Direct Action Flâneurs &March Against Police Brutality

The march against police brutality, and a call for police commissioner Ray Kelly to resign, or be fired, began at Liberty Plaza a/k/a Zuccotti Park

The Lagosians are watching...we are fighting for 'Access To Clean Free Water'

Lagos, Nigeria one of the biggest growing urban mega-city on the planet faces the challenge to bring clean safe water to everyone. Site-Specific Social Choreography. I was working with 7 choreographers and over 40 Nigerian dancers during a five - day period to practice Dance as a Social Choreography for the Global Water Dances Event "Clean Safe Water for Everyone". Performance was on June 25, 2011. The  project was produced by the Society for the Performing Arts in Nigeria (SPAN). 

We are over 60 procent out of Water. Water doesn't stop. So I created a concept with the idea of on going, like water, flowing into the streets of Lagos. The "Human River" dance began at Tinubu Square and moved through the streets of Lagos Island into Freedom Park. In the Freedom Park we shared our space with the singer Olufunmi Olajoyegbe and the dancers continous to flow with the theme "The Water Seller's Tale". This part of the Dance was created in collaboration with Nigerian choreographers: Offiong Anthony, Konwea Frank Chinedu, Umeigbo Celino Nneka, Uche Onah, Lovette Ortegbola, Ukalina Eline Opuwari and Agocha Shilh Davies.

To fully empower the Lagosian, I made a conscious artistic choice not to dance in the work. And I like to remind myself on this point on the very important written statement in 1957 by Guy Ernest Debord who founded the Situationist International, a radical group of creators searching for new forms of action in art and politics.

“We have to change the world. That’s what we think. Change society. Change life. Do it for freedom. Get us out of this prison. We know one thing: this change is possible. All that remains is to figure out how to do it.” 

Lagos - THE UNKNOWN

This video compilation consists of two events from November 14, 2009. The first is a video shot out of the window while driving from Mile 2 to Festac Town in Lagos, Nigeria to a performance. The second is the performance itself, at the gala event celebrating 365 days of the leadership of the local government of the Amuwo Odofin area. The dancers are from the choreography workshop I led at the Society for the Performing Arts in Nigeria. Additional Sound Track for the video compilation: Eric Dolphy performing "God Bless the Child," on the bass clarinet. In a very short period of time we created the work. Since the Choreography Workshop was all about the individual in the collective, each dancers created for this work their own movement phrase. It was challenging for them. Truly challenging it was for the Nigerian Audience to see a dance without music and the use of 360 degree performance space.

DIALOGUE '120 dishes' begins!

The new project DIALOGUE '120 dishes' was born during the two-week residency at Tanzhaus Zurich in February 2009! For the development of the work I invited six performers (Einy Aam, Elke Rindfleisch, Yin Hou, Francesca Honegger, Katja Vaghi, Laura Vogel) living and working in Switzerland, New York and China, and the Chinese artists Zhao Xiaoyu (composer) and Xiaohua Sun (new media). I approach DIALOGUE ‘120 dishes’ as a social experiment in communication, set on and around an arrangement of conference tables, that overtime take new configuration to establish new "dialogue' situations (One- to- One, Panel, Round table etc.).  It is a dance piece, a theater work, an installation, and a verbal dialogue. Some of the residency questions we embodied were: Who are we as performers with different dance traditions in different cultural and social settings (what role art plays in this social/political settings)? How do we negotiate between each other, the audience and the architecture (table formation etc)? What means individuality towards collective decision making. How to give everyone in the room a voice? How we can expand the dialogue also into the virtual world --where audience can send their thoughts to the performers with help of the mobile phone..?--{The Resources of this new work ranges by looking at gatherings in commercial context, within a cultural venue, at community board or in the context of a political or civic debate. By taking this highly formalized events, both spatially and corporally we are trying to find possibilities for a more dynamic, anti-formal approach to space, body, movement, gesture..

Thanks to co-director Meret Schlegel at Tanzhaus Zurich with her team and production manager Martina Alfonso with her wonderful friends we were able to present to the Zurcher Audience the first stage of this new project last Tuesday, March 3rd. Check out the result of this two week residency by clicking on the slideshow RESIDENCY DIALOGUE 120 DISHES. Photos by photographer Christian Glauser.

Pure Water - Lagos, Nigeria

a fragmented stage in a garden/40 dancers with different abilities/a collaboration with Nigerian choreographer Adedayo Liadi/working in the heat/different realities-different environments. How pure is a creative process that had so many given parameters? 'Pure Water’: small plastic bags of water sold on the streets; Lagosians rip the corner off with their teeth and squeeze the bag to squirt out the water.
Our collaborative performance work Another Day of Life was presented by the Society for the Performing Arts in Nigeria (SPAN) as part of the event MESSAGE IN THE GARDEN, November 25, 2008. The founder and chairperson of SPAN, Sarah Boulos invited me to teach contemporary dance and to create a dance work with Adedayo Liadi.

spicy city - 120 dishes

Sharing lunch with five members of the Sichuan Modern Dance Company, I count 120 dishes on the table. Eating and laughing: A must in Chengdu.

pressing the body into the wall

TASK for the Sichuan Modern Dancers: Press the Body into the Wall and Wait. Why do the dancers have such a hard time simply to wait (Is it because they are on top of each other?) Imagine you are on the stage and in front of you is the public. I guide them with words: "Use direct address, eye contact and silence from the stage to the public. Give them Silence. Give them time." The words help-they are able to wait.