Lectures and talks with Prelom and Walking Theory 27 October at 19:00 + workshops

Publishing and other activities
– possibilities and strategies for critical activity

During 2009 – 2010 choreographer Malin Elgán and freelance writer Josefine Wikström curate a series of lectures at Weld, that puts publications in relation to artistic production. The lectures are held by international guests from various disciplines and fields.

Tonight’s lectures are held by Prelom Kolektiv and Walking Theory from Belgrade, two independent organizations and journals that are working with alternative forms of cultural production. Prelom and Walking Theory contribute
with other ways of presenting and thinking about art, actualizing the relationship between art work and viewer, reader and producer. By providing space for the unexpected, they generate movement in the artistic discourse as well as in its practice.

Elgán and Wikström, whom usually operate within dance, intends through the series of lectures, to place a focus on the possibilities of publications to broaden the aesthetic discourse of choreography. A new collection of texts will also be presented at each lecture gathering.

The lectures series are produced by Weld in cooperation with Inpex, International Dance Programme at Arts Grants Committee, Mychoreography at University College of Dance and Re Act. The international guests will also give workshops in connection with the lectures (see info below).

 

Prelom Journal was established in 2001 as a publication of the Belgrade Center for Contemporary Art, with an editorial board that took the journal beyond the usual “arty” topics. In the contemporary post-Yugoslav context, Prelom has created a space for critical examination of the political constellations between art, film and social theory. Prelom engage individuals as well as groups from both the ex-Yugoslav countries and internationally. Through collective initiative Prelom problematize, theorize and counteract, as they themselves express it, the contemporary neo-liberal capitalist hegemony and its heterogeneous and paradoxical forms. In 2004 Prelom transformed into the independent organization Prelom Kolektiv which also includes a publishing house. In addition to Prelom Journal, the organization has developed other activities such as curating exhibitions, arranging conferences, discussions and activism. Prelom recently participated in the Istanbul Art Biennial.

Jelena Vesic is independent curator, art critic and editor from Belgrade, where she is currently writing her thesis in art theory. She is co-editor of Prelom Journal and member of Prelom Kolektiv. In her curatorial practice Jelena Vesics is dedicated to the politics of representation, the visual culture and critical examination of new models of interacting between theory and art. She experiments with frameworks, methodologies, contextual and collaborative aspects of presentation of art. For instance she has curated the exhibition 6th Yugoslav Biennial of Young Artists and a series of video programs at, among other places, the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw and at Borderline Moving Images Festival in Beijing.

Dusan Grlja from Belgrade is theoretician within the field of sociology and political philosophy with focus on post-Marxist theory. He is co-editor of Prelom Journal and member of Prelom Kolektiv. Together with Jelena Vesic he curated the exhibition project The case of Students Cultural Centre – Belgrade in the 1970s, at the former student center in Belgrade. The exhibition which examined the cultural and political circumstances in Yugoslavia after the 1968 protests, has also been shown in gallery SKUC in Ljubljana and Galerija Nova in Zagreb. Dusan Grlja has lectured at several conferences and seminars such as at the Post-Yugoslav Condition of Institutional Critique organized by EIPCP (Institute for European progressive Cultural Politics).

 

TKH (Teorija koja Hoda) or Walking Theory was founded in 2000 as an artistic and theoretical research group within the Center for New Theatre and Dance in Belgrade. Since 2002, Walking Theory is an independent organization for performing arts theory and practice. Walking Theory wants to encourage the development and improvement of contemporary performing arts practice and especially its critical discourse, both in local, regional and international contexts. They publish the theoretical journal TKH Performing Arts Journal, organize training courses, arrange and participate in artistic and theoretical events, and produce interdisciplinary performances in and outside of Serbia. Walking Theory is also engaged in cultural policy and works to strengthen the independent artistic scene. They often collaborate with self-organized initiatives such as the Other Scene in Belgrade and PAF (Performing Arts Forum) outside Paris.

Walking theory was founded by Bojana Cvejić, Bojan Đorđev, Siniša Ilić, Jelena Novak, Ksenija Stevanovic, Misko Šuvaković, Jasna Veličković and Ana Vujanovic.

Ana Vujanovic is theoretician, specializing in the field of performing arts. After obtaining her PhD in Theatre Studies at Belgrade University she subsequently studied culture and gender studies at the Alternative Academic Educational Network in Belgrade. She is a collaborator of the performing arts organization Walking Theory and editor of the journal with the same name. Ana Vujanovic teaches interdisciplinary studies at Belgrade University and writes regularly in Serbian and international journals. She has published books such as Doxicid c-Topa/4 and Destroying Performances’ Signifiers, Introduction to Performance Studies with Aleksandra Jovićević. Ana Vujanovic has participated as dramaturge and performer in several video works, dance and theatre performances, and frequently gives lectures and workshops internationally. She is particularly involved in the issue of free groups and independent scenes.

