choreographing

The online studio of two curators who work and live as a duo in Reykjavík, Iceland: Alexander Roberts and Ásgerður G. Gunnarsdóttir. This blog is a public workbook shared between us, capturing fragments of the choreographic work we are in someway attentive to. It will perhaps serve as an archive for us to return to, depart from, and act upon at a later date. We make it public because we are narcissists perhaps, but also because we want to invite the context the public domain brings. It (the public domain) invites a certain demand to not only declare what it is we are observing, but go further with our articulation of what we observe. We also want to invite others to join in on our reflections, curiosities, (mis)placed focus points. There is also some aspect of this blog, which is seeking to engineer expansion of the choreographic domain, which at the same time demands a certain specificity about what we place in this blog. It's fragments of an active working through of that which we are both attentive to and distracted by.

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‘Art is not a mirror to hold up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.’ (Brecht)

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Of course, it’s a provocation: after hundreds of years of fighting for the autonomy of art, after decades of learning that the main quality of art is its ambiguity, after years...

[jacobwren]

Autonomy is a tricky term to handle because in the field of art it has come to denote almost the opposite of what it set out to name. Literally, auto / nomos means to determine one’s own laws. When art slowly but surely pried open a new social space for itself in nineteenth-century European society, on the basis of aesthetic principles laid out by Kant, Hegel, Diderot and others, it was in the name of giving itself its own laws. Its “conquest of space,” as Pierre Bourdieu calls it, was about wresting art from the overarching control and hindrance of religious and political authorities, carving out a separate sphere for itself where it could develop in keeping with its own internal logic. This space of autonomous art determined the art of modernity. Of course, the autonomy was only ever relative — but it was effective, and jealously guarded. In fact it still is. Incursions from other fields were repulsed vigorously. Indeed they still are. This autonomous sphere was seen as a place where art was free from the overcodes of the general economy (its own, utterly unregulated market notwithstanding) and the utilitarian rationality of market society — and as such, something be cherished and protected. This realm of autonomy was never supposed to be a comfort zone, but the place where art could develop audacious, scandalous, seditious works and ideas — which it set about doing. However, autonomous art came at a cost — one that for many has become too much to bear. The price to pay for autonomy are the invisible parentheses that brackets art off from being taken seriously as a proposition having consequences beyond the aesthetic realm. Art judged by art’s standards can be easily written off as, well… just art. Of contemplative value to people who like that sort of thing, but without teeth. Of course autonomous art has regularly claimed to bite the hand that feeds it; but never very hard. To gain use value, to find a usership, requires that art quit the autonomous sphere of purposeless purpose and disinterested spectatorship. For many practitioners today, autonomous art has become less a place of self-determined experimentation than a prison house — a sphere where one must conform to the law of permanent ontological exception, which has left the autonomous artworld rife with cynicism.

Stephen Wright (via jacobwren)

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Blog worth following. Considered writing on a scene worth consideration.

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IN THE MAKING OF THE MAKING OF: The Practice of Rendering Performance Virtual Bojana Cvejić We don’t have money, so we have to think. Anon.

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...in a non-wimpy way.

Steve Paxton speaks:

"Is Contact Improv enough to be an antidote for the aggressive tendencies that we have? And I would say 'no'... christianity isn't enough either, buddhism isn't enough. Nothing has stopped it from happening so far. The problem is, as always, whatever you set up and say ok this is really going to work, young people come along. Babies are born, and they grow up, and they don't know shit about what everybody else is working on, and they just start doing their own thing. And they go through their hormonal stages, and they just mess everything up. Children are the problem... and after children I would say the problem are adults." 

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.... and some more ....

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..... more ...

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IT IS SOMETHING OF A THING. MILITARY INSTITUTIONS TAKING ON POP CHOREOGRAPHIES...

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Late for a meeting. Choreography for screen.

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Choreographer of the Week could only really go to Iceland Airwaves. And therefore – by default – the award is extended to the whole of the Icelandic Music Scene (WOW).

Not just for the festival's activities this year, but for the ever emerging choreography that is the Iceland Airwaves Festival, that permeates every wall in the 101 district through sound, and reverberates around the country through its remarkable choreography of the media.

Iceland Airwaves you are a truly worthy winner. 

