Mediating Nature – Sara Gebran & co-creators
TOOK PLACE 29 Aug.-3 Sept. at 18.45
MEETING PLACE Refshalevej 320, Refshaleøen, Cph. K – see location
WHAT Performance
PRICE 150 DKK incl. a book / 120 DKK for students, youth under 25 and groups of min. 5 (choose price category ‘studerende’)
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Mediating Nature is the first part of a four-year project in defence of the forests. The performance invites the audience into a guided practice of asking nature ‘permission’ for entry – by tuning into the material and immaterial world, by listening and repositioning ourselves as caretakers, mediators and cohabitants of species on the verge of extinction. The practice is inspired by Yanomami, an indigenous community in the Venezuelan Amazonia, which asks nature for permission before hunting or fishing.
Accompanying the performance is the release of Sara Gebran’s new book The Forests Imaginary Trial – 374 Grieving Poems! (of which audience members will receive a copy). Translated into Danish, English, Spanish and Portuguese, the book is complementary to the performance. It consists of 374 grieving poems representing a long list of endangered species and is a preparation and introduction to the next chapter performance in 2024: The Forest Trial – a staged trial created to defend non-humans, those who can’t speak and defend themselves.
About the audience experience
Enclosed in the darkness of the theatre space, audience members will first experience the performance through digital video, kinetic sculpture, soundscapes, dance, and poetry. This will prepare the senses and systems of belief to enter the unknown and try to sense the natural world. As the performance evolves, audience members will be led out of the theatre into a pocket of woodland emerging from an ex-industrial zone of Refshaleøen. Outside, we embody this practice of sensing and mediating nature. The performance contrasts and challenges our perceptions of the natural and unnatural, of stage and site, and the rights of humans and non-human ‘others’.
NB! The performance will take place in all kinds of weather. Please dress according to the weather.
EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK
“I am grieving for so many deaths per minute, per hour, per day, per year, per century. Grieving for the fire that took, and is taking, everything with it, for the system that built the conditions for the fires and other human interventions that take everything with them, the consumption, envy, and greed that takes everything with it. I am in an anticipated grieving for an anticipated, strange future of humans amongst humans without the nonhumans.
When you are grieving alone, you become a powerless entity, but collectivised grieving is invincible. It opens up our senses and imaginaries to our collective power of affects, i.e. the power that all our affection together has: “…grief is a political act with political implications.” (Judith Butler)
I invite you to assemble and find ways to use our power to begin a new political collective regime, calling for accountability to those who need to be charged for the crimes against nature…”
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Sara Gebran is a choreographer, dancer, associate professor at Uniarts University Stockholm, writer and urban planner. Sara’s works are situated within performance art, often utilizing media such as video, text, sound, and architecture—mediated by the dancing body, whether present or not. Through her performances, teaching and writing, she studies and works with power and forms of collective empowerment. This can be seen all across her works, from her performances, to her teaching, and publications.
Around 2015, her interest in movement led her to the study of Quantum Physics, which she practiced through her performances and books, developing four soft theories: The Theory for a Quantum Society, Quantic Dance, Social Intimacy and the Theory of the Gap. These publications contain over 675 practices that are now being used as teaching material in various art universities in Copenhagen: Literature School, Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Danish Royal Architecture & Design School, and Uniarts Stockholm. In March 2022, she was appointed associate professor at Uniarts Stockholm with research on “Choreographic-Publications as Critical Space for Choreographic Practices and Self- Governance”.
Her current works are wrapped around a project called The Forests Imaginary Trial (2023- 2026), which will manifest as several performances—each with a supplementary book and stage manuscript. The overall concept is centered on creating a new platform for political and social representation, developed together with all interested citizens, in defense of nature and the rights to nature.
www.saragebran.com
Olivia Riviere is a choreographer and dancer. In her practice, Olivia works with obscure vocal techniques and touches on their materiality and sensorial influence. Since her BA in dance and choreography from The Danish National School of Performing Arts in 2015, Olivia has been part of running the space DANSEatelier together with eleven other dancers/choreographers. Her collaborative work with choreographer Lisen Pousette has toured Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and they are currently in the making of their coming work Spiritus (2024).
Tor Lindstrand is senior lecturer and architect. Associate Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH-A) and a co-owner of the firm LLP Arkitektkontor. His practice oscillates between architecture, art and performance with projects presented in several well-known international institutions. He has co-founded several cross-disciplinary initiatives spanning architecture, art, education and performance. He is currently involved in a collaborative research project on Power, Space and Ideology at KTH-A and Södertörn University and as an architecture critic for FORM magazine.
www.this-is-economy.com
George Koutsouris is a musician and artist. A member of the Danish visual arts association (BKF), the Greek artist George Koutsouris has lived and worked in Copenhagen since 2012. He has received many national and international awards and has a permanent exhibition of the work Psalm Machine at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde. He has accrued a diverse educational background to fuel his artistic work, with degrees ranging from Classical Piano and Music Theory to Mechanical Engineering.
www.georgekoutsouris.com
CREDITS
Director: Sara Gebran
Collaborating artists: Tor Lindstrand, Olivia Riviere and Sara Gebran
Guest artists: George Koutsouris with ‘Nature’s Symphony’ installation
Publication by Sara Gebran: “The Forests Imaginary Trials – 374 Poems for Grieving”
Project manager & PR: Max Morris-Doherty
Assistant to manager & stage manager: Kim Wrang
Graphic Designer: Susanne Benther Mouritsen
Photography: Tor Lindstrand (top) & Marine Gastineau (others)
Residencies: Teaterøen & Polo Cultural Gaivotas, Lisbon
Supported by: Statens Kunstfond, Dansk Skuespillerforbund, William Demant Foundation, Københavns Kommune
Produced by: Sara Gebran / Public Eye
Duration: 2 hours
