in.tender.actions
…is a concept that offers poetic and aesthetic approaches, to recognize and celebrate our intercorporeality, mutual vulnerability and interdependences as a space to practice tender interactions, based on affection and care.
- Temporary autonomous space for artistic creation for young adults in Porto, Bonfim
- Poetics and aesthetics of the tender body in performance art
- Concept “in.tender.actions“
—> contributing to the socio-critical concept of radical tenderness
—> expands it to publci space, as (radical) public tenderness
- Strategies for participatory art making processes
- Public Space discourse
performative approach
How can radical tenderness be performed in public space?
- as a specific state of being, that is available, open and deeply listens to its environment with all their body
- as a collective body, constituted by a plurality of bodies, voices and narratives
- as an performative approach to create speculative imaginaries
participatory approach
How can radical tenderness be explored as a participatory working strategy, that includes (radically) all types of bodies?
- as a strategy of working (together) that creates brave spaces for everybody to express themselves and be heard equally
- as a method to critically embody radical tendernes with all different kinds of groups and contexts
- as a strategy that enhances a concept of common time, without underlying a neoliberal concept of efficiency and productivity
- as a tender working approach, that practices artistic connectivity
Welcome the unknown
Listen through your skin
Unmask yourself
Touch upon the invisible
Embrace your interdependencies
Celebrate your mutual vulnerability as a space to connect
Protest tenderness
· Place your feet at the distance of your hips on the ground · Straighten your back and relax your shoulders · Imagine that there are roots growing from you feet into the ground ·The roots are going deep, making your standing stable · At the same time, there is an invisible string, that is connected from the top of your head high into the sky · It’s lifting you upwards · You are being pushed into the ground and lifted into the sky at the same time, you are a perfect line in the universe · Connected to your roots and connected to your dreams · Your body is the manifestation of their connection, of both roots and dreams at the same time · Breath in deeply · Now, try to open your chest while breathing · Let everything flow in- and outside, the air, the light, the sounds and the movement of your surrounding · Let your chest become as open and as transparent as possible · Observe yourself and how your body is becoming present · Welcome the unknown ·
· Take the post its off your body and place them somewhere in space, where it makes sense for you · Feel how the weight of the question gets off, as soon as you are taking them of your body · Now, their everybody’s or maybe they already have been everybody’s before, without you knowing · Go around and look at all the other questions · If you feel the impulse, you can comment on them, by adding comments or questions on another post it · Some might resonate more with you than others · Read everything carefully, without judging · Dissensus is welcomed. Embrace you interdependencies ·
· Concentrate on the sensations of your skin · Imagine your skin as a vessel that contains all your emotions and sensations, that conditions the way you are moving through space · Feel the temperature on your skin · Feel how the wind is touching you · Feel the surface of your clothes touching your skin · Expand your concentration · Feel the other bodies with you in space · Feel their presence · Start walking · Feel the co-presence of all living and non-living matter · Carefully flow through space (together) · If you meet someone or something, let your skins and surfaces connect · Touch as carefully as possible upon the other’s skin, skins of humans, of stones, of buildings, of trees · Listen through your skin and keep on moving ·
· Slowly walk through the space · Imagine that there are invisible connections to each other living, starting at your belly bottom · Fasten your speed, while holding the connections · Explore how can you move together, as a collective body through the space · Become aware of everything that is moving and everything that is not moving · Attune with your environment · Everything is connected, from your belly bottom to your spine · Play with it ·
· Explore how a gesture or an action or a movement look like, that protests tenderness · Create a radical tender protest with your body · Try out different gestures and postures · Hold each gestures for a few minutes · Become aware of how it feels · Observe how people react on you · Try to become soft and strong at the same time ·
· Start to carefully caress yourself · Feel the reversibility of each touch, the same time you are touched, you are touching · Activate your skin · Place your right hand on the part of your body, that shows your strength today · That feels vulnerable today · That you would like to show to others today · That guards a secret today · That is beautiful today · That you are afraid to show today · That needs some more of your attention today ·
· Ask questions that are uncomfortable to ask · Write them on post its and place them on your body · Choose a different body part for each question, follow your intuitions · Ask yourself afterwards, why each placement makes sense for you or why it doesn’t · Try to feel the weight of the questions, that started inside you and now made their way to the surface · Touch upon the invisible ·
2. I then started a “movement laboratory". Every participants had three minutes to explore moveemnts in one of the corners of the studio/ regarding one score, before moving to the next one. Afterwards, we went from score to score and showed each other the movements that we've found:
3.In a third step, we put the scores in an order on the floor, that might sense for us, regarding the build-up of the movements. Now, each participant had to go through the scores in the order they were placed on the floor. They could either use their own movements or make use of the movements from the others:
4. After that, we compared which movements we agreed on, i.e. for some scores we used the same movements, for others we had different ones. For example, the movements, we had chosen for “unmask yourself“ as well as for “protest tenderness“ were the same. I decided to take these scores as a “marker“ for our movement sequence, but also liked to see the differences in the iniducal movement qualities of each participant. We now had a order of the scores, every partiicpant had their own “choreography“ with soem moments of synchrony in it.
5. When trying out the sequence/ individual chorerographies at the same time, we realized, that “touch upon the invisible“ made no sense before “protest movement“, because we really liked the transition from “unmask yourself“ to “protest tenderness“. So we replaced it right after “welcome the unknown“ and before “listening through the skin“.
