characteristics of some of their work is their use not only of the stage but also of site-specific performances."

Curator

André Lepecki (USA/Brazil): The performance theorist, dramaturge and artist teaches dance theory and experimental theatre at the New York University. He regularly publishes articles on dance, performance, and cultural theory in European and US magazines including The Drama Review, Performance Research, Nouvelles de Dance, Ballet International and ArtForum.

Participants

Meg Stuart (USA/Belgium): Choreographer and dancer, Meg Stuart has worked for several years, in various European cities, on a series of improvisations for dancers, musicians, designers, video and sound artists. Her work is intended to provide an impetus to exchanging ideas on the very nature of improvisation. Her most recent production was shown at the Berlin Volksbühne during the "Dance in August" season.

Filipa Francisco (Portugal): The young choreograph and dancer creates multidisciplinary working pieces especially for the place where they are being shown. She develops performances in which the audience has an active role and concentrates on issues like the non-acting within the acting and the non-separation between rehearsal and performance.

Eleonora Fabião (Brazil/USA): Performance artist and theorist Eleonora Fabião focuses strongly on the relationship between the audience and performer, using "co-labor-a(c)tion" to break down the standard active-passive dichotomy. The main thrust of her work is directed towards an exploration of the "poetic body" and its creative, political and communicative abilities.

William Pope L. (USA): Since 1978, artist and performer William Pope has carried out more than 40 "crawls" - events where he literally squirms and crawls his way along public pavements until he reaches the limits of total physical exhaustion. His works transforms life on the street into a permanent reminder of the battle against suppression.

Sophiatou Kossoko (Nigeria/France): Dancer Sophiatou Kossoko combines spiritual energy with the radical movements found in Modern Dance. She locates the danced exploration of her own personality in the border zones of the visual arts, improvisation and body work.

Guests

Harry Lewis (USA): In his lecture, "Pulsation and the functional identity of body, mind and behaviour", the therapist Harry Lewis reflects on how far Wilhelm Reich's concept of the bio-energetic pulse is relevant for science, psychotherapy and art.  Calendar >>>

Lula Wanderley (Brazil): In the lecture "The dragon landed on the space", given together with Gina Ferrreira, doctor, psychiatrist and artist Lula Wanderley explores contemporary art, mental suffering and the relational object in Lygia Clarke's work.  Calendar >>>

Gina Ferreira (Brazil): Psychologist Gina Ferreira works with the body technique on structuring the self developed by Brazilian artist Lygia Clarke- a technique enabling body language to be understood as symbolically representing the relationship to the world.  Calendar >>>