Dance-solos are the smallest units of choreographic creations, but certainly deserve special attention: Usually reduced to the body they are able to reveal the wide range of physical expression and what movement can achieve. For dancers and choreographers, they are considered as ideal means for self-positioning and self-definition, offering an almost limitless space for experiments, and demand clear artistic decisions like hardly any other form. It is no coincidence that solo dance has repeatedly influenced the development of modern and contemporary dance to a great extent.

 

For the first time, the current festival edition will approach the format "solo dance" from a scientific perspective – through a symposium that aims at a professional audience, but also wants to address an interested public.

 

“Solo Dance – Focusing the Self and Beyond” will provide space for questions about the particularities of solo work, its influence on individual research and implications for choreographic creation in a broader sense. Above that, the symposium especially wants to look beyond the solitary self on stage.

It will examine the embeddedness of solo works within a larger social context and discuss the political potential of this format.  

 

 

 

Participation: The symposium will take place under appropriate hygiene conditions with audience at Kunstmuseum Bonn.

 

Admission is free, but personal registration is required. Please send an email with your name, address and telephone number to: dramaturgie(at)cocoondance.de

Registration deadline is October 20, 2020.   

 

To enable a larger group of people to participate, the event will also be available as live stream under https://www.facebook.com/CocoonDance

 

Solo Dance – Focusing the Self and Beyond

11:00   Welcome

 

Rafaële Giovanola, Choreographer and curator of the festival 

11:15   Keynote

“Solo - Singularity - Soli/darity - on the Aesthetic, Production-Immanent and Political Dimensions of Solo Dance“

Prof. Dr. Yvonne Hardt (Professor for Dance Studies and Choreography)

11:45   Lecture

“Solo Dance and Collective Care: Potentials of the Solo to Create Social Connections”

Prof. Dr. Sevi Bayraktar (Professor for Dance, Performance and Music in a Global Context)

12:10   Panel Discussion

“Why Going Solo? On Reasons and Impacts of Solo Dance from Artistic and Social Perspectives.”

With: Sevi Bayraktar (Professor for Dance, Performance and Music in a Global Context), Radhouane El Meddeb (Dancer and Choreographer), Thiago Granato (Dancer and Choreographer), Melanie Suchy (Dance Journalist)

Moderation: Yvonne Hardt (Professor for Dance Studies and Choreography)

14:00   Lecture

“Choreoversations  - How to Deal With the Presence of Those Who Are Not Among Us?“

 Thiago Granato (Dancer and Choreographer)

 

Speakers

 

Yvonne Hardt, Prof. Dr.

 

Yvonne Hardt has been Professor of Dance Studies and Choreography at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln since 2009. Previously she worked at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Freie Universität Berlin. As a choreographer and dancer, she has created numerous productions and increasingly combined her artistic and scientific work. Her current research interests include the methodological development of dance studies, notably historiographical methods at the interface of theory and practice as well as dance techniques and dimensions of cultural education in the field of contemporary dance. 

 

Sevi Bayraktar, Prof. Dr.

 

Sevi Bayraktar is Professor of Dance, Music, and Performance in global Contexts and currently teaching at the University for Music and Dance Cologne. She earned a Ph.D. in Culture and Performance from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her recent writings appeared in the journals of Dance, Movement & Spiritualities and Performance Philosophy. By merging ethnographic and choreographic methods of research and analysis, her scholarship explores intersections between dance, politics, critical theories of race, gender/sexuality, postcolonialism, and Middle East studies. Her current book project examines modern history of folk dance, heritagization, and social movements in Turkey.

  

Marija Baranauskaité

 

After graduating from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater as dancer and actress, Marija Baranauskaité studied clownery at international clown school École Philippe Gaulier in France. Since 2013, she has been working as a professional performer and artist. She is an actor at Raudonos Nosys GYDYTOJAI KLOUNAI (Red Noses, Clowndoctors) and also the organisation’s artistic director (2018-2020).

Marija continuously improves her skills by training with various masters of stage arts like Eric Davis (Red Bastard), Aitor Basauri, Lassaad Saidi, Philip Burgers, Vladimir Olshansky, Ami Hattab, Carlo Jacucci, Lorenz Wenda, Roberto Magro, Gary Edwards, David Zombrano, Claudio Stellato and many others.

 

Thiago Granato

 

Thiago Granato is a Brazilian dance artist engaged in creating choreographies with the potential of developing different ways to approach movement. His productions are the results of processes that insist on promoting experiences of political transformation through aesthetic innovation. Those works have been shown in South America, Europe, Middle East and Asia.

He has a Master’s degree in Choreography, with a specialization in Performative Practices at DOCH - University of Dance and Circus (SWE) and also studied choreography in the program Ex.e.r.ce 08, coordinated by Xavier Le Roy, at Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier (FR). As a guest teacher he worked at at UNIARTS - Stockholm University of Arts (SWE) and at the Máster Program en Práctica Escénica y Cultura Visual at Museo Reina Sofia (ES).

 

Melanie Suchy

 

After having completed her degree in linguistics, Melanie Suchy studied musical theater, theater and dance criticism. She worked in institutions for the promotion of culture and education in Bonn; since 2005 she has been publishing as a freelance journalist specialized on dance in daily newspapers, magazines, on online platforms as well as in festival brochures, program booklets, etc. Since 2012 she has been teaching "Tanz aktuell" at the Folkwang University in Essen. She is a member of several juries for funding programmes and artists' prizes, and is also a member of curating teams for festivals. 

 

The symposium is held in cooperation with the Center for Contemporary Dance at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Köln and the Kunstmuseum Bonn

 

 

The 7. Internationale Bonner Tanzsolofestival is a collaborative project of Theater im Ballsaal and Brotfabrik Bühne Bonn in cooperation with the Theater Bonn, the Kunstmuseum Bonn and the Center of Contemporary Dance at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Köln // Funded by: Kunststiftung NRW, Bundesstadt Bonn, Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen im Rahmen der NRW-Mittelzentren-Förderung, NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste.