Dance of Urgency
Six months ago, Covid-19 swept us off our feet, challenging our freedom to move. While dancing in crowds is still not allowed, people find various ways to come together and share their love for movement.
With artist, researcher and curator Bogomir Doringer Het HEM explores this urge to dance, its individual, social and political meaning as well as new choreographies of intimacy and reunion in time of the pandemic.
We welcome you to a 2-day program exhibition consisting of performances, film screenings, talks and happenings in which we extract from dance-culture and celebrate it in a time when it is needed the most.
During lock-down many witnessed online dances in isolation, shared through online platforms such as TikTok or during Zoom sessions initiated by different individuals, groups or choreographers. It was a way to unite and to connect. We look at dancing as a form of self-care, it transcends all international barriers and boundaries. This romantic notion of dancing is at odds with its political discourse. Illegal raves started spreading too, gathering a large number of people demanding their right to dance and subsequently ignoring global regulations. It’s not cheering or solidarity that brings them together, it’s a dance happening in times of uncertainty, not knowing what comes next. We value the freedom we have and aim for individualism, yet we are also fascinated and drawn to crowds in times of insecurities and fear.
Bogomir Doringer has been researching the power of collective dance, nightlife and raves as a social and cultural expression for several years now. It started from his experience of raving in times of NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. He is specifically interested in the power of dance in times of crisis when this social, ceremonial, intimate and joyful expression takes on a political meaning and becomes a moment of resistance. With Het HEM as a laboratory site, he explores new choreographies that can resonate an intimacy, togetherness, community and comply with the new Covid19 regulations for public events.
During Dance of Urgency, Doringer will develop an interactive dance experiment accompanied by DJs LYZZA, Animistic Beliefs, Loma Doom, Max Abysmal and Orpheu the Wizard.
Choreographer/performer Mala Kline brings Dream Hostel, a 23-hour workshop in which the audience is invited to a sleepover in Het Hem.
After an informative programme about dance on Saturday, 15 participants will be initiated into the practice of collective dreaming through image exercises.
In a diverse programme of lectures and public conversations, Kelina Gotman, Chiara Baldini, Naja Orashvili and Las Tesis Collective together with the audience investigate the origin and necessity of dance, complemented by a film screenings by David LaChapelle, Irina Birger, Dan Halter, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Jan Bedeggenoddts and Luiz Roque and a performance by Olave Nduwanje & Elmar van Arnhem and Natalia Papaeva.
Visitors can try Dreamachine, a stroboscopic flicker device that produces visual stimuli.