SNDO PRESENTS: Sun unseT

vrijdag 16 december 2022, 16:00 - 18:00 uur
Jacuzzi
Oudezijds Voorburgwal 106
1012 GH Amsterdam

SNDO PRESENTS: Sun unseT by JUSTIN F KENNEDY IN COLLABORATION WITH JACUZZI AND SNDO STUDENTS

Sun unseT is a new performance work by Justin F Kennedy, made on the invitation of SNDO – School for New Dance Development to engage with the second and third-year students through a two-week workshop leading towards a public presentation. 
Sun unseT begins with a burial (of humanness), where new hybrid creatures are unearthed, and culminates in a cyber-cypher, where violence dissolves into euphoria. The piece uses formation, choreography as coordination, choiring, call and response, improvisation and hiveminding to interrogate `Man-made` apparatuses of power, and, most urgently, to project another apparatus. Breaching the subject of cosmogony (world-making) * and its potential to destabilize the status quo, Sun unseT suggests an alternative origin narrative. 

This immersive rock opera is exhibited informally and plays twice, with an hour-long reset, from 18-19h  to chat about transformative and restorative justice. The audience are welcomed to join the participants in this conversation.

Date: Friday, Dec 16, 2022.
Starting times: 16.00 and 19.00 hrs. The doors will be open 15 minutes before the presentation.
Location: Jacuzzi, red door entrance on Warmoesstraat 137/139, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Reservation Friday, Dec 16, 2022 16.00 hrs: click here
Reservation Friday, Dec 16, 2022 19.00 hrs: click here

About the process: 
During the first week of workshops at SNDO, the performative materials for Sun unseT will be introduced, excavated, explored and put through a process, I term, `durational dance sessions`, where students take turns witnessing and improvising in various states framed by movement-, vocal- and imagination-based tasks. The purpose of this process is to practice the coordinations present in the piece (ie . : singing together, swarming together and improvising in open scores together), and, for the performers, to create a deeper relation to the materials themselves. Physical coordinations will include, but are not limited to, the undercut (fighting gestures), the swing, cybergoth choreographies, cyphering, humanoid animatronics, and operatic vocal practices. Week one will also include some group reading sessions and film clip sharing, where we hash out the discourse related to the work (including texts by Sylvia Wynter, Manuel Manuel Arturo and clips of Bob Fosse and cybergoth dancing). Lyrical content and choreographic layers, will then be added, once we begin building the scenes in rehearsals during the second week, shifting focus to preparing for the performances, which will float in and out of set choreographies, open dance scores and sonic vignettes/sculptures, all accompanied by music composed by NSDOS. A sci-fi opera conceived by Justin F Kennedy.

Justin F Kennedy is a Berlin-based community dance & vocal artist, teacher, and DJ, from St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Justin’s research evolves from a durational dance and singing practice, and its further translation into cyphers, workshops, science fiction operas, installations, street interventions, happenings, music and film. Notable projects of late include: Sun unseT (2022), SNDO, experimental dance film; Cannibalizing the Conductor (2022) in collaboration with filmmaker Derek Howard and artist Emma Howes, Recap of an Alien Garden, Movement Research Across, Galerie Wedding, Berlin (2022), A(un) Necessary World, Lifes, Hammer Museum, LA (2022), Vorglühen, OUT NOW, Uferhallen, Berlin (2021); UNFURL the jukebox musical: a shareable cypher, Montag Modus, Radialsystem, Berlin (2021); UNFURL: a lucid science fiction, 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2020); and Some Murder Theatre in Here, Volksbühne Grüner Salon, Berlin (2020). Justin will teach and set a new creation on students at SNDO, Amsterdam in December 2022 and has performed intimately with and for Melanie Jame Wolf, Martin Hansen, NSDOS, ILYICH, Jeannette Ehlers, Shannon Funchess, Dani Brown, Ligia Lewis, Louis Vuitton, Tino Sehgal, Adam Linder, Liz Kinoshita, Jeremy Shaw, Josh Johnson, BODYSNATCH, Faustin Linyekula, Jeremy Wade, Peaches, Wu Tsang, and others. 

SNDO - School for New Dance Development - offers a full-time four-year professional education course leading to a Bachelor's degree in Art – Choreography. The school was founded in 1975 as an attempt to find new directions for dance next to the existing forms and styles that dominated the fiel . After forty years, the SNDO remains inquisitive, open minded, and in the foreground of progressive developments in the fields of dance and performance. In the curriculum, the school establishes the conditions from which the creativity of the student can emerge. Reflection on the specific qualities of dance and performance as art forms is developed, and awareness of the body and the artistic, political and ethical implications of working with it take precedence. 
www.sndo. nl 

Jacuzzi is a convergence of Amsterdam-based choreographers, who act as a fluid support structure for each other and a host body for a multitude of movement practices and performance related events . At Jacuzzi we gather in order to share, reflect, problematise and imagine new conditions for art production in order to practice and celebrate our enthusiasm for the importance of dance. 

CREDITS     
Sun unseT is created by Justin F Kennedy and performed by students of SNDO years 2 & 3: Saman Mahdavi, Yujing Liu, Ciro Godsmit, Agnė Auželytė, Barros, La Uyi Ihasee, Tom‧ssss Boyaval, Matthieu La-Brossard, Lucas Lagomarsino, Sancha Meca Castro, Helene Ridderberg and Horatcio Vlijter.    
Music by: NSDOS
Production manager: Chantal Mooij 
PR coordinator: Keerthi Basavarajaiah
SNDO Artistic Director: Bojana Mladenović    

Commissioned by the SNDO-School for New Dance Development in collaboration with Jacuzzi, Amsterdam. 

Photo credits: Still from SOCK RAVE (2019), Justin F Kennedy & Derek Howard
*Manuel Arturo Abreu by way of Sylvia Wynter

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