Marta Popivoda from Belgrade is video artist and cultural worker with studies in film and television direction. She has exhibited individually and participated in several group exhibitions such as October Salon in Belgrade and No Space Is Innocent! at the Steirischerherbst festival in Graz. Her video works has also been part of numerous performances on stage such as Operrrra is female, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Don Giovanni. She is coordinator of the performing arts organization Walking Theory for projects focused on alternative education, digital technology and video art. Together with Ana Vujanovic, she is active regarding questions concerning cultural policy relevant to independent organizations for the performing arts both locally and internationally, for example Other Scene in Belgrade and PAF in France.

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 INVITATION TO WORKSHOP OCTOBER & DECEMBER 2009

During 2009 – 2010 choreographer Malin Elgán and freelance writer Josefine Wikström curate a series of workshops and lectures in cooperation with Weld, MyChoreography at University College of Dance and the International Dance Programme at the Arts Grants Committee.

The workshops are held in connection with international guests visiting Stockholm attending a lecture series at Weld, dealing with publications in relation to artistic production.

The workshops are independen from the lectures, and are formulated out of each guest’s specific topic. Welcome to participate are theoreticians, choreographers and dancers as well as artists from other fields.

Registration at info@weld.se Thursday the 22nd as latest
Please give your name, a short description of who you are and write in the subject line in which one or ones of the workshops you want to participate.
The language is English and numbers of places limited. The workhops are held at daytime. No fee.

26 – 27 October
Dance and politics or Dance as politics
Workshop with Ana Vujanovic and Marta Popivida (Walking theory, Belgrade)

The workshop deals with the relationship between politics and contemporary performing arts, with particular emphasis on dance. Politics means here the communication of an artistic practice; how it operates in the public and the discursive space and how it redistributes or challenges its existing forms.

Arts political aspect can be understood and analyzed, not only on the basis of
subject and theme – which is the conventional approach – but also from media discourse and form, and its production conditions and working practices. Through short lectures and with examples from the contemporary international performing arts scene, these different approaches and reasoning are discussed and developed with the participants.

The idea is to make aware how a public performance, because it takes place in a cultural, social and economic context, is never an objective or neutral media, but instead it always has a political dimension. The workshop provides a theoretical overview of the political aspects of artistic practice and provides methods to look at individual works of art from such a perspective. It is not just a method to interpret the works, but the workshop also provides tools for artists to produce, articulate and pursue its own artistic practice in a contemporary and performing arts context.

28 – 29 October
Art of critique
Workshop with Dusan Grlja and Jelena Vesic (Prelom Kolektiv, Belgrade)

The workshop deals with Prelom Kolektiv’s collaborations with artists, theorists and other cultural workers focused on the possibilities of the ”art of critique”. Based on their own projects and exhibitions such as Political Practices of Post-Yugoslav Art or the Prelom – journal for images and politics, Prelom Kolektiv discuss how art movements and practices are ”read” today and through history. They are also addressing the contemporary theoretical scene in ex-Yugoslavia as well as political issues and re-writings of the history of socialist Yugoslavia. In a broader sense, it is about how the ex-Yugoslav context ”fits into” and work in a wider art context and the European cultural production, especially in view of how contemporary art from the West Balkans are usually presented and how historical representations of East European art looks.

Prelom Kolektiv discuss the traps of criticism, of appropriation of critique or of how it becomes merely decorative in the Western European art institutions, bigger art shows and projects.

5 – 6 December
How are ”many” on the move?
– On embodiment and collaboration
Workshop with Bojana Kunst (Ljubljana)

”There are many disillusions about the political movements and artistic communities in the 20th century, however in the present cultural and political situation, there is also a strong need to rethink the notion of plurality as a specific force of change. In the workshop we will approach this need from the perspective of the body and processes of embodiment, which are deeply intertwined with the ways how do we reflect and think about collaboration and movement of the group. We will analyse and discuss significant examples from the history of performance (particularly from the second half of 20th century), especially the ways in which the processes of embodiment are tightly intertwined with the formal and aesthetical approaches to community. The potential for change, sensorial togetherness, belonging, counting, community, immunity, all those issues are connected with specific understanding of the body and are strongly influencing the aesthetic and formal procedures of performance in the last decades. Today the notion of embodiment and collaboration touches new fields, where bodies are part of augmented space, moving as swarms, multitudes, deterritorialized communities. What can be then the body of a group? How to think about the body of a group after deep disappointments with collective body? How are “many” on the move today?”

Bojana Kunst