The graduate school "Performing Citizenship"
The graduate school “Performing Citizenship: New articulations of urban citizenry in 21st century metropolis” started on January 1st, 2015. It is supported by a cooperation of the HafenCity Universität (HCU)/department Metropolitan Culture, the Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaft (HAW)/department Design and two research-led non-academic cultural institutions, the FUNDUS THEATER and K3 – Centre for Choreography | Tanzplan Hamburg).
The expressions MOVEMENT and MOBILISATION are ambiguous and therefore fascinating terms that refer to the field of politics on the one side and to the body and to choreography on the other. In both instances the terms encompass “assembly in movement” and “the becoming of many” (Kunst 2014). In my graduate thesis I am looking at the two terms MOVEMENT and MOBILISATION at the crossroads of choreography/dance, activism and politics. My artistic studies investigate the practice of movement and its multiple meanings. Furthermore, my research topic includes the gathering and presence of bodies in resistance in the public and the making of temporary collective identity by moving within and through “social choreography” (Hewitt 2005). The word assembly is also used in its ambiguity, functioning as a term to describe political meetings as well as the gathering of bodies in movement. Both ways of assembly temporarily generate community at a specific place, whereby in keeping with Nancy, the term community is understood as being-with (“Mit-sein”), and not as a self-contained collective body. Within the conceptual framework of assembly, what is political takes place “between” bodies in movement, which significantly and uniquely become visible. Consequently, working on performative formats of interventions, marches and collective dances in public spaces and in the space created by theatre always leads to the crucial question of the subject as a political one.