Choreographer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili is seeking Berlin-based dancers, performers, musicians, and activists to participate in her forthcoming project to be presented on the occasion of the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (June 9 – September 9, 2018).

Based in New York, USA, Okwui Okpokwasili produces multidisciplinary performances that interrogate personal and public memory, politics, the body, and place. For the 10th Berlin Biennale, she plans to create a score for a collective song of grievance inspired by a practice in South East Nigeria, that will be performed by herself and a small group of performers. Through a reenactment of rituals of grievance, this project intends to create and implement a structure for a sonic and movement score that can serve as a collective balm and generative field. A space where argument is amplified, concerns are shared, and voices are heard and affirmed by a spontaneous, collective reiteration. The collective song will be initiated as a ritual of remembering and reconstitution. The score will be permanently displayed within an installation space so that all biennial visitors can participate in this shared practice.

Okpokwasili seeks performers who closely identify with the concerns of the project. She will hold a performance workshop in Berlin in mid February 2018 in order to build a core group of performers who will participate in the project. The sonic and movement score/map for the collective song of grievance will be intermittently performed by Okpokwasili and the selected performers within the installation space during the running time of the exhibition. The core team reenacts this ritual of grievance, animates the space, and invites groups or individual visitors to themselves participate in this shared practice.

This call is open to both professional and non-professional dancers and performers, musicians and activists – performance experience is not mandatory. Dance and music lovers of all ages who connect closely with the concerns of the project are very welcome.

Workshops will be held at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
Time slots will be 2 hours in duration; multiple slots available each day.
Performers may be asked to participate in more than one workshop, so they are asked to also be available on Saturday February 17 and Sunday February 18, 2018.

Rehearsals: Two weeks of intensive rehearsals in between the last two weeks of May and first week of June, 2018 (exact dates and hours TBD)

Performances: Exact dates and hours TBD, between June 7 and September 9, 2018

To participate: Please complete the applicationform and submit by email to okwui@berlinbiennale.de by February 4, 2018.

.

http://blog.berlinbiennale.de