#RomaLivesMatter

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.