Linda Blomqvist: The Sound Unplugged - An interactive installation // Benjamin Vandewalle: Walking the Line // Eleanor Bauer

Benjamin Vandewalle: Walking the Line - a choreographed walk @venue: gathering outside Scenkonstmseet, 11.00 h, 14.00 h, 18.00 h
Eleanor Bauer: Proto Talks, 16,00 h
Linda Blomqvist: The Sound Unplugged - An interactive installation @venue: Danscentrum, 20.30 - 00.00 h

Linda Blomqvist: The Sound Unplugged - An interactive installation

A love letter to the performance

We on an ultralight beam

We on an ultralight beam

This is a God dream

This is everything

Everything (Thing, thing, thing)

When they come for you, I will shield your name 
I will field their questions, I will feel your pain

No one can judge

They don't, they don't know

They don't know

'Falling in' in songs with a taste of amusing and beautiful innocence. 

I have chosen the best seat, the one on 

the
floor,
furthest from
the door, 

next to the big pink tablecloth - I searched spacial
underscore
- to be close.  

sharing the space of Rare Silk - "Storm" (1985): with sounds of a
glasses, 

her silver
eyelashes
Gigi Masin - "Call Me" (1986) - "Wind"

Some other bell traces of the
pop.
 - such a
bop!
(haha)

(Urban dictionary: used reference a good song; to say that a song is really good)

to change dynamics and go straight to the
point:
Alessi Brothers - "Do you feel it?" (1976)

and in this loving ship to
adjoint:
"Spaceship Lover" - Paul ST. John

Captured by the dance of the three, then
five, 

Awakens our senses, makes us
dive

practicing listening to their Midori Takada: Lovesong of Urfa

the immersive sound: 'made by' and 'made up'
instruments

takes the space, washes it, with a siren call, a bonhomie of
intimates

A choir of three, then
five

it makes our senses
dive,
drift
away
and then
sway
back, to its end. 

...I wasn't prepared for an end. it did end suddenly...

Paul Williams - "Drifting in time"

Benjamin Vandewalle: Walking the Line

I didn't manage to come to Benjamin Vanderwalle's performance, followed by Eleonor Bauer's Proto Talks. I know Benjamin's work from before. Very persistent in changing perspectives of the viewer and those who practice the craft of walking with his instruments :)

I bumped on this:
Kafka's periscope, kind of double perception: in facebook projection of the reality.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Louise Dahl & Philip Berlin & Marie Topp: Liaisons, both @ venue: MDT

WORK IN PROGRESS: Louise Dahl & Philip Berlin @ venue: MDT, 19.00 h
Marie Topp: Liaisons @ venue: MDT, 20.00 h

WORK IN PROGRESS: Robin Jonsson: The most human @ venue: Scenkonstmuseet

WORK IN PROGRESS: Robin Jonsson: The most human @venue: Scenkonstmuseet,18.00 

#robot
#technology and body
#dance
#everyday movement

Affect of the robot and our positioning. 
'It' was small - so we laughed when 'it' talked. 
It was humanoid, and we watched through human eyes. I was thinking how else? To see it as a metal and plastic that moves through digital configuration. Then there was a mistake and humans were dealing with it. :) 

Thinking about future, this performance makes me think in the future tense. We do talk more about robots. 

I watched a video suggesting how we are going to be ruled by robots and machines and that we should learn more and more what they can't do and that is emotional intelligence, intuition (algorithm:). Dance is a good start. 

Very innocent. I am not sure what was there going on, copying and showing what robot can do similar (sorry I was late, sitting in a backspace so couldn't see properly)... or what one cannot do and another can. And how sweet is that to 'us' (i think it was the size of the robot, in that sense power-less :)  

I had few of these on my mind:

Samira Elagoz: Cock, cock, who's there? & Eleanor Bauer: 'Proto Talks'

Samira Elagoz: Cock, cock, who's there? @ venue: Scenkonstmuseet, 19.30 h
talk after the performance: Eleanor Bauer: 'Proto Talks'

I would rather concentrate on a Proto Talk than the performance itself. I have seen Samira's performance three times and I have heard her talking about it in one of the after talks in Brussels this year. To listen to Samira Elagoz and to see such a defensive mode, but precise speech in 'Proto Talk' is something valuable to mention. Just to start with a subject: rape as a motive for a research on relationships and life itself: it is responsible, brave, self-reflective, it needs kind of detachment to own self and constant observation of the self and the world. "Living the art (of life)".

