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August DanceFestival 2014 - IN MEDIA!
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On 21 August, the 15th international performing arts festival August DanceFestival will begin.
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The 15th August DanceFestival is getting closer.
05.08.14
outside the box continues!
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NU Performance Festival IV - IN PRESS
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August DanceFestival 2011 - iN PRESS
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outside the box continues!
[05.08.14]
[05.08.14]
Press Release, 14 July 2014
outside the box
"outside the box" continues! The artistic research is complete, the visits of the six participating art spaces from Germany, Estonia, the Netherlands, and Poland have taken place, and the 'market' in Mannheim wrapped up on June 7. Although the hustle and bustle is over, the work is not done. A comprehensive documentation of all the results of this transnational art project, which focused on the relationship between art and the public, is in preparation.
The ‘market' in Mannheim, in particular, contributed a variety of new and inspiring insights to the project. More than 70 participants from eleven European countries attended lectures by the eight international speakers and contributed to the intensive discussions and workshops, adding their own insights and thoughts to the process. Dr. habil. Jens Badura, Hendrik Folkerts, Anders Härm, Professor Dr. Bojana Kunst, Professor Dr. Torsten Meyer, Guillaume Paoli, Marta Popivoda (Walking Theory), and Joanna Warsza were the theorists and practitioners who would instigate and lead the discussions at the ‘market'.
Bojana Kunst, professor of Choreography and Performance at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, Universität Gießen, demonstrated in her opening speech how art approaches capitalism and at the same time resists the capitalist appropriation of human power and creation. By quoting Mladen Stilinovi
she states that "the preoccupation of the artists from the West with irrelevant things such as production, promotion, the gallery system, the museum system, the competition system (who is first), their preoccupation with objects, (...) drives them away from ‘laziness', away from art. The artists of the East were (...) ‘lazy' and poor because the entire system of insignificant factors did not exist. Therefore they had time enough to concentrate on art and ‘laziness'."
Jens Badura, head of the Research Focus in Performative Practice at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), made an impressive statement describing the behaviour of artists and culture creators who feel the need to get ahead of funding bodies and the public, frantically justifying the usefulness of their planned activities. Badura says that this behaviour is problematic in that it reduces art production and the role of art in general to one of utility - and thus the creators of art affirm the mindset that art must be useful in some way. "This tendency has a significant influence on artistic praxis, and also invites people to replace productive, art-oriented cultural and political arguments on aesthetics with funding money administrated using cultural management frameworks and based on opportunistically oriented cost-benefit analyses," explained Badura.
Another important aspect of the ‘market' was the discussion surrounding how different generations view society and art. Torsten Meyer, professor for Art and its Didactics with a focus on current media culture at Cologne University, provided valuable thoughts on Generation C, the digital natives. Based on the experiences of the artist and activist platform, 'Walking Theory,' Marta Popivoda discussed the ways that contemporary art can influence the social life of a city, and gave an example of a successful initiative by speaking about the 'Right to the City' movement.
Six working groups then discussed the central questions of 'outside the box' over the two day symposium. These questions are:
What is the role of pleasure in art?
Where is the audience over 40? How do different generations view society, political processes, and artistic development?
Does the way audiences wish to spend their free time influence individual artistic projects? Art vs. Marketing?
Which audience are we working for? Who is interested in live performances in a time increasingly marked by virtual experiences?
How do we structure dialogue between art and politics when the representative needs of the city are not served by the contents of experimental art?
Can contemporary performative art influence the social life of a city?
Of course, the performances developed as part of the on-site research by artists from Amsterdam, Düsseldorf, Groningen, Mannheim, Tallinn, and Warsaw were an essential part of the entire discursive process, as they explored the question of the relevance of one's own aesthetic position within the social debate as a series of artistic statements. The participants had very different political, social, and financial constraints to work with, and so their individual approach and technique were both visible and tangible.
Gabriele Oßwald, Artistic and Executive Director of the hosting art space, zeitraumexit in Mannheim, remarked: "The 'market' confirmed for us that it makes sense to combine artistic and discursive/theoretical contributions in such a way that both are weighted equally. It also confirmed that our determination to examine what we do and why we do it is necessary, indeed, essential."
What is really exciting, however, says Oßwald, is how the project will continue: "How will the ideas created by our research be used going forward? What is going to happen to the research materials collected by our partners? How will the initiated thought processes, which were discussed extensively in our workshops, expand and grow?
Documenting "outside the box" will play a central role in this process. Photos and audio files of the key note and other speakers at the ‘market' in Mannheim are already available at www.otb-research.com/de/docu. The entire project, including a written record of the audio files as well as additional contributions to the project and discussions will be published in November of this year.
"outside the box" is an event created by zeitraumexit (Mannheim) in cooperation with FFT Düsseldorf, Grand Theatre Groningen, Het Veem Theater (Amsterdam), Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Tallinn), Komuna // warszawa (Warsaw) and the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies (Giessen).
The project is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research, and Art, the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung, and the city of Mannheim. Media partners: tanz - Zeitschrift für Ballett, Tanz und Performance and Theater heute.