Engage, Exchange, Reflect

Festival Visit & Conversations

Wednesday, 13.11. – Tuesday, 19.11.24

Nadja Dias with Luke Pell

For: Channel 4, BA 1, BA 2, BA 3, MA SODA, maC

Evening performances, talks & conversation formats

Within the frame of the No Limits Festival, Claire Cunningham's Dramaturge Luke Pell and Executive Producer Nadja Dias invite students to attend 3 performances and group talks. Via a series of performance visits and conversation formats we will create space to engage, exchange and reflect upon the artistic works we experience with one another. We will attend Claire’s new solo Songs of the Wayfarer (WT) alongside two - three further productions and invite makers and creative collaborators to join our conversation sessions.  As a group we will enter into a compassionately critical questioning of artistic practices and access considerations in response to the various performances. In particular, we will consider the ways in which differing lived experiences, artistic perspectives and practical access considerations can shape and inform an aesthetics of access in productions and in one’s practice more broadly. Together we will go on to discuss other pertinent questions arising and how we might approach the practical implementation of access in our own work. Our exchange sessions and performance visits are planned taking into account principles of crip time and refer to our questions on what is a choreography of care.

Timings:

Performances:

• Thursday, 14.11.24 20:30

ÔSS (Marlene Monteiro Freitas / Dançando com a Diferença (PT))

• Friday 15.11.24, 19:00

or Saturday 16.11.24 17:00

Songs of the Wayfarer (Claire Cunningham)

• Sunday 17.11.24 20:00

undressed (tanzbar_bremen (D))

• Monday 18.11.24 20:30

Harmonia (Unusual Symptoms / Theater Bremen / Adrienn Hód – Hodworks (D)

Exchange Sessions

Session 1: Friday 15.11.24 Session 2: Monday 18.11.24 Session 3: Tuesday 19.11.24 16:00 – 17:30

16:00 – 18:30

10:00 – 12:30

PODCAST SERIES: Crip | Choreo | Care

Online

Dates/times: tbc

Guest Artists with Claire Cunningham, Nadja Dias, Angela Alves or Luke Pell

For: Channel 4

As part of Claire Cunningham’s artistic research as Einstein Profil Professor of Dance, Choreography and Disability Arts at HZT 2023-2028, Claire and team are developing a new series of podcasts entitled Crip | Choreo | Care. Across the series Claire and associates - Nadja Dias, Angela Alves and Luke Pell - will be in conversation with a range of guest artists and allies about their research and practice. Together they will explore topics that include: anti-ableist approaches in the arts; crip technique; the aesthetics of access; what it is to lead through practice – disrupting normative models of leadership; spoony spaces that actively encourage practices of rest and stop in relationship to disability justice; what it is to cultivate crip/ped conditions in dance production and dramaturgy, as well as considering our ethical and social responsibilities to audiences. They will also be introducing their forthcoming symposia Bodies of Knowledge: Choreographies of Care which takes place during the professorship along with the artists, thinkers and practitioners contributing. This podcast series recognises the importance of alternative formats for learning, particularly for disabled and neurodivergent learners and those living with long-term illness and chronic-health conditions. The team are committed to offering a range of digital and in presence formats throughout the professorship that allow people to engage with this project and their teaching both in person and remotely, in relationship to their access needs and as they may need.

Artistic Research weeks: Crip | Choreo | Care -

In conversation & open studio sharing sessions

Guest Artists with either Claire Cunningham, Nadja Dias, Angela Alves or Luke

Pell

For: Channel 4

As part of Claire Cunningham’s artistic research as Einstein Profil Professor of Dance, Choreography and Disability Arts at HZT 2023-2028, the team are supporting a series of artistic research weeks from disabled, neurodivergent and crip identifying artists, those living with chronic illness and long-term health conditions and allies. Research weeks taking place in 2024/2025 will happen in the Winter Semester, with some of the invited artists opening their studio for sharing and in conversation sessions with either Claire Cunningham, Angela Alves, Nadja Dias or Luke Pell.

Producing, Access & Artistic Development: One to One Mentoring Sessions.