The 'Proto Talk' has specificity to open up, something that we usually don't talk about in this sort of after-performative-spaces. I will quote the author: "...a replacement for the conventional after-talk. [...] Talks depart from what the artist doesn't know for sure, making public discourse and shared imagination out of nascent ideas that are usually reserved for notebooks, dreams, or conversation with cohorts."
The talk was after the performance. With the fact that it was just fifteen minutes - after very strong and emotionally filled performance, suggests again new openness of the author and audience. Eleanor Bauer is very cleverly doing this, but still, it caused us a lot of (emotional) struggle to listen (talking about myself). 

                                photo credit: Hedda Axelsson

The talks, after the talk after the performance, were still loaded with the bunch of opinions, many many different opinions. Great! I will come back to the Samira's posture and defensive mode (my apologies for interpretation), but I still think it needs a lot of courage to talk in this kind of over-open-mode, about already so loaded performance that opens not just research of the author, but her intimate experience, current life, her body, her presence... (fact that the boyfriend is in a backstage, also included in the project, in the movie, etc.) So, while Eleanor wanted to know much more about the Samira's ways of dealing with the life vs. project, it becomes too much to handle. 

There was so interesting information that Samira shared in the talk (how much more?), like she has a  father (present in a video material) being a 'bizarre person' (with a positive connotation) and she had to get used to his system of thinking and living, therefore she approaches to the life more open, with not condemning view. Beautiful... 

"I have strangers sometimes having a comment like: oh they are weirdos" and I never experienced that! I think my father, I lived with my father and he is a very... bizarre person. i am not... everybody wants... don't want to be weird... but him... he is a person who is actually weird (in one breath) which means you have your own logic and you don't play with others people logic. and I lived with him for many years and I had to relearn how to cope with him and afterward, I lived with him I don't find anyone's way of living weird. and i never say..." (typed audio recording from Proto talk) 

Autobiographical work that I am also as an artist interested in, or living it, makes a living kind of laboratory-like study. The reflective mode that this kind of artist is living can be exciting and at the same time distanced. The distance created as a work-process makes life-love-art so present, more present than 'presence' itself. (while talking about present in a buddistic approaches in the workshop of the festival placed in a modern museum:)
So, I am coming to the conclusion about Samiras' body posture of defense in a talk: it is appropriate, it is great, it is over-normal to finally say stop to interweaving that fragile space of the individual (an artist). I have to add to this: there was a guy in the audience, proposing EVEN more intimacy, not really caring for the process itself, nor the artist (wtf?). "I can shut up..." he said, then somebody next to me said: "yea, maybe!" - well... I will stop here. It is a display from now on... 

My apologies for interpretation and loaded text (excuse goes above the fact that this is a blog - consciously or unconsciously, space of esthetically specific public share of thoughts). Thank you! the author. 

#control - measured experiment
#rape as catalyst
#after talk
#art equal to life 
#<3 (the second day of the performance): She made us leap to our feet! Standing ovation in the audience space: mostly dancers and performers stood up and clapped to Samira Elagoz. 

Dana Caspersen in collaboration with the Michael Douglas Kollektiv: The Exchange

Dana Caspersen in collaboration with the Michael Douglas Kollektiv: The Exchange @ venue: Scenkonstmuseet, 19.00 h

There was a kind of thread of exchange through the whole evening. If it started with a conversation on a stage, it ended in a bar: the subject of social choreography was very contagious. At the performance I have met Ellen, a dancer and a writer for Labo* festival. We got instructed to talk about violence. While exchanging some personal stories she said she is vegetarian going to become vegan, because of underlayerd violence in the animal industry. I talked about the war that happened in Yugoslavia twenty three years ago. This is the performance in which protagonist is an audience, executing tasks with given instructions. What we create here and what kind of conversations we have is up to us. Speech and movement as tools of performance had kind of an educational note. The practice of talking about violence makes violence present as a display. While listing examples and our reactions towards it we are shaping and gradually molding the perception we have had before we entered this space. This is a performative space and we are aware of the statements we are making here, we are aware that we are observed by others. I think with repetition of this kind of actions we could become pretty clear how we are influencing and are influenced throughout everyday life - how we could launch a change we are constantly talking about.

So when I am saying: the thread of conversation just continued, it did transform from the subject of violence and then to conversation about our work and how relative it is.
I continued to talk with Ellen on the way to the Story Hotel, a meeting point of the festival. She is writing also for the Labo*, but kind of overview and reflection. Tomorrow I am going to record our discussion about performances 'to be seen'. I am looking forward to that!

After Ellen left home I have joined Michael Douglas Kollektiv, a familiar faces from Cologne.  <3

I walked back with Dana Caspersen to our apartments, which are some 300m from the Scentkonstmuseet and Story Hotel bar. It is such a pity I still talked about my impressions in the world influenced by performance "The exchange". I should have wait for her to say a bit more about whatever she wanted to share! I even forgot about my role as a made-up-blogger. Probably I was influenced by the subtle attempt to change the world. I am not sure if I can write here what is her next subject, but it is pretty risky theme in its context. We should often or at least sometimes take risks and make an influence. There was a workshop led by Dana Caspersen. I didn't participate.

