Women, Performative Politics and Memory
Discussion with the 2006 City of Women artists
Moderated
by: dr. Marina Gržinić
The
discussion, involving the active participation of artists introduced at the
2006 City of Women Festival,
is a continuation of the idea first realised in 2005 to allow contemporary
artists involved in performance, theatre, concerts and exhibitions to clearly
and loudly articulate their concepts, interventions and specific practices regarding
the issue of this year’s Festival.
The
issue under discussion in 2006 is how contemporary performative politics
presents, constructs and alters memory, which is nowadays becoming increasingly
more established beyond mythology, and is being transformed into the category
of the political and activistic. Memory is history – not merely the history of
contemporary dance, performance, video, film, visual art and theatre, but also
of the feminist, lesbian and queer movement, as well as the history of activism
and hard-won social, cultural and, last – but not least – political changes. In
this respect a shift in memory, activism, culture and politics in the current
global capitalist context – which could be characterised as a transition from
the politics of memory to the memory of what used to be political – is something
to be concerned about.
Marina Gržinić
PARTICIPANTS:
Dragana Alfirević (Slovenia / Serbia): a performer who in 2004 co-founded STATION / Service for Contemporary Dance
in Belgrade, which works in education, information exchange and promotion of
contemporary dance and performing arts.
Loredana Bianconi (Italy / Belgium): a director who started
producing her own films, in particular documentaries and videos, in the late
1980s.
Eva Egermann (Austria): a
Vienna-based visual artist working in a variety of media and in several
collectives and projects. She is the author and editor of the monthly magazine Malmoe, part of the feminist art
group A Room of One’s Own, and
has been active in the Manoa Free
University since 2004.
Miriam Ginestier (Canada): a performer, filmmaker,
curator and DJ. She is the Artistic Director of Studio 303 and the Edgy
Women Festival, and in 2003 was awarded a prize for her outstanding
contribution to queer culture in Montreal.
Heather Kravas (USA):
has studied a wide variety of dance forms since childhood. For the past eight
years she has been working and producing dance in New York City and has performed with – among others – DD Dorvillier,
Peter Jacobs, Jennifer Allen, Amy Cox, Yvonne Meier and Okkyung Lee.
Antonija Livingstone (Canada): an interdisciplinary
artist, a performer and a teacher who strives to activate collaborative
processes. Her practice has a background in classical ballet technique, contact
improvisation, Chinese martial arts and drag king-ing.
Magdalena
Lupi (Croatia): a dramaturg who works in Ivan Pl. Zajc – Croatian National Theatre
in Rijeka,
where she has produced more than 30 dramas. In 1998, with colleagues from the
younger generation, she founded Rijeka’s
independent TRAFIK
(Transitive-Fiction Theatre)
company, whose main purpose is experimentation in the field of movement
theatre.
Bonfire Madigan (USA):
started her music career at the
age of 16, when she formed the duo Tattle
Tale, a first generation Riot Grrrl
band from Seattle.
Madigan established her own label and formed her own ensemble, which
evolved gradually. She regularly collaborates in projects by other musicians, and
composes film music as well as scores for documentary and feature films.
Cécile Proust (France): a dancer and choreographer
who has long been interested in the issues related to gender construction.
Since 2003 she has been engaged in studying relations between feminist thought
and art, which is also the topic of her lectures delivered at the department of
dance at Paris 8 University as well as the Centre National de la Danse. The
origins of the femmeuses project date back to 2004, and pertain to an
invitation extended by Centre d'Art
Contemporain du Parc Saint-Léger.
Hanna A. W. Slak (Slovenia): a film
director. Even during her student years, she received several Slovene and
foreign awards for her short films. Her first feature film, Slepa Pega (Blind Spot, 2001), which she both wrote
and directed, was awarded at the 2002 Cottbus
Film Festival, and also received the Don
Quixote Award and the Ecumenical Jury Award
bestowed by the International
Cinematography Clubs Association (FICC).
Elisabeth Schimana (Austria): a performer, free-lance
composer, radio artist and artistic process manager working in an electronic
environment. She is a founder of the Institute
of Media Archeology (IMA).
Rebekah Wilson a.k.a. Netochka Nezvanova: works as an independent composer,
electronic musician, installation artist, filmmaker and software developer.
Marina Gržinić (Slovenia):
has a PhD in philosophy and works as a researcher at
the Institute of Philosophy
at the ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana. She is a
freelance media theorist and curator who has been involved in video art since
1982. In collaboration with Aina Šmid she has produced more than 30 video art
projects, a short film, numerous video and media installations, Internet
websites and an interactive CD-ROM (for ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany). She has
published hundreds of articles and numerous books.
Organisation: City of Women
In collaboration with: Cankarjev dom
With the support of: Skrivanek prevajalske storitve
d.o.o.