Research Catalogue

How can dance and music, an art rich of history and a recent practice, the living body and digital immateriality communicate with each other? This project explores these questions through a live electronics performance in interaction with Odissi dance, one of the eight classical Indian dance forms. The performance combines fixed and improvised elements, fostering a dynamic interplay where music sometimes leads the dance and at other times responds to it. The work mirrors the traditional Odissi performance arc while reinterpreting it through a contemporary Western compositional lens. The sound material is created using SuperCollider, a code-based music synthesis platform. Algorithmic processes govern parameters such as duration, pitch, and amplitude, while real-time interventions are performed via a MIDI controller, enabling a fluid and reactive sonic environment. Several collaborative experiments inform the project’s development. Conducted both remotely and in-person, they involved exchanging musical sketches and choreographic responses, fostering a conceptual understanding of each other's creative processes, and enabled immediate feedback and improvisatory interaction, revealing how abstract sound gestures are interpreted by the dancer as vivid metaphors of natural phenomena through the expressive language of mudra. This project embraces the idea that meaning in performance does not pre-exist but rather emerges through the interweaving of gesture, sound, attention, and relational space. Rather than seeking fixed correspondences between music and dance, the collaboration foregrounds the instability and fluidity of sense-making as a shared experiential process. Movement and sound co-construct each other in the moment, guided by intuition, somatic listening, and a continuous negotiation of presence. In this light, the work becomes less about illustrating pre-defined narratives and more about cultivating a living texture of interaction—an evolving field where different temporalities, traditions, and sensitivities resonate and transform one another. Informed by Andrée Grau’s insights in Intercultural Research in the Performing Arts (1992), this project also approaches collaboration not as a neutral meeting ground but as a space charged with cultural histories and asymmetries of knowledge. Grau urges us to move beyond celebratory notions of “fusion” and to critically examine how traditions are represented, adapted, and negotiated in performance. In this light, the work does not seek to erase difference but to hold it in tension, encouraging a space where both artists remain grounded in their respective practices while allowing mutual transformation to occur. Rather than simplifying or assimilating Odissi into a Western framework, the collaboration is framed as an encounter—sometimes smooth, sometimes resistant—that reflects the complex, evolving nature of intercultural exchange. Here, meaning is not given but co-constructed through attention, respect, and a willingness to remain in the discomfort of not fully understanding. Bibliography Grau, A. (1992). Intercultural research in the performing arts: A critical review. Edinburgh University Press. Jayadeva. Gītagovinda. Tr. Giuliano Boccali (1982). Adelphi. Cassio, F. (2000). Percorsi della voce. Storia e tecniche esecutive del canto dhrupad nella musica classica dell'India del nord. Ut Orpheus Edizioni. Frödin, K. Unander-Scharin, Å. (2024). FRAGMENTE2. Research Catalogue. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-exposition?exposition=2045845 Frisk, H. (2025). Sound intuition. Research Catalogue. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-exposition?exposition=3025541 Giordano, S. The emerging sense. Research Catalogue. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-exposition?exposition=1220694

Documentación sobre la investigación artística de ConCuerpos en el 2023 en torno a la Accesibilidad Universal en Danza, llamada Cancionero para la Ausencia.

Die Idee des Projekts war es, mit den Gegebenheiten vor Ort zu arbeiten und diesen als Inspirationsquelle sowohl inhaltlich als auch materiell zu nutzen. Was die Materialauswahl &-organisation betrifft nutzten wir Gebrauchtes aus lokalen Quellen und integrierten die Geschichten in Bezug auf die vorherige Nutzung der Materialien in das Stück. Neben den Darsteller*innen, die aus der Näheren Umgebung stammten, bekamen auch die Materialien eine „Stimme“. Ein wesentlicher inhaltlicher & materieller Bestandteil der Inszenierung war Erde, die als nicht-menschliche Akteur*in auf der Bühne behandelt wurde. Den Dialog zwischen Mensch und Hummus haben wir verfolgt, indem im Probenprozess Bewegungs-Material durch die Interaktion mit der Erde entwickelt wurde. Die dabei entstandenen Fragen müssen zukünftig sowohl vor als auch hinter der Bühne verhandelt werden: Wie können wir für unsere Umgebung Sorge tragen? Wie können wir neue Rituale in alten und vertrauten, gesellschaftlich konstruierten Lebensrealitäten finden, die für zukunftsfähiges Denken und Handeln nützlich sind? Franziska Wenning, Anja Gast, Rémy Bocquillon

