Below are descriptions of past participants in the festival:
CRISIS ART FESTIVAL 2017
Nike Redding and Heidee Alsdorf
Leonardo Lambruschini
Leonardo is an actor, dancer and performer.
“I am co-founder and Art Director at Space Seed – www.spazioseme.com – an international cultural and arts center in Arezzo (Tuscany). In my center I create opportunities for research, I organize and manage festivals, intensive workshops, performances , artistic productions, residences. The elaborate and lead courses for children: ContaKids, PlayContact and Contact Improvisation for adults and students of Art and University Schools. I am one of the organizers of the ItalyContactFest – www.italycontactfest.com – international festival of Contact Improvisation.
I’m Attracted from the places or contexts where different art forms meet, communicate and create something, beyond languages and differences. ”
“A path through the encounter and the confrontation, a journey with the resistance to and the acceptance of the contact, in relation to the structures and the fertile chaos of improvisation.
Through the lightness of the playing, the suggestions of the theater, we will wear the masks Allowing us to embody our characters. The emotions will suggest new possibilities for the movement and the relationship.
Without masks, hereinafter, the bodies will be free to perceive and interact.
The forms and energies emerging in the dance will be “sudden”, and not conditioned by language or cultural diversity.
We will investigate and find moments of crisis in the movement, When certainty stumbles. Which States might, at first glance, appear difficult – where we can explore the sense of disorientation – become occasions for the emergence of new opportunities, new inputs and conditions useful to the dance.
There will be time to dance, and we will use some technical elements without losing the status of a relaxed and dynamic body in the dance.
Be prepared to wait, to be lost, to leave, to start something new. The workshop is open to all levels of experience with CI and will end with a performance, leaving space for improvisation and maintaining focus on the material proposed during the workshop. ”
Nhandan Chirco
Nhandan Chirco is a performer, choreographer and activist. Her work Has Been Numerous presented at festivals and institutions Throughout Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Germany, France and Austria. From ’94 to ’98 she was part of the artistic team at the Workcenter of Jerry Grotowski and Thomas Richards; afterwards she Collaborated with directors Branko Popovic, Tomi Janezic and Zlatko Sviben. She worked as a performer and pedagogue with the choreographer Maja Delak, with contemporary dance company EN-KNAP in Ljubljana and in artistic creations Collaborated with different choreographers.
Scott McGehee
Scott McGehee is a historian and founding director of the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo. He is a life-long activist Whose research interests and reach across Marxist theory, the arts and radical social movements.
Nikolai Jeffs
How do we get from there to here?
This lecture examines how, in times of crisis, we can rethink the possibilities for decisive historical change and the forms of (self)organization that can aid this. With regard to the first, we can say that we frequently defer embarking on change because, supposedly, “the conditions are not ripe”. But this view is rarely a reflection of the actual conditions on the ground as it were, but more a misunderstanding of them. As for organization, then many discussions of them oscillate between the micro and macro levels of change. This can then be expressed as a dilemma between “it is we who have to change first” or “revolution being the only solution”, a dilemma that can unfavourably divide many alterglobalization formations. There is, however, a field, a domain, a territory so to speak in between these two poles and that concerns how relations within a given formation are conducted. This lecture will draw attention to them and how they may enable a more productive overcoming of crisis.
Tatjana Macic
Tatjana Macic is an interdisciplinary visual artist, writer, researcher and Theoretician based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She Studied art at the Academy of Art and Design AKI in Enschede, and got her Master’s degree from the University of Amsterdam, where she wrote a thesis about curating, politics and innovation in turbulent times. She is deploying her artistic practice as an agency for critical thinking and to blur boundaries between visual art, theory, curating and written and spoken language.
Tatjana Macic teaches Artistic Research at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague, where she developed an interdisciplinary studies curriculum Which brings together visual and performing arts, theory and philosophy. She is a chair of the jury of the annual Thesis Award of the Royal Academy. In addition, she actively Engages in the fields of Arts and Culture as an adviser, lecturer, board member, creative thinker and speaker. Some examples of such engagement are: advisor for the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK), advisor of the mayor of Amsterdam as a member of the Commission for Art spaces (CAWA) and an independent researcher for Platform BK.
She is a founder of Urgent Matters / Srettam Tnegru, an initiative for art, research, dialogue and exchange. Dealing with artistic urgency, experimentation and research, and by shaping a dialogue between theory and practice, discourses and agencies, whilst testing the framework of public talks and exhibition making, Urgent Matters / Srettam Tnegru questions conditions and forms for artistic practice, research and critical thinking.
