The costs for this Field Project are to be paid by "pay what it's worth"-principle through the Workshop Office, once the participation has been confirmed.
This Field Project is a collective process of critique as care and disruption of systems of oppression to re-imagine and re-define conceptual boundaries, relationships, communities, cultural representations and power structures of bodies and pleasures.
We will enliven and embody an open and accessible space with our approaches to Pleasure-Activism (coined by adrienne maree brown) and Intersectionality (coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw) where we will have a focus on the lived experiences of Disability.
This is an invitation for queer, crip, disabled, non-disabled folks, movers, dancers, feminists, activists and allies to join our field project Oh, pleasure!.
Our starting point for this Field Project is the research we, Tanja Erhart and Katharina Senk, have already done for our new piece called j_e_n_g_a, which we are going to premiere in Vienna beginning of 2022. In the performance we explore the topic of disability through our moved and moving bodies, our feminist gaze and the application of the aesthetics of access.
In the performance we physically investigate the space in_between, which both of us understand as space to queer disability, to queer animacy and to create new body-subjectivities with the crutches by sucking, licking, touching, pushing, pulling, swinging, indulging into the hard matter of the cold metal. In j_e_n_g_a, the crutches are not only visible as assistive-tools but become social connectors, sensual interfaces and animated dance-partners creating pleasure and pressure. We challenge current modes of collaborations between disabled and non-disabled artists and investigate disability as something which, following the approach of Alison Kafer, not simply is but happens in relation. Because of the different ways we are relating to the crutches or the crutches are relating to us and the audience, we offer new ways of loo- king at and thinking about disability. Specifically, for this field project, we want to research and develop the aesthetics of access through accessing different senses – hearing, seeing, touching, smelling and tasting. We are going to dive into ways of audio describing movements and ourselves in relation with an object/tool, into activating smell- and taste-buds and into the matter of the crutch’s inherent sounds by attaching contact-microphones, which will not only give sound to the interior functionality of the crutch itself, but also make audible every matter the crutch touches. As we are aware, that not all of you joining us in the field project are using crutches as assistive tools, we will bring other objects and tools for you to work with or you can bring your desired object with you.
Together we will explore the following:
♥ How does an assistive tool e.g. crutch move me rather than how can I move the crutch
♥ How can we elaborate access as an aesthetic aka aesthetics of access?
♥ How can we perform disability and confront ableism in dance
♥ How can physical sensations of pressure turn into pleasure activism and create space for sensual & social liberation in which we change our ways of caring about ourselves and each other?
