Below are descriptions of past participants in the festival:
CRISIS ART FESTIVAL 2016
ANNA/KATE BAND
CONSTRUCTING SONG-CYCLES: AN ACT OF HARMONY, AN ACT OF RESISTANCE
Workshop and Performance
This 30-minute workshop facilitated by Kate Foster and Anna Gothard, band-leaders and performance duo behind Anna/Kate Band. The workshop will empower participants to connect the political to the personal, and vice versa, via interwoven song and text. We will encourage participants to specify moments of resistance in their lives. When your thoughts, beliefs or identity are judged, how do you react? We then challenge participants to find harmony, within themselves and amongst the audience. This workshop will be accompanied by a 45 minute concert during the week.
NHANDAN CHIRCO
ON FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
I will speak about the European movement of solidarity and of protest against EU borders policy to support the struggle of migrants, introducing actions that took place recently at the borders (Open Borders Caravan, Defencing Festival) and upcoming no borders meetings (No Border Camp – Thessaloniki). I’ll be talking about my experience in cultural and political activism and the attempts of merging them, according to the interest in principle of participation and direct initiative (movementof cultural occupations, FACK, Lampedusa Charter, What For?). I’ll be reflecting about how I was questioning myself as artist acknowledging the gap among professed democratic European identity and the fascist practices of its governances (Et l’europe alors) and the problematic role of an innovative cultural production in this frame.
CARTHAGE COLLEGE
Neil Scharnick, director / Kim Instenes, costumer / William Newcomb, technical director / Ashley Pavlak, stage manager
THE BREATH OF STARS – Performance
Featuring: Rachel Proite, Veronica Vickas, Christian Aldridge, Maura Atwood, Jordan Horne, Lauren McKee, Ilirida Memedovski, Jordan Nazos, Conor O’Brien, Corrie Riedl, David Rodriguez, Hayley Sherwood, Marie Tredway, Paige Whitney, Austin Winter
This new play by Obie Award-winner Caridad Svich radically reconfigures Shakespeare’s The Tempest for the digital age. It serves in part as an exploration of the relationship between technology and power; the leveling powers of the internet and Smartphone do not reach every corner of the globe, and their influence may be more colonial than egalitarian. The play likewise examines the ways in which social media shapes social memory, with each new tragedy or atrocity showing up briefly in one’s Facebook feed, only to sink out of view within a day. This threatens to overwhelm and ultimately deaden compassionate and revolutionary impulses.
SEGNI CONCRETI
ON POLITICAL REFUGEES – Screening
June 20th is World Refugee Day to stand in solidarity with asylum seekers and refugees. For this occasion Segni Concreti has realized a short movie, that aims to increase awareness on this subject.
ABOUT SEGNI CONCRETI
Segni Concreti is an association of people for people. We came from different cities and countries, but we share the same beliefs and the will to be committed in this society. We want to propose a new form of communication in which creativity can make a difference and it is that communication can become funnier, more useful and more effective if every one of us actively contributes to the circulation of knowledge and of the culture.
NIKOLAI JEFFS
POST-EMANCIPATION: Nostalgia, Debt, and Deferral – Lecture and Discussion
Many critiques following the 2008 economic crisis seem to harken back to times before the crisis as though some golden era of freedom, abundance and opportunity had been lost. This severely limits the possibility for more radical imaginings of what a possible post-capitalist future may look like. The lecture will be an opportunity to rethink some of the ways paths to emancipation are thought about and practised today. In addition the discussion should be an opportunity to exchange experiences and ideas.
ABOUT NIKOLAI:
The Faculty of Humanities was founded in 2000 and is part of the University of Primorska in Koper-Capodistria. Nikolai Jeffs teaches in the Department of Applied Linguistics as well as in the Department of Media studies.
LEONARDO LAMBRUSCHINI
CONTACT IMPROVISATION: Crisis Within Your Limits/Break Your Habits – Workshop and Performance
In this workshop, we will dance through the founding principles of Contact Improvisation. Together, we will discover the moments of crisis within movement in which certainty diminishes. A status that might, at first glance, seem difficult – in which we can explore the sense of disorientation – becomes a moment in which new opportunities arise, giving new inputs to the dance with our partner. The workshop is open to all levels of experience with C.I. and will end with a performance, leaving space for improvisation and maintaining focus on the material proposed during the workshop.
ABOUT LEONARDO
Theatre and dance performer Leonardo Lambruschini teaches Contact Improvisation in Italy and abroad. He leads experimental workshops and courses in movement and improvisation for children, adults, and disabled people in Italy and abroad. He continues his personal research by taking part in intensive workshops and international festivals in Europe and throughout the world. Co-founder and Artistic Director at Spazio Seme (www.spazioseme.com), an international arts centre in Arezzo, Italy that is focused on artistic research, training, and productions about movement. Since 2008, he has collaborated with the Accademia dell’Arte of Arezzo (European Theatre, Vocal Art, and Dance) in the organization of the Arezzo Festival (Festival Internazionale di Teatro Universitario). He is also one of the organizers of the “ItalyContactFest” (www.italycontactfest.com), an international festival of Contact Improvisation.
SCOTT MCGEHEE
Historian, Director of the Accademia dell’Arte
CrisisArt Collective Member since 2011
WHERE ARE WE GOING? The Nature of the Current Crisis and Long Term Perspectives
Lecture and Discussion
The seeds of the current crisis were planted long ago. These seeds grew into a system that actually depends on the appearance of crises as the condition for the rampant growth necessary for the very survival of the system. The crisis is not an accident of nature, nor the result of miscalculation or even greed. It is the outcome of the law-like imperative towards infinite expansion. Understanding the nature of this imperative is an essential task if we are to posit alternatives.