Alex Schneps
The Wallis Youth Theatre Company’s mission is to cross boundaries, and with an ethos of collaboration create thoughtful and provocative work that is rooted is our humanity. The youth company is comprised of young actors aged 17-23. Drawn from across Los Angeles these artists come from diverse backgrounds and experiences, but are connected by their passion for theatre and the arts. The Company aims to provide a place for young actors to work as an ensemble, learn cutting edge creative practices, develop innovative and socially conscious work, and be engaged with the local community.
Word of Mouth, directed by Madeleine Dahm, was developed in collaboration with the actors over a three month period, through collective research and improvisation. A devised physical theatre piece, is an experimental work that was born out of our reactions to recent political and social events across the world, and our desire to question the normalization of verbal violence.
LA FAME by Anna Rasero and Magda Tontini
Anna Rasero and Magda Pohl-Tontini studied together physical theatre for four years at Atelier Teatro Fisico Philip Radice. They have been working on this project since october.
They describe their project as: “two eccentric and grotesque characters at the edge of the absurd, locked in a room, a sort of no place, symbolizing the condition of the human being in today’s society. They undertake a metaphorical journey through the element of food, which wants to highlight the fragility and the difficulties of the “victims” of the consumer market. A show that wants to explore the problem of living in a society of “having” unless then a society of “being”.”
Their show, as written in the previous point, wants to explore the fragile human condition in the capitalistic society. Alienation, loneliness, sense of inadequacy are the symptoms of a huge human crisis.
Performance: Through a series of interviews, research, and personal reflection, “R & J” was created as a means of exploring the topic of immigration through different points of view, regardless of time, location, or ethnicity. As a result, the theme of identity continued to surface.
Workshop: In our workshop, we would like to explore the process of taking a personal story and putting it on stage in a way that remains personal but Can Also be universal enough to reach the audience. This will be a practical workshop of writing and physical exercises on Devising from a personal place. In the creation of this piece, we Confronted the idea of identity and Wondered how this tied to immigration. We Realized That our identity is based on the repute we are children of immigration and Represent the next step in the process. It is easy to think of immigration as something That happened to our ancestors, However it is still a very relevant topic today and we must be mindful of how we think about immigration today, not only in terms of others but Also ourselves.
Aubrey Clinedinst
Discovering Me, Discovering You
This workshop will focus on connecting the physical bodies in the space. It will begin with self-exploration of possible, and maybe previously thought impossible, movements. Then will move to an exploration of the movement and physicality of others, which in turn should help deepen the self-exploration while simultaneously allowing participants to connect with and appreciate the others in the group. Some exercises or physical themes explored will include extended eye contact, hand shaking, hugging, massage, clown exercises, and physical impro. Though staying mainly in the realm of pre-expressive theatre techniques, these exercises will help participants develop a better sense of self, others, and ensemble, to help build strong art and performances in the future.
We are facing a global crisis of borders. Though labels are important to establish one’s identity, these labels are being super enforced by ourselves and others, turning into walls keeping people apart. This impedes the sharing of ideas across diverse “labels” which keeps us open and aware of not only the people around us, but ourselves and who we are in relation to the world. Our current borders create “echo chambers” where we only hear what we want, or what others in power want us to believe echoed back to us because we or those in power wall us in only with people who are like us. It is difficult to be challenged, but with my work I am hoping to reach out to others I may not normally and help others by giving them the tools to do the same, so we can start to break down the walls and set up a network of human connections in their place.
She studied at the Istituto d’Arte in Arezzo, and afterwards got her degree at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Firenze. At the same time she also studied theater and dance, specializing in modern and jazz techniques as well as improvisation. She studied Contact Improvisation with various international artists and teachers.
Sofia Sguerri’s artistic output encompasses a vast range of artistic languages including photography, video, sound, performance art, installations, painting and movement. She is dedicated to exploring and teaching visual arts as well as movement and stage arts like improvisation, contact improvisation and physical theatre, creating workshops that experiment with these types of physical interaction.
Her works originate from a profound attention for the individual and his everyday life, and from the body in relation to the space and the light. The relation between personal memories and moods – that transform and evolve in time – is the necessary impulse to address themes such as identity, contradiction, critique and responsibility.