The artistic research project Creative (Mis)Understandings: Methodologies of Inspiration is a collaboration between sound makers / compoers / performers from an indigenous community in Taiwan (Tao on Lanyu/Orchid island) and from Europe. There is a high urgency to transform traditional songs into new artisttic forms, creating new ways of forwarding important traditional knowledge to the next generations. This collaboration also sheds a different light on the question, what it means to create something "new" in the eurpopean context.

Wixárika crafts are a testament to resilience and adaptability, they have been preserved since pre-Hispanic times. The evolution of some of these over the past century, influenced by global movements in the 1960s, has created a niche for Wixárika art and craft. Influenced by tourism, new styles, colors, and symbols have been introduced, serving as a form of resistance against the erasure of traditional knowledge and practices 500 years after the colonial period. Tsik+ri has gained global popularity as a method to create decorative geometric yarn pieces, but this craft not only provides insights about Indigenous cultures, experiences, and embodied knowledge, but also raises discussion about land and cultural appropriation by non-Indigenous individuals. In this exposition, I present a series of workshops held in the region of the Arctic Circle, where a development project is taking place to improve and enhance the use of sustainable wool by revitalizing craft heritage in a multicultural way. The method of this study is Art-Based Action Research. The study makes visible an essential feature of this textile artifact: its ability to transcend geopolitical and cultural borders, embodying a unique fusion of heritage and contemporary design. Indigenous craft practices from the Mesoamerican Wixárika culture, such as the Tsik+ri, are rooted in the multicultural identity of Mexico. The workshops served as platforms to communicate the culture and challenges of Wixaritari to Arctic and international contexts. This research sustains that implementing craft practices in the context of contemporary art requires profound knowledge and respect for its origins.

AMASS–AMAS–WEIRD oli Utsjoella vuonna 2021 toteutunut yhteisötaideprojekti osana Euroopan Union rahoittamaa Acting on the Margins: Arts as Social Sculpture -tutkimushanketta (2020–2023). Euroopan reuna-alueiden vuorovaikutusta ja yhteistyötä lisäävä taideperustainen toimintatutkimus sisälsi yhteisötaiteen, sosiaalisesti sitoutuneen taiteen ja taidekasvatuksen kehittämistä paikallisyhteisöissä. AMASS–AMAS–WEIRD -toteutettiin Lapin yliopiston yhtenä vastuualueena ja osana delokolonisoivan arktisen taiteen viitekehystä, vaikkakin eurooppalaisessa hankejärjestelmässä, johon sisältyy Euroopan yhtenäisyyden taustatavoitteita. Tässä ekspositiossa tarkastelemme taidekäsityksen arktista dekolonisaatiota, yhteisötaidetta, kuvataidekasvatusta ja hankkeen tutkimusprosessia dekolonisaation näkökulmista. AMASS–AMAS–WEIRD vahvisti kulttuurisen moninaisuuden kunnioitusta ja tuki vuorovaikutusta saamelais- ja suomalaiskulttuurien sisällä ja niiden välillä. Jännitteitä ilmeni niin sanottuun tutkimusähkyyn, marginaalisuuden olettamaan sekä rahoitusinstrumenttiin liittyen. Johtopäätöksenä korostamme taiteen ja tutkimuksen kolonialististen rakenteiden ja eettisten periaatteiden kriittisen tarkastelun merkitystä kulttuurien dialogista kohtaamista tukevan ja yhteyksiä luovan toiminnan kehittämisessä.