——————war scene (which feels even offensive to write/think it as such)————————- (Gaza)
Palestinians break into Gaza UN aid warehouses in a sign of desperation Thousands of people storm food warehouses in Gaza as civil order starts to collapse, the United Nations says.
The United Nations relief agency says thousands of Palestinians, desperate due to three weeks of total siege and bombing broke into several of its warehouses in the Gaza Strip, taking wheat, flour and other basic goods.
The United Nations relief agency says thousands of Palestinians, desperate due to three weeks of total siege and bombing broke into several of its warehouses in the Gaza Strip, taking wheat, flour and other basic goods.
The hospitals in Gaza will have no electricity to sustain operations or injury treatment.
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the view from the aeroplane’s window leaving Trondheim travelling to Belgrade for Feminist Futures Festival / KONDENZ contemporary dance and performance festival
——weather scene—————————————– It is warm and sunny in Belgrade ———————————————————————-
——weather scene———————————————————————— It is warm and sunny in Belgrade ——————————————————————————————————-
—war scene (which feels even offensive to write/think it as such)——————————-
There is the military term “Theater of War” which is used for “the entire area in which ground, sea, and air forces may become directly employed in war operations, including the theatre of operations and the zone of interior.”
There is the military term “Theater of War” which is used for “the entire area in which ground, sea, and air forces may become directly employed in war operations, including the theatre of operations and the zone of interior.”
The metaphorical connection is very simple and of course, it is… and how uncomfortable that feels. Quickly I turn to search for the basic meaning of theatre from the Cambridge Dictionary where I read: “a building, room, or outside structure with rows of seats, each row usually higher than the one in front, from which people can watch a performance or other activity”.1
I am ready to enter a theatre in Belgrade and I am thinking about what Donna J. Haraway writes in “Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene”: “It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories” and how metaphors can be a dangerous thing. —————————————————————
I am ready to enter a theatre in Belgrade and I am thinking about what Donna J. Haraway writes in “Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene”: “It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories” and how metaphors can be a dangerous thing. —————————————————————
–——————Kondenz Festival scene———————————— People wait at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip on November 1, 2023, while at the same time, I am waiting in another line. A line to enter one of the many theatres where the 16th edition of the Kondenz contemporary dance and performance festival /Feminist Futures Festival2, which takes place from 27th October to 4th November 2023. Curated by Marijana Cvetković in collaboration with Nevena Delić and STATION Service for contemporary dance and produced by Olivera Kecojević and Filip Perić and with the support of many people, organisations and collaborators, this festival will be our temporary niche for coming together and as the editorial letter says: “will be marked by a polyphonic body of works and addressed subjects, carried out by artists coming from the post-Yugoslav region, Europe and three other continents, South America, Africa and the Middle East.” ——————————————————————————————————————
–——————Kondenz Festival scene—– People wait at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip on November 1, 2023, while at the same time, I am waiting in another line. A line to enter one of the many theatres where the 16th edition of the Kondenz contemporary dance and performance festival /Feminist Futures Festival2, which takes place from 27th October to 4th November 2023. Curated by Marijana Cvetković in collaboration with Nevena Delić and STATION Service for contemporary dance and produced by Olivera Kecojević and Filip Perić and with the support of many people, organisations and collaborators, this festival will be our temporary niche for coming together and as the editorial letter says: “will be marked by a polyphonic body of works and addressed subjects, carried out by artists coming from the post-Yugoslav region, Europe and three other continents, South America, Africa and the Middle East.” ————————————————————————
the painting on a wall outside of Magacin Cultural Center3 in Belgrade
——————belgrade scene——————– (outside of the Magacin Cultural Center)
I met Ace outside of the Magacin Cultural Center. They know Nefeli Oikonomou from Stockholm, they studied together in the MA program at Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH). We talked about Sweden and its institutions. Like Ace and Nefeli, I studied in the same MA program. It feels nice to meet people with whom one has been part of the same institutions in such a very different context. One can trace the institution on our bodies, the scars they have left, the struggles of living abroad, the feeling of being away, hoping to make it. And then shifts and decisions, and conscious “no” and how a “no” opens up space for other “yes”, other strong “yes”!