Starting from an introspective research that puts itself in relation with time, places and people, her works appear as investigations for herself and for the spectator, with the intent of making the public increasingly engaged with – and part of – the work of art itself, creating a shared experience as authentic as possible.In 2015 together with Sandra Gomez (Colombia) she founded Colectivo Frenesia, a collective for scenic creation, she also collaborated with CARPA (collective for participation art – Mexico) and Studio MAPA in Nederland.
Vincenzo Brucculeri recycles and assembles materials such as wood, plastic, iron, toy parts and everything around. He gives a second life to these forgotten objects giving them new forms and soul.
With our art we give emotions and moments of deep reflection with a bit of irony. Two separate paths with different experiences create a vision on several floors where the colors, the image that was skinned and have a moment to think and a time to smile.
To the people who will come here, we would like to give a moment of reflection with oneself, accompanied by our works in an artistic path dreamy but current.
We live this moment as a moment of pure pleasure in sharing, to know new artists, breathe creative energy.
The Arrival
Anger Rooms
experience in several theatre and film productions. She graduated from two
“Acting for the Stage” courses and “Pygmalion Film School” from Bucharest. She
has toured plays in Romanian theatre festivals. Her genuine passion for the arts
motivated her to become part of the industry from a young age and to pursue it
into a future career. She is a recent graduate from Sir John CASS, BA Theatre and performance Practice.
collaborate and facilitate in this workshop.
These are all questions we will find answers to in our workshop with the help of each participant. The first part will be discussion-based in a type of 2 minutes ‘speed-dating’ system in which all the participants will talk about the stress they encounter with in their daily lives. The second part will be more physical as we would have a short warm-up session followed by imagining that we are all smashing objects in order to relieve the stress and ‘shake it out’ in a safe environment. The last part would be finding solutions for stress management whilst working in an arts world, a production or simply professional relationships development.
Nicole Nigro
Nicole Nigro is a dance-theatre artist. She began her dance training in Edmonton, Alberta, and has since graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, obtained an Honours BFA from York University, and a Diploma in Dance Teaching Studies with The Royal Academy of Dance in London, England. She has had the privilege of dancing as a guest artist with Anandam Dancetheatre, The Danny Grossman Dance Company, Dance Theatre David Earle, Event Horizon Dance, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Toronto Dance Theatre, and several independent choreographers. Her work has been presented in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Mexico. She was a longtime faculty member at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre (CCDT), as well as the Artistic Director of CCDT’s Core Apprentice Company. She has been a residency artist at Ponderosa Movement & Discovery in Stolzenhagen, Germany; Artscape in Toronto, Canada; Earthdance in Plainsfield, Massachusetts; and La Macina di San Cresci in Chianti, Italy. In June of 2016, Nigro relocated to Europe to pursue an MFA in Physical Theatre at Accademia dell’Arte.
Performance:
“Ford Advantage explores minivans, privilege, and the intersection of joy and grief. I have been given many gifts, most recently the gift of grief. I’ve been able to study it up close, its movements, its desperation, its disarmament. How it makes feet shuffle, chins drop, heads shake. How it holds breath, and stops time, stops light. How it covers us in fog and leads hands to hands, heads to shoulders. How it steals sleep. How we learn to breathe again, an unconscious breath, and find comfort in places we hoped would remain unfamiliar. How we laugh, when there should be no laughter. How everything tightens, and upon release, there is guilt. How the world sways from side to side and we follow, without question. How we do, we just do, through blurry eyes… And how we still find love.”
Workshop:
“Finding Joy is a workshop that uses improvisation and play as a medium to experience lightness and joy. We will explore the need to find moments of joy, however brief, in times of crisis. Can we laugh when there should be no laughter? Is allowing joy into challenging times an act of self-preservation? Can it better recharge us to continue? We will use open discourse, movement, and improvised games to source joy form our bodies. The workshop will aim to find, and allow, joy to exist in moments when joy and laughter may not be readily accessible. It will be my first time exploring this idea in a workshop setting! Aghhhhhhh!”
Segni Concreti
Segni Concreti is an association based in Arezzo, including people of different cultures and nationalities. We are a group of creative people committed to social innovation. We share the will to help and to improve our society. We believe in social changes through concrete action.
We are screening a short documentary titled “Sogni Concreti” that has been realized for the World Refugee Day (observed June 20th).
Karolina Žernytė and Aistė Jančiūte
Theatre of Senses: Inner Vision
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.
