Mini-conference

Mini-conference is a series of workshops organised in collaboration with Dance Unlimited and the Springdance Festival dedicated to the shifting possible contexts for contemporary performance-making through a combination of practice and discussionbased formats.

As we keep moving toward the open fields of hybrid processes and forms, the concept of performance-making has evolved to symptomatically transgress the boundaries of disciplines such as dance and theatre. Although inter and/ or cross-disciplinary approaches are no longer as historically radical as the disruptive work of the early to mid 20th century, the edges between disciplines have not disappeared and remain a productive source for re-thinking performance and constantly create new beginnings. Therefore, today's hybrid performance makers, whether they are considered to be from dance, theatre or any other discipline, are likely to manifest themselves and their projects just as seriously and with the same commitment towards radicalism as in the past, but with an enhanced understanding of socio-cultural contexts and an increased awareness of the relationship between action, perception and communication. They will be more likely to utilise history rather than deny its existence, to subtly subvert instead of try to break systems down, to playfully hack social conventions and to recode rather than write anew.

24 hours mini conference
3-4 April 2006
The 2 day mini-conference “per/FORM: choreography and fashion” was organized by Dance Unlimited Amsterdam in collaboration with Springdance Utrecht. It aimed to provoke fresh thinking about relationships between form, function and topicality in relation to performance making. The three invited speakers/ facilitators were the theoretician Luca Marchetti (FR) who also helped design the program, artist/ fashion designer Pia Myrvold (NO/ FR) and fashion designer Gaspard Yurkievich (FR).

As if we don’t know what it is
7-8 April 2005
As if we don't know what it is is an intensive 48-hour research project dedicated to the shifting possible contexts for contemporary performance-making through a combination of practice and discussion based formats. To help us facilitate this, we have invited the participation of performance makers from Germany, the UK and France who embrace hybrid approaches and whose work consistently sits on the edge of this open field of possibilities.

The contemporary performance groups Association Edna (Boris Charmatz/ Angèle Le Grand FR), Rimini-Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi/ Helgard Haug DE) and Blast Theory (Matt Adams/ Ju Row Farr UK) have each been invited to bring a proposition based on questions they are currently facing with which to stimulate a small group of participants in parallel investigations. These participants (31 in total) were invited from a local base of professional makers in Holland to include a group of ten post-graduate students from the Dance Unlimited post-graduate program. Researcher and writer Jeroen Peeters has been invited to participate and help frame the discussion. Participants will engage in pre-project research and communication.

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