Nothing to teach, everything to learn*
Imagining a study program is always a conflict between the ideal and the possible, between a certain imposition of a way of seeing and being in the world, and the creation of conditions to originate other worlds. I was invited to plan a study program for artists whose practice relates to dance and performance. This program was not as experimental as it could have been. Above all, we have tried to reject the secular division between technical disciplines in order to emphasize the exchange of practices between artists.
Stricken by a virus that we could not imagine would get any closeby, we have experimented with new formats and models of sharing, addressing, and witnessing, in which we have put to the test the ability and relevance of making art at the least conducive moment for its development. Perhaps, because of that, this was also the most urgent moment to raise questions about what it means to be an artist today.
The program of performances that we are now sharing publicly is not necessarily the result of the last six months of collective work but a showcase of heterogeneous processes initiated by a group of artists from the European and American continents that individually or collectively have tuned in, integrated, participated, activated or diverged from this study program. Their concerns range from distinct contemporary issues and practices that unavoidably also related to the diverse geopolitical contexts from which they derive. As much as they might resemble each other, they arise from very distinct affects: the recurring questioning of the social efficiency of art, the resonance between the organic and inorganic world, human and non-human bodies, the being and the other, the exact measure of poison to administer to heal, the interaction between rural and urban modes of life, the remains of a long-lasting night or celebration, the spaces in between, and the in-between spaces mingling nudism with nothingism.
“There are still those who say they miss everything when they cannot go out; that they have nothing to do — as if there would be a difference between doing and not doing.”
(*Lourdes de Castro, Letters to Lourdes: from 4 to 5, ed. Ricardo Nicolau, 2020.)
João dos Santos Martins
Special thanks to all the guests who participated in this programme
Ana Jotta (PT), Ana Pi (BR), Ana Rita Teodoro (PT), Bojana Cvejić (RS), Christine de Smedt (BE), Christophe Wavelet (FR), Chrysa Parkinson (US/SE), Eszter Salamon (HU), Joana Sá (PT), João Fiadeiro (PT), Jürgen Bock (DE), Miguel Wandschneider (PT), Moriah Evans (US), Paula Caspão (PT), Pedro Barateiro (PT), Rita Natálio (PT), Ricardo Valentim (PT), Scarlet Yu (HK), Vera Mantero (PT), Xavier le Roy (FR).
