Unlearning Language
Saturday 12 March 2022 | Reinwardt Academie
Learning to acknowledge the intuitive body and incorporate the word
The memories that our bodies sense, store and (re)perform are part of our collective memory. Western education rates the written word as the highest form of intelligent knowledge and holds old societal conventions, beliefs and judgements to be true, even if it causes hidden intergenerational trauma. The body’s memory and its unfathomable ways of knowing are often lost in translation. We tend to ignore the skills involved in dealing with the different dimensions of corporeal experiences. This distorts our perception of the past, present and future. It also influences how we relate to reality, to our indebtedness to the her- and histories that are shaping us and to what knowledge - grounded in artistic experience - is or could be. We turn a blind eye towards what our bodies communicate to us and we need to learn to see and to read the radiant intelligence that is stored within our embodied being.
What to expect from this Unlearning experience
In this Saturday school we will shift hierarchies of knowing towards unearthing the wisdom and expressive potential of the intuitive body by establishing a conscious relation with what moves us at the deepest levels of our being. Collectively, we will investigate ways towards bringing this knowledge into the world by allowing our bodies to speak through dance, movement, spoken and written words, images, poetry and living art.
During the morning session we will work collectively towards opening intuitive and communicative layers of our embodied being through a performance (Traces of Time by Farida Nabibaks). This will lead into a related creative practice which emanates from the embodied trauma of the colonial and slavery heritage.
Where: Reinwardt Academy
When: Saturday 12 March 2022 - from 10.00 to 18.00h
This practice is brought in dialogue with the dance method Double Skin/Double Mind introduced by Suzan Tunca, ICK Dans Amsterdam.
In the afternoon we will explore the tension field between intuitive non-verbal logic rooted in the dancing body and the words of written dance documentation. These insights are based on research on dance knowledge transmission at ICK Dans Amsterdam.
We will spend the rest of this day experimenting with different media (dance, written and spoken word, poetry, sculpture etc.) to document our experience during the morning session by creating a living artwork that will be given as a present for the next session.
None of the activities involved will require previous expertise.
About the Artists in Residence
Farida Nabibaks (Surinam, 1965) aims to address the collective trauma of the colonial past and slavery through her performances and participatory programs. Farida uses dance and embodied knowledge, with the ultimate goal of healing.
Farida is the founder of Reframing HERstory Art Foundation and the artistic director of Radiant Shadow. This consists of three dance-theatre productions, which delve into the colonial history of the Province of Gelderland. She graduated from the Scapino Dansacademie in Amsterdam (1990). She has danced in contemporary and Dance-theatre productions, and played the female leading role in FAYA, an original Dutch/ Surinamese musical. Farida also studied Philosophy at the Radboud University Nijmegen and holds an MA in Philosophy of Behavioural Sciences. At this moment she is part of the research project: Feeling the Traces of the Colonial Pastat the Radboud Institute for Culture and History, led by Prof. Liedeke Plate.
https://www.reframing-herstory-art-foundation.nl/
Suzan Tunca (Turkey/Germany, 1975) studied Theatre Dance at the Academy of Arts in Arnhem between 1994 and 1997. After graduating, Suzan started working as a dancer, choreographer and choreographic assistant in the Netherlands and abroad working among others with Krisztina de Châtel and Dylan Newcomb.
Through her work as a dance researcher in professional and educational contexts and as a performing artist, she aims to contribute to the continuous regeneration and evolution of the art of dance and to its recognition as an invaluable source for embodied knowledge and understanding.
Between 2005 and 2014 she danced with Emio Greco | PC (now ICK Dans Amsterdam). She completed an MA degree in artistic research at the University of Amsterdam in 2015 and works since then as a dance researcher, and currently as the head of the ICK Academy. Between 2016 and 2019 she was a research fellow at DAS THIRD at the Academy of Theatre and Dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. She implemented and develops an artistic research curriculum for BA Dance students at Codarts University of the Arts Rotterdam and works as a coach for the MA Choreography Codarts/Fontys. Since 2018 she is a PhD candidate at PhDArts Leiden University.
https://www.ickamsterdam.com/nl/academy
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/suzan-tunca#tab-1
This Saturday has been designed by the Artist in Residence together with Marit van Dijk (Reinwardt Academy) and Erik Lint (Academy of Theatre and Dance)
Further reading, viewing, thinking: