eXplore festival #14 – Bucharest International Contemporary Dance and Performance Festival
▪️ 11.10.2019 // WASP Working Art Space and Production, Bucharest
19:30 – 20:30
Veda Popovici: Corp în adversitate / Body in Adversity
Performance lecture
Body in Adversity investigates the production conditions and effects of a performance series which took place within some feminist protests from 2011 until today, like Harmless Nature (SlutWalk 2011), On March 8 We Fight (March 8 feminist, 2016) or Drill (Black Protest 2016). Initiated / created by Veda Popovici, the performances have been developed as a response to the local and international feminist movements’ needs involving dozens of activists, artists and solidary people, and proposed a collective, radical and unapologetic embodiment of a feminist perspective, anchored in the local and regional context.
Body in Adversity proposes the articulation of a methodology for this type of an activist/artistic feminist performance, intersecting critical theory, social movements study, feminist theory, performative and artistic methods, iconological and aesthetical analysis. Part of the questions Body in Adversity searches answers for is: how were non-artists involved in the production of the pieces? To what extent has the chosen aesthetics distanced or attracted the audience from the theme represented? What kind of experience did the participants have in the performances? When is it appropriate to include a performance in a protest and when not?
Veda Popovici works as a political artist, engaged theorist and local activist. Her interests permeate these fields of action focusing on decolonial and feminist practices and the material possibilities of creating the commons. Her political work develops on housing struggles and communitarian organizing as part of Macaz cooperative, the Common Front for Housing Rights and the Gazette of Political Art. After finishing her PhD on nationalism in Romanian art of the 1980s, she has taught classes on decolonial thought, nationalism and feminist theory at the National University of Arts in Bucharest and at the University of California Santa Cruz. She is based in Bucharest.
Photo credits: Grigore Popescu
A project developed within Life Long Burning – Towards A Sustainable Eco-System for Contemporary Dance in Europe, which sustains the contemporary dance and performance scene in Europe. The multiannual programme is coordinated and implemented by a network of 11 European organizations, associations, companies and production houses: 4Culture (RO), danceWEB (AT), ICI-Center Chorégraphique National De Montpellier (FR), Brain Store Project (BG), NDA Slovenia (SI), Stuk (BE), Tala Dance Center (HR), Uferstudios (DE), Veem House for Performance (NL), Workshop Foundation (HU) and MDT Stockholm (SE).
Life Long Burning – Towards A Sustainable Eco-System for Contemporary Dance is a multi-annual project co-financed by The European Union – Creative Europe Programme.
eXplore festival #14
Producers: 4Culture Association and WASP Studios
Cultural project co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund – AFCN
The project does not necessarily represent the position of AFCN.
AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or the way the project results can be used. This is entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.
Partners: Balassi Institute – The Hungarian Institute in Bucharest, Brancovenesti Palaces Cultural Center, Geological Institute of Romania – National Museum of Geology, Craiova Art Museum
Media partners: Radio Romania Cultural, Modernism, Zeppelin, ARTA Magazine, Designist, Feeder, IQads, Romania Pozitiva
