Emancipatory Choreographies

Netta Weiser
Emancipatory Choreographies
Workshop, English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Thursdays, 10-13h: 14.11. (Hardenbergstr. 33, Room 158), and 21.11, 28.11, 5.12, 19.12, 9.1, 16.1 (Hardenbergstr. 33, Room 101), Plus 3 hours of asynchronous study and mentoring

Registration on Moodle starts 14.10.2024:
https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=2478
Moodle Enrollment Key: choreo

This seminar addresses the affective and sociopolitical impacts of choreography against the backdrop of the global rise of far-right ideologies, ongoing conflicts, and active protest movements. Choreography can both impose and exercise power, while also having the potential to recognize, examine, and subvert it. Described as an 'arrangement of bodies in motion,' choreography provides tools for understanding how movement is regulated—how bodies are organized, directed, and influenced. At the same time, choreographic knowledge allows for the scrutiny of these control mechanisms and can instigate embodied acts of resistance.
This seminar delves into multiple perspectives where choreographic practices and body-based performance challenge hegemonic structures, namely heteronormative, capitalist, racial, and patriarchal power systems. We will examine emancipatory moments in dance and performance history through the lens of queer theory and Black studies, investigate how social dance has functioned as a liberatory practice for marginalized communities across various times and places, explore the choreographies of protests and dance in context of resistance, and identify emancipatory fractures in the choreographies of our everyday lives.

Combining movement practice, discussion, and analysis, we will explore how bodily movement sets new processes into motion.

Fulfilment criteria for ungraded accreditation: active and regular attendance.

Netta Weiser is a choreographer, artist and researcher based in Berlin, working across performance, sound installation and experimental radio. Her works have been presented internationally, most recently at the Akademie der Künste, Kunst Werke, Tanzquartier Wien, Onassis Stegi Athens, WDR, Villa Medici Rome, Tanznacht Berlin, Sophiensaele, TONSPUR Micro Museum for Sound at MQ Vienna. In 2019 she established the artistic research project Radio-Choreography exploring the transformation of dance into sound and developling performative practices for the radio. The project has been supported contiuesly by various institutional collaborations, grants and residencies, namely, the NRW Dance Research residency for international artists in 2020, a fellowship at the Studio for Electroacoustic Music at the Akademie der Künste in 2021, Hauptstadtkulturfonds 2022-2024. Moreover, Weiser teaches regularly at the Klangzeitort Institute for New Music Berlin and at the Universität der Künste Berlin. In 2024 the Badischer Kunstverein presents her first institutional solo exhibition in Germany.