I met Ace outside of the Magacin Cultural Center. They know Nefeli Oikonomou from Stockholm, they studied together in the MA program at Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH). We talked about Sweden and its institutions. Like Ace and Nefeli, I studied in the same MA program. It feels nice to meet people with whom one has been part of the same institutions in such a very different context. One can trace the institution on our bodies, the scars they have left, the struggles of living abroad, the feeling of being away, hoping to make it. And then shifts and decisions, and conscious “no” and how a “no” opens up space for other “yes”, other strong “yes”!
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——————belgrade scene————————————– (the meal)
————–belgrade scene—————- (the meal)
I am in Belgrade, eating outside in restaurants, hopping from one coffee place to another, while…someone breaks into Gaza UN aid warehouses to take food to survive the bandage of Israel.
Attending the Feminist School: Towards feminist dramaturgy, a reading group facilitated by Ana Dubljević in Magacin, we are playing a game. We are impersonating the author of the book “The Feminist Pornscapes. On Feminist Dramaturgical Thinking in Dance and Performance Practice”, Ana Dubljević.
Attending the Feminist School: Towards feminist dramaturgy, a reading group facilitated by Ana Dubljević in Magacin, we are playing a game. We are impersonating the author of the book “The Feminist Pornscapes. On Feminist Dramaturgical Thinking in Dance and Performance Practice”, Ana Dubljević.
Each one of us, the participants, is supposed to ask a question to the person sitting next to us as if the person was the author of the book and in advance having answered a question as being the author.
How do we ask questions? In this game, space, time? From a broader perspective? I observe and try to capture some modalities. And I am sure there are a lot more I can not attend to.
Sometimes it seems that the question is more like a statement, something that someone wants to say and declare out in the world, rather than a question. Is that still a question? Sometimes a question is an invitation to a conversation, opening up the ground to the other person. Sometimes, a question might feel like a challenge, a bit of showing off as if there needs to prove something to the other person or the rest of the group. Some other times, a question is more of a dead-end, maybe those questions are more like a denial with a question mark. These questions can be very big questions that do not facilitate an entrance point. In this specific game and context, I also observe that there are many ways of playing with whom we are addressing the question. When we address a question to a person next to us, do we use the person and ask the question to the “real” author that is in the room with us, or do we address the question to the person next to us, or do we address the question to the whole group?
Sometimes it seems that the question is more like a statement, something that someone wants to say and declare out in the world, rather than a question. Is that still a question? Sometimes a question is an invitation to a conversation, opening up the ground to the other person. Sometimes, a question might feel like a challenge, a bit of showing off as if there needs to prove something to the other person or the rest of the group. Some other times, a question is more of a dead-end, maybe those questions are more like a denial with a question mark. These questions can be very big questions that do not facilitate an entrance point. In this specific game and context, I also observe that there are many ways of playing with whom we are addressing the question. When we address a question to a person next to us, do we use the person and ask the question to the “real” author that is in the room with us, or do we address the question to the person next to us, or do we address the question to the whole group?
It makes me rethink that questions are capable of opening up space, sometimes more than affirmations but they can also be a multicomplex field and they are not always innocent.
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panses (Viola tricolor) flowers in front of the Museum of Yugoslavia in Belgrade
———————————— weather scene—
It’s raining. We are trying to approach the meeting point for the performance in the public space “Terra Nullius” by Paula Diogo. We are seeking refuge under a tree. We are six and it fits us all. How would it be if productions and performances were interdependent on the weather for real? Like today. It is raining, the weather will not allow this performance to take place today. Of course, that means that either the work will be canceled and that is connected with a lot of work being wasted or it will have to be presented another day. As it does the next day. It takes place at 17.00 before the other scheduled evening performance. This created a more full and intense day, changing our plans and our schedules, our time, our capacity, presences etc.
