Podiumsdiskussion | Negotiating Choreography between Knowledge Transmission and Colonization
Performance Lecture by Choy Ka Fai followed by talk with Choy Ka Fai and dance scholar Prof. Dr. André Lepecki (NYU), moderated by Prof. Dr. Kirsten Maar and Yon Natalie Mik
In Ten Notes for Choy Ka Fai’s Prospectus for a Future Body (2011), performance scholar André Lepecki describes choreography as a “design and execution of predetermined movements.” Cross-border experiences of learning and translating history, tradition, culture and knowledge are facilitated through digitality and telepresence in Choy Ka Fai's work. A performance lecture by the artist followed by a dialogue with André Lepecki will address the relation between choreographic violence and a dancer’s agency. What kind of conditions impact the form of knowledge transmission and how can choreography negotiate the thin line between a colonizing violence and an emancipatory queering of different bodies? What is the generative potential of deviations, disturbances, and fractures that arise during the process of knowledge transmission?
Choy Ka Fai is a Berlin-based Singaporean artist. His multidisciplinary art practice situates itself at the intersection of dance, media art and performance. Through research expeditions, pseudo-scientific experiments and documentary performances, Ka Fai appropriates technologies and narratives to imagine new futures of the human body. In 2019, Ka Fai started working on the CosmicWander series exploring shamanic dance culture in Asia. CosmicWander produced a collection of performances, exhibitions and VR works. It premiered in 2021 with a solo exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum, followed by a VR experience “Blue Sky Academy” at tanzhaus nrw Duesseldorf. In Berlin, the performances of “Postcolonial Spirits” premiered at Tanz Im August Festival in 2021 and “Yishun Is Burning” was presented at Tanzplattform Deutschland in 2022. Ka Fai’s projects have been presented in major institutions worldwide, including Sadler’s Wells (London), ImPulsTanz Festival (Vienna) and Kyoto Experiment (Japan). He was the resident artist at tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf (2017–2019) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2014-15). Ka Fai graduated with a M.A. in Design Interaction from the Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom.
Zeit & Ort
10.05.2023 | 19:00 - 21:00
Uferstudios (Studio 14), Badstr. 41a / Uferstr. 23, 13357 Berlin