Loomio

#RomaLivesMatter

MD Mo Diener Public Seen by 414

Roma people have arrived in Europe about 600 years ago. They have been and are still considered as people of minor value ever since. 12 Mio people living at the margins, at risk. We claim all rights for political and cultural participation and acknowledgement in EU societies now. There are no minor lives.
I am in Madrid from 24th till 27th of October for Transeuropa Festival and ECA. I propose to plan a Detox Dance workshop as an artistic intervention in this context of the commons as an activist practise. Detox Dance is a participatory performance with the character of a Square Dance. The workshop includes learning on the spot and moving / dancing together. Everybody can participate. The dance expresses an ongoing process of “becoming“, of transformation and inclusion. We could do the intervention on a public square and / or in institutional spaces such as universities, museums, contemporary art spaces. I am looking for interested people, for a space and for support.

More about Roma Jam Session art Kollektiv: In 2013 we founded the „Roma Jam Session art Kollektiv“ RJSaK together with Mustafa Asan (cultural agent) and Milena Petrovic (actress). The first performance of RJSaK took place in an Offspace in Zurich, followed by regular public interventions in art and political contexts. RJSaK aims to transform the status of the Roma population in Swiss and European societies. The collective creates fresh imagery and new associations for contemporary Roma existence. RJSaK claims inclusion while keeping multiplicity and diversity on all levels by liquifying borders between groups, minorities and nations and mobilizing the energy which has long fossilized the image of the Roma into stereotypes. Aside from their artistic practice the group participates politically in negotiations with the Swiss Federal Office of Culture (BAK) on the recognition of Roma, Sinti and Yenish communities as cultural minorities in Switzerland. www.romajamsession.org

About myself as an artist: In my artistic practice as a performer as well as since 2013 as the artistic director and curator of the Roma Jam Session art collective I have worked extensively with the body and language of performers. The common movements in the public performance Detox Dance involves no ornaments (inspired as it is by martial arts forms and Roma dances) but creates images of coming together and exchange, of commonality and playing with a network. With the body and “the mind as a muscle” (Yvonne Rainer), the project creates intrinsic movements of a democratic choreography. The elaboration of Detox Dance started in 2016 and has since mutated to a public workshop, becoming a Liquid Body which dissolves boundaries in the practice of the common and in democratic processes and turns Detox Dance into a Liquid Urban Structure.

IS

Ivor Stodolsky Sun 8 Oct 2017 8:55PM

Great you have it all here, I'll now change the other thread back to how it was..

IS

Ivor Stodolsky Sun 8 Oct 2017 9:00PM

I think DETOX DANCE is a great title by the way.

G

Gaelle Mon 9 Oct 2017 11:23AM

Great! I'd be happy to join the Detox dance! Are you interested to take part to the workshop on solidarity as a commons? If so email me at [email protected]

MD

Mo Diener Mon 9 Oct 2017 8:33PM

great - thank you. I will inform you about details as soon as possible.

MD

Mo Diener Wed 11 Oct 2017 8:13AM

@Gaelle, I am doing a workshop with a group of local people at Matadero the 23rd of October. checking the feasibility of Detox Dance intervention in the context of ECA is not yet approved - it would be very great to become visible in the issue for #RomaLIvesMatter on the level of ECA. I am negotiating on behalf of this activity which is close to my heart politically and culturally now and I do not know exactly what I can do - if I will have time to join your group I would let you know.

ZB

Z. Blace Wed 11 Oct 2017 9:19AM

Excuse my curiosity but would there be any presence of actual Roma people?

MD

Mo Diener Wed 11 Oct 2017 10:14AM

Nothing about us without us - this is one message of Detox Dance workshop - and its reality. It would be marvellous if Roma people would become part of Detox Dance in Madrid too. I am alone there - my friends can not join, because we were to late and could not apply for support anymore. Would you have contacts to Roma people on the spot? Detox Dance became already in Switzerland an intersectional project, being developed in the Roma Jam Session art Kollektiv in Zurich we danced and worked with a changing number of people coming from all over the world (Brazil, Romenia, Chile, Portugal, Bolivia, Angola, Poland, Russia, Roma from Mezedonia, Serbia, Croatia...) . If I am not mistaken there is no other such art Kollektiv in Europe.
But Roma people if you are in ECA please join!

In Madrid I have the chance to work with a mixed group of people of color (Roma, Chinese, African, South American...) at Matadero the 23rd of October in the evening. I am invited there to do workshop of about 90 minutes. It will be something else. We will work physically developing a narrative of cultural and social / political detoxification. This will be a group experience in a safe space.

MD

Mo Diener Wed 11 Oct 2017 10:21AM

Nothing about us without us - this is one message of Detox Dance workshop - and its reality. It would be marvellous if Roma people would become part of Detox Dance in Madrid too. I am alone there - my friends can not join, because we were to late and could not apply for support anymore. Would you have contacts to Roma people on the spot? Detox Dance became already in Switzerland an intersectional project, being developed in the Roma Jam Session art Kollektiv in Zurich we danced and worked with a changing number of people coming from all over the world (Brazil, Romenia, Chile, Portugal, Bolivia, Angola, Poland, Russia, Roma from Mezedonia, Serbia, Croatia...) . If I am not mistaken there is no other such art Kollektiv in Europe.
But Roma people if you are in ECA please join!

In Madrid I have the chance to work with a mixed group of people of color (Roma, Chinese, African, South American...) at Matadero the 23rd of October in the evening. I am invited there to do workshop of about 90 minutes. It will be something else. We will work physically developing a narrative of cultural and social / political detoxification. This will be a group experience in a safe space.

ZB

Z. Blace Wed 11 Oct 2017 10:20AM

exactly that: "Nothing about us without us" maybe that connection should be made first - no?

ZB

Z. Blace Wed 11 Oct 2017 10:48AM

Mo - text you posted few times makes it sound great... Madrid should not be opposite by having no local Roma people participating.

Load More