Online

Wednesdays: 16.10. – 12.02.2025 14:30-18:00

(90 min session, by individual appointment)

Nadja Dias with Luke Pell

For: BA 1, BA 2, BA 3, MA SODA, maC

Students are invited to register for these drop-in sessions to discuss, plan and produce their final showings, productions and/or other projects they are currently working on. In these sessions students can start planning ahead of their next semester projects or receive input and support in planning, communication and access provision as part of their projects and productions -considered in relationship to their developing practice; as well as drawing up timelines, tools for mapping practice recurring thematic concerns, production plans, budgets and access riders. Students should have an artistic idea/ proposal or project they like to develop into a production.

Creating and managing your own Access Rider: One to One Mentoring Sessions

Uferstudios, Studio 10

Wednesdays: 16.10.24, 23.10.24, 22.01.25, 29.01.25 14:00 – 16:00

Angela Alves

For: Channel 4

Students are invited to register for these drop-in sessions to get familiar with the concept of Access Riders. The sessions are about upskilling disabled and/or chronically ill artists and arts professionals about what an Access Rider is, how to write it, what language to use and how to use it when collaborating with colleagues and institutions.

REST & PLEASURE

Friday 22.11.24 10:30-17:30

Angela Alves

For: BA 2, 3, 3+

This workshop offers a safe space for exhausted and vulnerable dancers' bodies and looks at dance through the lens of invisible disability. Our starting point is the nervous system. We practice methods of rest that sooth, rewire and strengthen our nervous systems to create a neurological habitat in which we feel safe enough to let go of stress. Each day begins with a rest practice informed by the principles of Yin Yoga followed by a short neuroplasticity exercise. After recognizing the obstacles that have been put up between our bodies and rest, the second part of the day is about using disco dance and the neuroplasticity technique "Embodiment of Passion" to access all the pleasure that lives in our bodies.

Angela Alves’ artistic practice is informed by the nature of her life as a sick woman. Based on her interest in the neurobiological body in its biotope, she develops artworks that question society's perception of "healthy" and "sick" and attempt to redefine the concept of the norm by promoting perspectives that arise from the disability experience.

Wayfarers

Uferstudios, Studio tbc

14.01.25 – 17.01.25 14:00-17:30

Prof. Claire Cunningham

For: BA 3/3+

Drawing on research into wayfaring and journeying, these days will look at the acts of stravaiging (a Scots word meaning to stroll or wander), walking* and navigating. Prof. Claire Cunningham will share material and movement scores from her recent performance work, bringing influences and philosophies from Crip and disabled lived experience and invite students to share and consider their own ways of moving through the world. Together we’ll move between different modes of conversation, journeying and companionship to think in relationship to our own experiences of time, energy and attention, asking questions such as ‘what does walking* mean for me?’

* We recognise & challenge the assumed bipedalism of the term walking. These sessions welcome people who have diverse physicalities, sensory modalities, use mobility tech and/or are neurodivergent.

Everyone is encouraged to engage as they need, in relationship to their levels of energy, pace and scale when moving, reading, speaking, etc. Everyone is free to rest as required; to come and go as they need and to choose the distances they travel. This session will be led in English (and Scottish) but participants may engage in the tasks in the language they feel most comfortable using. Outside activity proposals will be weather dependent.

Producing, Access & Artistic Development

Uferstudios, Studio 10 (A room with tables, mattresses, chairs, bean bags as this will

be a theoretical seminar with a lot of talking/ writing)

Tuesday 28.01.- Friday 31.01.25 14:30-17:30

Nadja Dias

For: BA 3, BA3+

Drawing on 20 years of practical experience in producing for companies and artists such as Candoco Dance Company, Sadler’s Wells and Claire Cunningham independent producer and consultant Nadja Dias will introduce students to concepts of producing performance works, how to develop a production, consider access as part of your artistic process and drawing on the concept of a ‘choreography of care’ that informs how we work together. Looking at production examples students will be introduced to planning tools and concepts to support project planning, financing and feasibility. A specific focus will be placed on access and inclusive working methods with students being encouraged to develop projects that consider aesthetics of access, access for audiences and accessible working methods.

Listen and lunch

Online

Friday, 31.01. & 14.02.25 Prof. Claire Cunningham & Guests

For: BA1, BA2, BA3, MA SODA, maC

12:45 – 13:45 (14:15)

Join this online webinar to listen over lunch to Claire Cunningham in conversation with disabled peers and allies, discuss questions arising through artistic process. Stay on if you have time to join the discussion, share reflections or ask questions. 