For one weekend – every year – it feels as though Reykjavík is Iceland Airwaves. Armed with an Airwaves' wristband or not, with so much off-venue – and such extensive media coverage (I say with a commending tone) – Airwaves is a festival for the masses. They achieve a festival that is for everyone, without writing labels on everything (i.e. suitable for ..., the children's programme,  a special experimental programme, bla bla blue da ba dee da ba die da ba dee da ba doo doo doo).

And - NO EXPLICIT THEMES - yay!!!

So often there is talk of festivals as micro-societies, but on the scale of Reykjavík, Iceland Airwaves is less of a micro-society and more of a medium to large society. And although its hefty accumulation of mass is reliant on its ephemerality – it surely reminds us of the social capacity of sound to rally warmth, togetherness, sweaty and less sweaty encounters. 

As for choreography specifically? What more do you need?

Choreography of hipster tourists, choreography of venues, choreography of fans, choreography of the independent pop scene of Iceland, choreography of sex, drugs and more drugs, choreography of a police force – supporting not reporting, a choreography of warmth as the darkness sets in, choreography of Icelandic musicians playing over above 10 concerts each (so a choreography of moving musical shit around the city) .... lalalala ... 

ICELAND AIRWAVES – WE COMMEND YOU

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ANDRE LEPECKI /// D A N C E /// DOCUMENTS OF CONTEMPORARY OF ART

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Speculations on the acronym R.D.F.

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!!!ICELANDIC CHOREOGRAPHER OF THE WEEK!!!

Örn Alexander Ámundason

Often making manifest choreographies that toy with deliverance, with the failure to deliver, and the peculiarities of translation and collaboration – Örn is our Icelandic choreographer of the week. 

Not typically recognised for his contributions to choreography – Örn might still me one of the most interesting choreographers working in Iceland today.

Below are two selected works, but his website has a more extensive archive and is most certainly worth some of your time.

The video excerpt above is an early work of Örn's entitled Singer/Songwriter (2011).

Örn writes of the performance...

"anyone can go on stage at an ‘open-mic’ night and play a song, tell a joke or whatever. I, like many others, show up with a guitar and ask if I can perform a song. After the host introduces me as a ‘singer/songwriter’ I go on stage and start performing my song. I start with the first word “I...” but then stop as if I was playing the wrong chord. I start again “I...” but immediately after starting I stop again and cough. It goes on like this for about 25 minutes. Starting and stopping like a car stuck in snow, desperately trying to get out but always falling back into the same tracks.

The singer/songwriter is determined that there is great talent dwelling inside of him waiting to come out. He feels that all he has to do is go onstage with his guitar and the music and lyrics will naturally follow. He’s confident about his ability to express something sincere, however, he seems to be unable to deliver."

Other works...

Kreppa: A Symphonic Poem About the Financial Situation in Iceland (2009)

A Collaboration Monument (2012)

Styrofoam, Burlap, and Plaster (2011)

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Adam Linder

Choreographer /// Rapper 

www.adam-linder.net

Adam Linder is engaged with choreography.

His works have been presented at Hebbel am Ufer Berlin (Parade, 2013), Silberkuppe Berlin (Some Cleaning, 2013), Kampnagel Hamburg (Cult to the Built on What, 2013), Kunsthaus Dresden (Several Costume Changes, 2012), Silberkuppe Berlin (Ma Ma Ma Materials, 2012), Tanz im August Berlin (A Hip Reconnaissance, 2012) and The Watermill Centre NY (Dining at The Wilsons' - with Shahryar Nashat , 2011). Further iterations of these works have been presented at KM - Künstlerhaus Graz (2013), Kunstverein Nürnberg (2013), Sophiensaele Berlin (2013), Liste Performance Projects - Basel (2013), Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel (2013) and Halle für Kunst Lüneburg (2012).

In the past Linder performed with Michael Clark, Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods and The Royal Ballet. And trained to be a dancer at The Royal Ballet School in London.

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Part One of a wonderful documentary of John Cage. 

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FOLK CHOREOGRAPHY

BANG BANGS ICELAND

The Kitchenware revolution occurred during the Icelandic financial crisis. The protests had been happening sporadically since October 2008 against the Icelandic government The protests intensified on 20 January 2009 with thousands of people showing up to protest at the parliament in Reykjavík.

Protesters were calling for the resignation of government officials, and for new elections to be held. The protests stopped for the most part with the resignation of the old government led by the right-wing Independence Party and new left-wing government was formed after elections in late April 2009. It was supportive of the protestors, and initiated a reform process that included the judicial prosecution before the Landsdómur of the former Prime Minister Geir Haarde.