Nobel museum

Sightseeing in Stockholm: visiting Nobel museum, appropriate to the news published just a week ago: Nobel Scandal in Stockholm.

Subjects that we are talking about on the festival are of a big importance: women specifically, gender, transgender, queer space, transindividuality, techno-body, social influence, violence, racism, etc.(some of the terms are my interpretation). 

Sleeping Sunday in Stockholm.
After some drinks in Story Hotel, Festival's Hot Spot.
The only movement i did today, appropriate to the festival of dance:

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15/04/201817:42    AID:A0000000043060

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Linda Blomqvist // Ian Kaler and Jam Rostron aha Planningtorock // Moderating talk with Camilla Larsson

Linda Blomqvist: Circle LUX 9 @Venue: Danscentrum, 18.30 h

Ian Kaler and Jam Rostron aha Planningtorock: o.T./Raw Practice 
Moderating talk with Camilla Larsson @ Scenkonstmuseet, 20.00 h

My first day of the festival was Saturday 14th of April. I have been part of the immersive performance by Linda Blomqvist: Circle LUX 9 @Venue: Danscentrum, 18.30 h.

#Intimate

#space constallation

#dispersed spatial constellation 

#dealing with the self

What I saw and felt was the intimate space of the performer. Like being in her private room, observing her playground of every day. It felt pretty convincing. If she approached me closer, while moving through space I could feel the tension, not just in my body but in everyone's. I was thinking, while she is exposing herself so much, how could I support this landscape with my own body. I think we all remained a bit 'stiff' (am I talking about myself?). I am not sure why I was shy there. I am working with intimacy and borders, but it still felt (too) intimate. I could feel my sweat dropping under my hand. Maybe it is a space that is not performing itself as other venues: theatre or museum, but it is a dance studio with a little arrangement of props and objects. It worked, certainly, just it worked in a way that felt more intimate than I expected. There were pressure and pleasure of being observed, placing the eyes on the dancing body, naked body and others in the space. I could have stayed in this performance for hours... fall in love with the performer for some couple of times, I must say... (an induced fall in a performative space). 

I went with curator Jane Hopper and her sister Sara towards the next venue. It is just a few minutes away by foot: Scenkonstmuseet, @ 20.00 h there was a performance of Ian Kaler and Jam Rostron aha Planningtorock: o.T./Raw Practice with Moderating talk from Camilla Larsson. 

#3 bodies

#technological body

#representation

#projections

#gender fluidity

Amazing performance. The aim of representation worked: I was in a search to recognize the human in shadow/light effect. It was a magic* of the appearing/disappearing body and body parts: a nonchalant gesture, an effortless illusion. It was there. Probably it was there because of the mixture of the three: light - movement - music. In objectifying all three main elements; three bodies, I could lose myself in recognition/non-recognition of the person/Persona. The affect would not be so strong if one of the three combined elements was missing. 

At the end one performer is moving towards the back wall, mostly concentrated on own hands, I speculate: it reminds me of Michelangelo's 'The creation of Adam' #reach and touch, giving a life to something out of the performer or out of own self (it seemed that subject of the wall was important to the author while explaining wall-situation in the after talk). This alien body is giving an agency to the outside of itself to dissolve the social power of our perceptions (social/political, cultural, gender, race, behavior, etc.)

The technological body was transformative mechanism into transgression and transindividuality.  

Talk after the performance with a moderator Camilla Larsson was - rounded! I really like that everybody had a chance to talk about details, own practices, had time to flourish in their own bodies and experiences through the allotted time. 

                                photo credit: Hedda Axelsson

introduction to the authors' agency: Blog @ Labo* Stockholm festival

I am still trying to understand what kind of blog is one that doesn't make a critique of performances: nor a text that describes what we have seen, what we can read anyhow and what performance makers know best. I am thinking that in this kind of sense feminist approach is one of the options. Which would mean in this case: an open view to new possibilities. I definitely have to include my practice, to situate my knowledge and place my observations. There is a concept of 'Proto Talks' at Labo* festival by Eleanor Bauer, who is proposing kind of similar direction to deal with information (out of the sight). 

Maybe there is a space to say something extra and somewhat extra informal to the festival's format. Therefore I will say that I am the artist and I am responsible for text published on this blog. It is informal form, a diary, a blog as my personal practice to situate myself in some situation and from within working with documentation. I am performance maker, social choreographer, and architect. I create private conversations and actions public (with the consent of ones involved). 

Email from Jane Hopper, a curator and artistic director of the Labo* Stockholm festival:

The invitation to the blog-making was very queer. (open and generous)