These events recognise the importance of alternative formats for learning, particularly for disabled and neurodivergent learners and those living with long-term illness and chronic-health conditions. The team are committed to offering a range of digital and in presence formats throughout the professorship that allow people to engage with this project and their teaching both in person and remotely, in relationship to their access needs and as they may need.

Mentoring

Online

Monday, 03.03. & 17.02.2025 (90 min session, by individual appointment)

Prof. Claire Cunningham

For: BA 1, BA 2, BA 3, MA SODA, maC

Students are invited to register for these drop-in sessions to reflect on questions or concerns around – artistic practice and process, development, creative access and care.

NETWORK NEURODIVERSITY / NETZWERK NEURODIVERSITÄT

Uferstudios, Studio 10

Mondays:

14.10., 28.10., 01.12., 16.12., 13.01., 27.01., 03.02., 10.02. Angela Alves

For: Studium Generale

16:00 – 19:00

Are you wondering

… how you, as a neurodivergent person, can navigate the academic universe of an art school?

… how you might deal with neurotypical ideas of a "good student", e.g. in terms of time management, work flow, deadlines and schedules?

… or how you can free yourself from internalised neurotypical narratives that prevent you from taking your own artistic space?

Let’s come together and find out how we can support each other! This seminar provides a safer space for neurodivergent students and staff to socialise, read and share life realities. We want to meet to talk and be silent with each other, share some simple somatic practice to release stress, and learn about neurodivergent life, artists and theories.

Performances (Berlin)

Songs of the Wayfarer

Thursday, 14.11.24 19:00

Friday, 15.11.24 19:00

Saturday, 16.11.24 17:00

Location: Hebbel am Ufer, HAU 2

Inspired, in part, by Gustav Mahler's “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” led by her lived-experience as a disabled person, her memory of training as a classical singer and knowledge drawn from mountaineers and disabled peers, Claire Cunningham sets out to make a show where she traverses known and unfamiliar landscapes. In this new solo Cunningham asks what it is to wander? To seek to scale great heights? What can be learned from those of us who reach for the ground through crutches as 4-legged creatures, the choreography of crip* navigation and the maps we would re-draw? Of scale and time and energy? What it means to keep going and, importantly, the wisdom to know when to turn back. Join this internationally renowned disabled leader and choreographer for an evening- length work, where she comes to understand her own journeying as a love song - to the ground, to her disabled peers and the innate wisdom of crip* expertise and joy.

*Crip is a political and cultural identity embraced by some disabled individuals

Post show talk

Studio/Time: tbc.

Join Prof. Claire Cunningham in conversation with Luke Pell, HZT colleague and dramaturg with Cunningham for the last decade as they discuss the processes and questions underlying Cunningham’s newly premiered work Songs of the Wayfarers.

Coffee klatch

Saturday, 16.11.24 10:00 – 11:30

Room: tbc

Prof. Claire Cunningham

For: tbc

Come talk with Claire and other attendees, about her new work Songs of the Wayfarer and the themes within it over coffee/tea/juice etc…maybe even some cake.

Songs of a Wayfarer

Research, Development, Creation & Touring

07.10. – 02.11.2024 - Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main

03.11. – 05.11.2024 - Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main (Premiere)

14.11. – 16.11.2024 - HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU 2), Berlin

20.11. – 21.11.2024 - NEXT Festival, Kortrijk, Belgium

04.12. – 06.12.2024 - Sadler´s Wells, London, United Kingdom

Prof. Claire Cunningham

Guests: Anna Booth, Chris Copland, Michelle Ettlin, Sven Hagolan, Matthias Herrmann, Emma Jones, Gregor Knüppel, Daniel Watson, Julia Watts-Belser, Bethany Wells & NN

Artistic Research: Revisiting Rest and Resters

Uferstudios, Studio tba

Monday, 2.12. – Saturday, 8.12.

Angela Alves with Ania Nowak and Silke Hofmann

For: tbc

For this research, Angela Alves takes time to revisit, digest and reflect on her artistic practice. She therefore brings her bed into the studio to look at the topic of resting in bed from a chronically ill and horizontal perspective together with the protagonists of the work ‘Rest’ from 2019. What has changed for them in the last 5 years? How do they experience themselves today as ‘resters’ in social and cultural spaces? Did our conversations have an impact on their view of resting and of themselves? How can we recognise the relevance of their stories from that time to the present?