It makes me think of interdependency and its very explicit material manifestation in that case. Sometimes we call weather a disturbance but I am interested in approaching it from the perspective of its potentiality to giveaway our preconception of independence. How have we arrived at believing that we are independent and autonomous from the weather? Weather is something we speak about. It can be out of uncomfortness or of lacking anything else to say. It can be a breaking-the-ice starter. It can be a source of producing electricity. It is always there for us. We are using it as we are using all the resources we have. As endless, forever, always there to satisfy our needs. Sucking it without recognizing it. What if we all run out of offices, factories, working spaces, and studios when there is sun and those spaces would suddenly get empty? What if we stayed home when it is raining so we can have a slow day with our friends, enjoying the sound of the rain, the shelter of our houses (and how to remember that for a lot of people, this option does not exist).
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————–Scenes from the performances———
Walking in the circular stairs guided by Jovana Mijatović and Vladimir Bjeličić and by the sound and text created by Paula Diogo and João Bento for the performance “Terra Nullius”, I look at the water. While walking away from the Sava river bank there is a chorus song playing in the headphones. Voices singing “Head to the north, do not head to the north” repeatedly. Or this is my memory of it. While we are entering the Park by the School of Economy (which used to be named the Pussy Park), the song is not playing any more but still resonates very strongly with me. Thinking of all those human streams that head to the north for a better future or simply to have a future. The failing dreams of immigrants heading to the north and their violent crashing with racism and integration in the northern societies and social systems. The lies that are told to the beloved ones back in the origin countries with a smile on our faces “Yes I am doing ok!”. And how the orientation of the north is relative to where your starting point is or you have learned it to be and how this is another manifestation of colonisation. The north as an idea. And how this manifests in the artistic world and field and my body-mind. How migration in northern countries is a way to find a place to survive by working in the art field (and not only). And how this at the same time creates cracks for criticality but also loneliness and decontextualisation. I am not sure how to put it in words…but the North is choreographing our social imaginaries and I wish it would stop! I wish that we would stop reproducing it. Waiting for the traffic light to turn green, I cry looking at this crowded street we are heading to.
Walking in the circular stairs guided by Jovana Mijatović and Vladimir Bjeličić and by the sound and text created by Paula Diogo and João Bento for the performance “Terra Nullius”, I look at the water. While walking away from the Sava river bank there is a chorus song playing in the headphones. Voices singing “Head to the north, do not head to the north” repeatedly. Or this is my memory of it. While we are entering the Park by the School of Economy (which used to be named the Pussy Park), the song is not playing any more but still resonates very strongly with me. Thinking of all those human streams that head to the north for a better future or simply to have a future. The failing dreams of immigrants heading to the north and their violent crashing with racism and integration in the northern societies and social systems. The lies that are told to the beloved ones back in the origin countries with a smile on our faces “Yes I am doing ok!”. And how the orientation of the north is relative to where your starting point is or you have learned it to be and how this is another manifestation of colonisation. The north as an idea. And how this manifests in the artistic world and field and my body-mind. How migration in northern countries is a way to find a place to survive by working in the art field (and not only). And how this at the same time creates cracks for criticality but also loneliness and decontextualisation. I am not sure how to put it in words…but the North is choreographing our social imaginaries and I wish it would stop! I wish that we would stop reproducing it. Waiting for the traffic light to turn green, I cry looking at this crowded street we are heading to.
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————————–Scenes from performances———–
————Scenes from performances———–
We are in the Center for Cultural Decontamination, watching the performance “I Need a New Body” by Viktorija Ilioska made in conversation with Nastya Dzyuban and Laura Stellacci. We are in a white room, a white floor, and under very intense white-wash lighting. Two bodies are wearing two orang-ish costumes that slowly inflate and become big, full of air, disfiguring the bodies of the performers. Those disfigured bodies perform an almost unison choreography that has a bit of an aerobic aesthetic. I am seeing those costumes and I am curious how they work. They explained that the costumes have a small fan that sucks the air from the outer environment and fills the inside space of the costume which will inflate only if it is sealed so well that the air can not escape. The functionality of these costumes makes me wonder how pumping, and sucking are actions which can be analyzed as closed systems, and then I ask what is a closed system, does it even exist? The air that the costume fills up with is the air we (the audience and performers) breathe and share in our common space-time, while we are watching the performance together. What it would mean to approach performance as a system that is sucking? From the audience, from the natural resources, from our attention? What would that mean in terms of rethinking the production of performances? My attention is drawn back to the white room with the white floor and the washed lighting. At the same time, Gaza has been out of electricity and with no electricity the nights are dark and surrender to invisible violent atrocities by the Israeli troops and bombing. And then it may not be fair to think like that. Is it?
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———————————————————–Scenes from the performance scene———–
———Scenes from the performance scene——
Sitting on the floor of Little Theatre “Duško Radović”. Witnessing Zrinka Užbinec and Darío Barreto Damas dancing to the rhythms of “Es un no parar”.
Feets stepping, spines sensitive as fingers, sweat dropping and spilling to the floor. Never-ending movement, sweat spilling to the floor, toes fingers always shifting weight touching the floor in exhaustive detail…. in the floor we trust! What dance can do? I am now really curious to pursue the question “what dance can not do?”
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—————————–belgrade scene————————- (remembering of living together)
——————belgrade scene—————– (remembering of living together)
Walking towards the theatre “Little Theatre “Duško Radović” with a group of people, Szymon points out an orthodox church. He says it is one of the oldest in Belgrade. Yesterday, I walked by the Bajrakli Mosque which is one of the only surviving mosques in Belgrade. That makes me think of Yugoslavia and the co-existence of muslims and christians, the war and “the normalization of postsocialist racist politics that have been going hand in hand with the EU and nato’s eastern expansion”4, the role of UN forces and EU in the genocide at Srebrenica, the historical complexities of the Yugoslavian region and its transition to a post-socialist western enclosure and how this history is something I was not taught at school in greece. It makes me recall the lines of the book White Enclosures by Piro Rexhepi where it is explained in better words: “When Salman Sayyid argues that “the relationship between the emergence of Islamophobia and the crisis of Europeanness is exemplified by the way white revanchism has taken hold in East Central Europe,” where “the persistence of Islamophobia and its entrenchment in public discourses throughout the region point to the ways in which it cannot be simply understood as an expression of prejudice” (2018, 435), what he means is that the very acceptance of Eastern Europeans as white Europeans and their subsequent inclusion into the Euro-Atlantic enclosure is conditional to systemic violence, assimilation, and genocide on Muslim populations.”5
It reminds me of borders and the narratives that are necessary for their existence. How this has been manifesting in the narratives about the genocide happening now in Gaza.
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————————————-weather scene———————- Today it is windy, this wind that creates confusion ————————————————————————————
———————weather scene————- Today it is windy, this wind that creates confusion ————————————————————————
————————Scenes from the performances———–
————-Scenes from the performances——-
For an hour the Center for Cultural Decontamination is transformed into a dystopian laboratory where Paula Chavez Bonilla creates a bricolage of approaches and stories around the history of Coca. The performance “Omni Tóxica” moves me into an in-between place of discomfort and joy. Which I appreciate. A lot. And while I am questioning how can gaze at this performance, aestheticizing the revolution, revolutionizing the stage, or returning to the theatre as a place of symbolism as a radical staging, suddenly people are invited to throw their chairs and yes we do it! The quality of destruction, the action of allowing to destroy is an immanence moment of collapse where meaning is being emptied out and so openings are emerging for new meanings to emerge. A reminder that I will keep with me for a long time. How, and where do the actions of destroying and feminism encounter each other? How repairing and maintaining could not operate as the only and main principles of feminist thinking, and how we could allow ourselves to think of destruction as a generative force? Or is that something that belongs to patriarchy?
For an hour the Center for Cultural Decontamination is transformed into a dystopian laboratory where Paula Chavez Bonilla creates a bricolage of approaches and stories around the history of Coca. The performance “Omni Tóxica” moves me into an in-between place of discomfort and joy. Which I appreciate. A lot. And while I am questioning how can gaze at this performance, aestheticizing the revolution, revolutionizing the stage, or returning to the theatre as a place of symbolism as a radical staging, suddenly people are invited to throw their chairs and yes we do it! The quality of destruction, the action of allowing to destroy is an immanence moment of collapse where meaning is being emptied out and so openings are emerging for new meanings to emerge. A reminder that I will keep with me for a long time. How, and where do the actions of destroying and feminism encounter each other? How repairing and maintaining could not operate as the only and main principles of feminist thinking, and how we could allow ourselves to think of destruction as a generative force? Or is that something that belongs to patriarchy?
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————-audience scene———————————————— (two women)
————-audience scene—————— (two women)
There are two women. They remain unknown to me. I encounter them at every performance during the festival. I look at them, how they participate, how they are at ease with this context, how they clap when they like the music, how they stand up and throw chairs when they are invited, how they take the pen when they are offered and come on stage and write things they want to write on the floor.
Waking up, getting dressed, heading to a coffee place to have a coffee and trying to write, following the stream of the Kondenz festival as part of Critical Practice (MIY) group#5. It’s 9.00 and the streets of Belgrade are still quite empty. It feels more calm walking through the town at this time of the day. My greek phone does not work here and in order to have internet I need to get close to a wi-fi network that I have been connected to before. This condition creates an interesting choreography of navigating the city. Walking towards a coffee place which we visited yesterday with Elena, I am moving away from the area I can navigate up till now. I attempt to trust my orientation so that I can find this coffee place again without the help of google maps. I keep on walking without really deciding on trusting me or not. I silently do it, trusting my memory. I remember my mother visiting me in Stockholm and being so impressed and affected by her insistence and managing to navigate the city by herself without using google maps. That meant deciding at home where and how to go where one wants to go. And maybe allowing herself to get lost and ask people in the street with her very poor english. I realize how in Sweden, the phone has become an extension of my body, in the fear of getting lost. At the same time, I think of all my speculating on how nice it feels to free myself from google map and navigation, and how it clashes with the dislocation of people in Gaza under the continuous bombardment and destruction. I think of the contradiction between getting lost in different contexts. Getting lost and not knowing where to go is not a poetic metaphor but the bare reality when fleeing the war to survive.
Waking up, getting dressed, heading to a coffee place to have a coffee and trying to write, following the stream of the Kondenz festival as part of Critical Practice (MIY) group#5. It’s 9.00 and the streets of Belgrade are still quite empty. It feels more calm walking through the town at this time of the day. My greek phone does not work here and in order to have internet I need to get close to a wi-fi network that I have been connected to before. This condition creates an interesting choreography of navigating the city. Walking towards a coffee place which we visited yesterday with Elena, I am moving away from the area I can navigate up till now. I attempt to trust my orientation so that I can find this coffee place again without the help of google maps. I keep on walking without really deciding on trusting me or not. I silently do it, trusting my memory. I remember my mother visiting me in Stockholm and being so impressed and affected by her insistence and managing to navigate the city by herself without using google maps. That meant deciding at home where and how to go where one wants to go. And maybe allowing herself to get lost and ask people in the street with her very poor english. I realize how in Sweden, the phone has become an extension of my body, in the fear of getting lost. At the same time, I think of all my speculating on how nice it feels to free myself from google map and navigation, and how it clashes with the dislocation of people in Gaza under the continuous bombardment and destruction. I think of the contradiction between getting lost in different contexts. Getting lost and not knowing where to go is not a poetic metaphor but the bare reality when fleeing the war to survive.
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—————-Scenes from the performances———–
——Scenes from the performances——-
While sitting on the floor watching “Necropolis” in concept and direction by Arkadi Zaides and dramaturgy, text and voice by Igor Dobričić and materialised with and by a huge team of people, I am witnessing a documentary performance which consists of a text being narrated to us, an immersive projection that navigates us live to points of lands where people have died, a research laboratory, two live bodies and an assembling body of a material that resembles raw flesh. I am puzzled by how such an urgent theme affects me in such a way that I am left with a disembodied experience and a violent sensation. I am not saying that a performance should not do that. I am more curious to delve into how I arrived at feeling like that. Going back to the narrated text, I read it again. It says: “At this moment, as I am writing this report, I am dwelling inside a Necropolis and you are while reading it, walking through it with me. I would like to take you to the barren land depression at its heart”. I realise that the text although referring to itself as a report, is trying to approach its listeners poetically at the same time. The Necropolis’s location is constantly shifting meaning and representations. Europe, the West, a land of the dead, Leviathan. I also realise that I am (as part of the audience) being somehow guided by someone into this landscape, which although they know where they want to take me, they also leave me unattended. So I am left with a haunting question: Who am I supposed to follow in this cruel landscape? My question is not trying to point out that the problem is that I am being invited into a cruel landscape (this is the bare reality), but more that my guide into that landscape is remaining obscure and unpositioned in my perception. I am not sure of the intention and purpose of the proposition. Towards the end of the performance, the voice tells us: “Ladies and gentlemen, sisters and brothers, comrades, citizens. They took you on this arduous, if not outrightly morbid journey through the Necropolis. They challenged not only your patience but also your imagination and your common sense by forcing you inside of this landscape of death. They questioned your moral sensibility, and they risk alienating your affection. You could have refused to walk with them, but you stayed. Let me assume that you stay to meet them”. I wonder again how and when my guide, surrenders my guidance to someone else. Who am I left to follow? How can I grieve under this invitation?
At the same time, another archive is formulated which is called “Let Them Grow Up”. It traces and archives as a memorial for all the innocent lives of children that have been lost since the war on Palestine started.
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————————-workshop scene—————————–
———————workshop scene——-
During the public lecture by the cultural worker and producer, Nebojša Milikić at Magacin Cultural Center, he says that in the conditions that we live in today (he used the term global imperialism) it is possible for some people living in some contexts (global north) to work less but he pointed out that this would probably be translated in someone working more in the global south.
During the public lecture by the cultural worker and producer, Nebojša Milikić at Magacin Cultural Center, he says that in the conditions that we live in today (he used the term global imperialism) it is possible for some people living in some contexts (global north) to work less but he pointed out that this would probably be translated in someone working more in the global south.
How to be aware that maybe by pumping our rights in the north without fighting capitalism we are sucking the potentiality of those rights in the south?
At the same time in greece at the moment, they are introducing the legal state of working for 13 hours.
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————————Scenes from the performances———–
————–Scenes from the performances——
Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira’s bodies are pulsating togetherness in the piece “Repertorio No.2”. The simplicity of the rhythms that togetherness might appear through their bodies and in space makes me move with them back and forth arriving in a peculiar situation where “dance as a practice of self-defence” makes us come together in such a refreshing way.
Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira’s bodies are pulsating togetherness in the piece “Repertorio No.2”. The simplicity of the rhythms that togetherness might appear through their bodies and in space makes me move with them back and forth arriving in a peculiar situation where “dance as a practice of self-defence” makes us come together in such a refreshing way.
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————————-workshop scene———————————–
———–workshop scene———————-
In the workshop by Elena Novakovits and Maeve Johnson Feminist School: “Systering – Practicing Feminist Governance” they share bits and pieces of their journey, questions and methods which their collective “systering”6 is busy with. At one moment they say something about how difficult is to apply the nice feminist theories and that we only can stop this augmenting feeling of difficulty by doing things, and trying them out.
A good reminder that knowing and doing although related are not subsequently to each other. Scaling down theory to material attempts is what I miss and why I like choreography.
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Walking together. Vegetation is covering the ruins of the Yugoslavian library after being attacked by the German bombing attack on Belgrade on April 6, 1941, when 4000 people were killed, and more than 8000 buildings were destroyed, including this building. How long will it take that to happen in Palestine? Will it even happen after the genocide that is taking place?
———————————–belgrade scene———————- (airport)
————————belgrade scene——— (airport)
I am arriving at Belgrade airport, Micha has also arrived at the same time. I have asked them to wait for me at the arrival point. It has been so long since that has happened. —————————————————————————————–
I am arriving at Belgrade airport, Micha has also arrived at the same time. I have asked them to wait for me at the arrival point. It has been so long since that has happened. ————————————————————————-
————- It’s 19 days since the war in Gaza started. ——————————————————————————————————
————- It’s 19 days since the war in Gaza started. —————————————————————————
———————————————————————– I exit the baggage claim area looking for them waiting for me. They are not there. ——————————————————————————————————
———————————————————————– I exit the baggage claim area looking for them waiting for me. They are not there. —————————————————————————
