SODA Lecture

In the last decade choreographer Arkadi Zaides has been exploring what he would like to call Documentary Choreography. Documentary Choreography investigates how different types of documents (interviews, testimonies, video materials, archival information, and others) can become an integral part in a choreographic research. It strives at weaving these types of factual information with embodied and choreographic methodologies. Furthermore, it questions how the intersection between choreographic and documentary practices could open possibilities to articulate new modes of engagement and intervention in different socio political contexts. In this lecture, Zaides will elaborate on his concept of Documentary Choreography based on examples from a range of his artistic works, including Archive (2014), Talos (2017), and Necropolis (2021).

Arkadi Zaides is an independent israeli choreographer and visual artist of Belorussian origin, currently living in France. In Israel, he performed in several companies such as the Batsheva Dance Company and the Yasmeen Godder Dance Group before embarking on an independent career in 2004. He obtained a master's degree at the AHK Academy of Theater and Dance in Amsterdam (NL). He is currently working towards his joint practice-based PhD degree at Antwerp University and Ghent University. He is a member of CORPoREAL research group at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and a member of S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts & Media) at Ghent University. His performances and installations have been presented in numerous dance and theatre festivals, museums, and galleries across Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Over the years he has curated projects such as New Dance Project (2010-2011) with choreographer Anat Danieli, Moves Without Borders (2012-2015) in cooperation with Goethe Institute Tel Aviv, and Violence of Inscriptions (2015-2018) with the scholar, curator, and dramaturge Sandra Noeth. The latter gathered artists, thinkers, and human-rights activists to negotiate the role of the body in producing, maintaining, legitimising, representing, and aestheticizing structural violence. He is a recipient of numerous prizes, among them a prize for demonstrating engagement in human-rights issues, awarded to Zaides by The Emile Zola Chair for Interdisciplinary Human Rights Dialogue (IL).