ABOUT SCOTT
Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, he moved to Italy as a Fulbright Fellow in 1995 and has lived in Italy since. Scott received his Doctorate in European Intellectual History from Boston College in 1996, and is the President and Founding Director of Accademia dell’Arte.
LONDON MET
A FLOATING CARAVAN UNDER THE MOON – Performance
A devised and site-responsive piece that investigates the meaning of ‘home’. How do we define home? When do we feel at home? What does it mean to have roots? And what does it mean to live like a ‘rootless’ outsider? Why do some people never feel at home…no matter where they are? Devised by London Metropolitan University students under the direction of Lecturer, Director and PhD researcher Chiara D’Anna.
MAP OF THE WORLD – Workshop
Led by Lucy Richardson and Fabio Santos
Drawing on their work over 20 years with Project Phakama – an arts organization which makes participatory performance work with groups and individuals from all over the world – Fabio and Lucy invite you to re-make the world for the future. The workshop will explore, practically, one of the exercises featured in the forthcoming book Project Phakama: Making Participatory Performance to illustrate Phakama’s way of working with diverse participants.
INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION
Lucy Richardson will talk about her work with Project Phakama and her participant centred approach to making theatre and teaching.
LEONIDES MARTIN
ART AND ACTIVISM – Workshop
Fiction and social activism have a lot in common. A novel, film, or play transform reality by intervening on the level of human values and beliefs. So does an activist’s action. To do so, they use every means available to them: body, words, images. In this workshop we will analyse some of the strategies and processes used to produce fiction: scriptwriting and acting technique, narrative voices and genres, storytelling, creating characters, and we will explore their potential uses in social activism.
ABOUT LEONIDAS
Leónidas Martin is a professor at Barcelona University, teaching new media and political art. For many years he has been developing collective projects between art and activism, many of them well-known internationally. He also writes about art and politics for cultural blogs, journals and newspapers. As a video maker he has created several documentaries and movies for television and internet. As a co-founder of three art and activist collectives, Las Agencias (2001-2003), Yomango (2003-2007) and Enmedio (2007-current), he has designed and coproduced a number of Artivist and guerrilla-communication projects including New Kids on The Black Block, Pret-a-Revolter and Yomango among others.
RAUL ALVAREZ
LAND AWAKENING: Exploring Our Relationship with the Land
Screening and Discussion
Volunteering at organic farms in the Mediterranean, director Raúl Álvarez embarks on a filming odyssey to learn about organic and alternative agriculture, creating an inspiring film about the generosity of the Land, and about his own life transformation. During his journey unique characters question paradigms like ‘Agriculture’, ‘tilling the soil’, ‘Supermarkets’ and even the term ‘weeds’ gets under inquiry. The film offers a view of the irreversible damage of the use of chemical agriculture, showcasing alternative and sustainable realities in organic agriculture, permaculture and Fukuoka’s Natural Farming. The experience resolves into a spiritual reflection of our deep and sacred relationship with the Land.
CLAIRE SEATON
THE MAGIC OF COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY – Lecture and Workshop
To me, art, activism and community have always gone hand-in-hand. Thus, at the beginning of the festival, I will give a brief presentation on the ways stories can be used for social change. I’ll then ask the rest of the festival-goers to take time to reflect and respond on paper, which I will collect over the course of the festival. Then, inspired by those responses, I will write and perform a spoken-word poem on the magic of collective creation.
TATJANA MACIC
PERFORMING CRISIS – Lecture/Performance
Tatjana addressees questions such as: What is crisis and how do contemporary modes of artistic production responds to it? If one interprets the phenomenon of ‘crisis’ as a “machine” in a Delusian sense – what can we observe and do about it? In addition, this lecture-performance itself is an experiment in merging academic, educational, philosophical and artistic research.
INTERVENTIONS IN SOCIAL CONSCIENCE: Urgent Matters/Strettam Tnegru – Workshop
Inspired by Guy Debord’s radical Situationists International movement. Dealing with artistic urgency, experimentation and research, and by shaping a dialogue between theory and practice, discourses and agencies, while testing the framework of public talks and exhibition making, Urgent Matters / Srettam Tnegru questions conditions and forms for artistic practice, research and critical thinking. In this workshop participants will explore the possibilities of doing temporary interventions, performances and social rituals in public space, using thereby the festival as the space for such interventions.
ABOUT TATJANA
Tatjana Macic is an interdisciplinary research-oriented visual artist, writer and theoretician based in Amsterdam. She is a founder of Urgent Matters / Srettam Tnegru, an initiative for art, research, dialogue and exchange, and a teacher of Artistic Research at the Royal Academy in The Hague.
JESS GREENBERG
LOW BUDGET/HIGH IMPACT DESIGN SOLUTIONS FOR ARTISTS & ACTIVISTS: Sound and Projection Software
Workshop
Three short crash courses in powerful (and free!) software to help you execute sound and projection designs in your work. Attend just one class or all three. We will cover skills in sound editing, sound cue layering and execution, image editing, projection surface mapping and masking. Audacity Audio Editing (PC or Mac), Qlab Audio (Mac only), and Qlab Projection (Mac only). Please bring your laptop.
ABOUT JESS
Jess Greenberg is a theatre designer and professor currently living in Ogden, Utah, USA. Her work has taken her to many venues in New York and around the US, with diverse projects in theatre, dance, and opera, as well as site specific and devised pieces. Jess currently teaches lighting, sound and projection design at Weber State University. www.jessicagreenberg.com.
