Perspective

Be a gathering! The Natural Circus trainings, Spring 2012

This post comes to you from Cultura21

‘I am movement and stillness at the same time’

The Natural Circus trainings are a body and movement practice (and maybe a bit more), embedded in an understanding that ‘nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect’.

Situated in a powerful natural environment, they are playful gatherings beyond the human(-centered) perspective that may help realize the complete interdependence and interconnectedness of the human being with the natural world – until what remains is dance only. The trainings integrate elements of Contact Improvisation, Physical Theater, Tango, Bodywork, Meditation, Deep Ecology and Nature Awareness Work, Taoist/Advaita/Zen philosophy.

This 4-days gathering will take place in Barnave/Diois, France; from May 24th to the 28th, and will feature Diethild Meier (Dancer, improviser, visual artist), Lars Schmidt (Wandering Monk, Natural Thinker, Improviser) and Romain Petit (Freeclimber and climbing teacher).

The cost of the gathering is 240€, housing on site (Le Serre) included, in two rustic apartments, food will be extra, shared and prepared together. The number of participants is limited to 12 persons

For more information, go to Natural Circus´ website.

Registration: contact [at] passiveactivism [dot] net

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

City of Pieces – an urban festival of creative practices

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Bangalore

22nd to 30th of October

Maraa, a media and arts collective, invites to City of Pieces, an urban festival of creative practices:
City of pieces is a nine day festival that interrogates the violence of the everyday transformation of the city from the perspective of creative practice. This festival marks the third anniversary of Theatre Jam, a monthly forum to trigger dialogues about art and media in the public space through practice, performance and expression. It travels across different public and semi-public spaces, committed to reclaim dead, found and empty spaces in the city. City of pieces brings artists and creative practitioners to respond to the city we inhabit.
The city transforms and we continue to experience it in fragments, in the debris of what once was and the flash-forwards of its future in fresh grey concrete. And we move through it refracted in fragments with every contact with it. But as this city of pieces forms us it is formed by us in turn- a disjointed tapestry of multiple stories, desires and memories. As the week unfolds, urban pieces and fragments are gathered and re-combined to tell a different story that acknowledges the creative modes of negotiating this city shaped by the violence of transformation. Through storytelling, films, performance, poetry and conversations we hope to make sense of an ever changing Bangalore.

Reposted from: http://maraa.in/arts/city-of-pieces/

Be part of the last two events and register today:

Middle of somewhere | Theatre Workshop 29 Oct | Cubbon Park Band Stand | 10 am-3 pm

Middle of Somewhere was a performance done last year, set between scaffolding in a dilapidated house on Rest House Street. This performance used personal stories that were interwoven with anecdotes of the city with the story of Akeli, a fictional story. The performance is a never ending project. It grows with people’s stories and fantasies. We invite you to a theatre workshop to re-narrate fears, aspirations, and memories experienced in your life in the city through short improvisations and street performances around Cubbon Park.

To register mail pallavichander [at] gmail [dot] com or call 98869-28582

Bangalore Talkies | Video Art and Music |30 Oct | Jaaga, Double Road | 6 pm onwards

When you live in a city, your encounters with roads, friends, and strangers are all in pieces of images and sounds. What can you interpret of a city that you experience everyday in pieces? Bangalore Talkies a forum to see Bangalore through different eyes, through different lenses. How do YOU connect to Bangalore -  bus rides/auto rides, pubs, darshinis, your neighborhood, street dogs, trees, the weather, street food,  construction and deconstruction – it could be about any creature, thing, space or feeling in the city. Collect your stories on anything that can shoot image and record sound. All videos must play on VLC and should not be longer than 5 mins. Submit your entries on DVD OR mail it, upload it and send us a link on ekta [at] maraa [dot] in by tomorrow latest. Your stories will be screened for the public at the Bangalore Talkies at Jaaga, Double Road, on 30th October, 6:30 pm onwards. Remember it’s about the story, not so much about making a perfect film. This will be followed by a music jam between independent musicians in Bangalore. If you are a musician and want to play, get in touch with us today!

To register mail ekta [at] maraa [dot] in or call 96328-31275 before 29th October

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Land Art and changing perspectives


Filming Jan Dibbet’s 12 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective, 1969


Jan Dibbets 6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective, Maasvlakte beach, 8 February 2009

A year ago this week as part of the Portscapes project, the artist Jan Dibbets had what he called a “second attempt” at his 1969 piece 12 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective; the artist and curators rejected the idea of the event being a recreation. The apparently parallel lines are drawn on the beach and disappear again within the space between two high tides.

The original work became part of the canon of Land Art when it was included in Gerry Schum’s 1969  Land Art TV broadcast, alongside pieces by Robert Smithson and Richard Long. For Schum the attraction of Land Art was its liberation of art from the gallery. He was trying to make a TV-based form of art that suited the more democratic half of the 20th century.

In the second attempt the work becomes more obviously about man’s relationship to the natural world, partly because Portscapes, which we list as one of the 21 highlights of 2009, was a series of commissions by Latitudes on a piece of land that will disappear as part of the new Dutch industrial port complex Maasvlakte 2. And the piece now seems to emphasise the tidal inequalities of that relationship. Just as Dibbett’s illusory parallel lines are seen being washed away by the rising tide, so this beach will soon be gone. That is another perspective shift, of a kind.

Read more about 6 Hours Tide Object… here

Photos: Latitudes, Paloma Polo/SKOR and Freek van Arkel

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Interview with activist/video maker Leo Murray

I’ve just posted an interview that Caleb Klaces did with Leo Murray for on the main RSA Arts & Ecology website. Murray did the clever little viral video Wake Up Freak Out – Then Get a Grip which has been doing the rounds on the net.

Art has the ability to move people in a way that nothing else does. In the world we live in today, screen media is the most prominent cultural feature. People spend the majority of their waking hours staring at screens (computers and TVs), which gives you a clue if you’re trying to propagate social change. If you don’t try and come at people through their screens you’re just standing behind them tapping them on the shoulder saying “Hey, over here…”. It’s really clear that there’s no way to bring about the social change that we need to deal with climate change without the use of screen media. Aside from mass media, I’m pretty certain that The Age of Stupid [which Murray animated the first three minutes of] is the most powerful tool to motivate people around climate change that exists now. It does the opposite of what I do in my film, it barely addresses the science at all. It’s set in the future and uses narrative to suck you in. Taking a historical view seems a very productive perspective…

Read the whole interview.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology