LAVA

LAVA : A FESTIVAL ON TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICES : 18.06.2018-14.07.2018

With a world built on white supremacist cis hetero patriarchy and a dance field reflective of these hegemonies and problems, how do we find spaces where something else can happen? Where can we generate collective presents and futures and regenerate and grow skills and care practices? Can we make another way together? With salty bodily fluids bursting forth from our bodies like lava gushing from the earth's core, can we build something magic out of what we have so far survived? It will be slippery. It is so far unknown. Maybe our surf boards burst into flames and we ride disintegrating fiery wood on waves of liquid hot magma into the sunset. 

Join us for a month of trainings, workshops & talks on collective transformation hosted by Agora MOVE initiated and curated by MOVE artist-in-focus Eroca Niclos and Sheena McGrandles.

Generating Transformations - Published in Tanzraum Berlin June 2018
Inciting change in the face of white supremacist cis hetero patriarchy and late capitalism is on the agenda during LAVA, a gathering on collective transformative practices 
In a collective effort, a group of artists this summer are creating a shared space for potential societal transformations in trying to imagine collective presents and futures. The gathering/festival LAVA at Agora MOVE this summer is self-organized. What are the artists' plans, hopes and wishes for the four-weeks-project?

LAVA emerged out of a dialogue between Eroca Nicols and Sheena McGrandles, it is driven by a huge desire to host, learn, facilitate, share resources, produce knowledge through collectivity and with our bodies deal with the complexity and messiness of power, race, identity and intimacy. Over four weeks from June 18th to July 14th, there are workshops, trainings and talks on topics such as revenge, consent, self defense, shame and death. The venue Agora MOVE offers a space to facilitate collectively imagining ways of being together with the access to power and resources we have. It is an unfunded effort and to be clear, those resources are the humans we know who are working to make this happen, the space we have been offered at Agora (unfortunately, that does not have a lift) and the time we have agreed to share. This effort is not perfect by any means. This effort is inside because there is no outside (yes, we mean white supremacist cis hetero patriarchy and late capitalism). This effort is currently in debt. This effort is asking for favors from friends and acquaintances, for couches and for amazing facilitators to show up not knowing what or if they will be paid or break even. This effort is definitely not the only one. This effort does not make sense, yet. For tanzraum magazine we were asked to respond to "white supremacist cis hetero patriarchy and a dance field reflective of these hegemonies and problems“ as well as "your hopes for collective transformation”. It was important for us to represent multiple positions as this is a collective venture, so what follows is a collection of words from some of the facilitators of LAVA. 
“I am thinking about using shame as an anti-colonial pro-queer tool to empower and create our own narrative liberated from a white supremacist past by re-purposing shame in a communal context we can heal, transform and learn to be proud of that we were taught to be ashamed of”. Joy Mariama Smith

“What we want and what we need does not exist so we are trying to make it. And it requires effort.” Eroca Nicols
“I find strength in making space for creative and body-based practices. facilitating workshops is a place for me to not feel alone, to bring people together and to have fun – currently also dealing with difficult topics. to be in my body and to be in a group happens way less than it should and when it does happen at clubs or in the street – it can be uncomfortable or even scary. in certain contexts i am at risk of harassment or attack. intimidation techniques, threats, physical aggression. i was hit in the face recently, when alone on the S-Bahn and that's why i am doing this workshop. right now. i couldn't start the process alone. i am not alone – so many people are violated on the daily. it's very sad, but we are also angry and grateful for each other. LAVA is by and for PoC and queer artists and friends – because we need that space for our bodies.” Zinzi Buchanan
“taking responsibility and care. flailing but trying our best to undo the parts of ourselves that reflect this fucked up world. dismantling in whatever small way. seeing the big picture? love and openness and fury.” Summer.
"Building and creating temporary collective compositions of people as a way to work through real big stuff in an attempt to dismantle hard and soft power structures. Along with practicing taking agency, listening hard, creating space and working through the labor to reflect things back differently.“ Sheena McGrandles 
“Smashing borders and stopping deportation. No access until they are accessible to everyone.” Mzamo Jama
“We are hoping to collectively make visible and thus contestable the somatic experience of living within white supremacist cis hetero patriarchy.” Undine Sommer 
“What is the difference between theoretical knowledge / intellectual understanding and bodily knowledge / practical experience, i.e. what is [or else: what is it not yet, but ought to be] the physical consequence to knowing? And why is it generally assumed, at least in predominantly heteronormative, white communities – such is many an artistic community concerned with the notions of experimental dance and choreography – that "to know" is "enough?" A possible consequence to such an ethic – which is why one ought to be critical of it and work to provide their communities with the experience of another methodology, ergo: LAVA – is that it affords one to publicly adhere to one ideology whilst practicing another, e.g. it enables one to think they are fighting the patriarchy because they understand the conceptual framework, whilst continuing to employ a cis-gendered straight white male dominated workforce. This is what we’re here to examine, in my experience.” pavleheidler
LAVA. With the artists Joy Mariama Smith, Summer, Siegmar Zacharias, pavleheidler, Alice Chauchat, Zinzi Buchanan, Ismail Fayed, Mzamo Jama Nondlwana, Sheena McGrandles, Maque Pereyra, Liz Rosenfeld, Charlie Trier, Undine Sommer, Maria Scaroni and more to be announced! 
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