Ibrahim Quraishi
Body Sexuality / Physical Extremes

Sexuality_Self Censorship_Extremities We all have a general understanding of sexual norms and their relationship to how we see bodies on and off stage, while we attempt to play with our own understanding of performative sexuality and what we define as extremes. This Coaching Project will investigate how often in contemporary reality we subconsciously engage within "pornography", but seem to be afraid to directly address it beyond the supposed moral paradigms. Included is a "historical" research on sexuality coming from both the female and male perspective on contemporary pop culture. We will create work through specific physical scenarios and explore the process of how a body is read or used as a symbol. We begin by shaving each others pubic hair (this is an old Bedouin tradition from the Arab desert that is practiced both by men and women). We are going to find the hooker, pimp and prostitute in each of us and our clients within us. We are going to extend the limits of our socio-physical spaces of what is defined intimacy and public voyeurism. We are going to consciously re-create a bank of individual physical languages that is intimate of ones clichés of performative pornography with a data bank of specific codes triggered by ones physical memory. We are going to go on the street and find "work" with cameras following each participant. We will set up a small experimental red light district in Vienna (in the confines of ImPulsTanz) where we are going to figure out what are the intrinsic differences between lets say a Ukrainian, a Polish or a Palestinian prostitute for example. We are going to set up an "illegal line" of male and female human trafficking. We will further study the "lover boy phenomena" in relations to how dark Turkish and Moroccan boys woo blond blue eye girls for example, or how effeminate East Asian boys go after older white men for money. We will be totally Politically Incorrect in how we use our bodies and how we lay out strategies for a more "enlightened consciousness," concerning the normalcy of our performative sexuality. We will use the seminal text by Xavira Hollander called the "Happy Hooker" and of course we will concentrate on our physicality of how "SEX sells" in the process of our own presence. And finally we will proactively play with dressing up in different ritualistic / religious traditions and see if and how there is a performative market out there for us. And finally with all this baggage we are going to "dance". Ibrahim Quraishi Ibrahim Quraishi belongs to a new generation of makers challenging our understanding of visual performativity and its relationship to the broader cultural perspective. As one of the recipients of the first Ö1 Prix Jardin d’Europe Prize in 2008 for his Installation "Islamic Violins" at ImPulsTanz (Vienna), Quraishi consciously examines the dynamics of "migration", dispossession and cohabitation within the highly rigid socio-political spheres of imagined communities inside the contours of the visual and performing arts context, while freely playing with the tensions between the complexity of the real and our longing for simplicity. Defined by a nomadic existence, Quraishi divides his time between New York and Amsterdam while escaping the conventional rules of engagement in researching, teaching and sometimes creating works for spaces like MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), National Museum of Singapore, The Kitchen (New York), Japan Foundation (Tokyo), Holland Festival (Amsterdam), iDANS Istanbul, Springdance (Utrecht), BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival New York), Frascati (Amsterdam), Asia Society (New York), Biennale Bonn 08 among others. On the level of research, besides working on a series of micro projects on Imposed Architecture, and ritual performances in South and Central Asia at Beacon House University Lahore and National School of Drama (New Delhi), Quraishi has participated in the Open Society Institutes Intercultural Dialogue Seminar in Duchanbe, Tajikistan addressing the relationship of civil society and cultural performativity while simultaneously working with artists from Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Kirgezia. Invited as guest speaker and lecturer at Universität der Künste Berlin, SNDO (The Dutch School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam), AHK in Amsterdam, The Berkshire Conference at Williams College Clark Arts Institute (MA), International Center for Photography (New York), Universiteit Utrecht, Vera List Center at The New School New York, Kyoto University for Art & Design, PSi Conference at Brown University (RI), Montclair College (New Jersey), MQ-Tanzquartier Wien, SEAD Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, Université de Paris 8, Université de St. Denis, C.R.O.U.S. de Paris, Gerrit Rietveld Acadamie (Amsterdam) and The Arab Dance Forum (Beirut). Quraishi is a former student of Edward W. Said at Columbia University, New York.