CRITICAL ENDEAVOR 2010
Critical Endeavour is an educational program for emerging dance and performance journalists that took place for the first time during ImPulsTanz 2008 in Vienna. It is part of the new European initiative Jardin d’Europe―a multi-annual project funded partly by the European Commisson’s Culture Programme 2007-2013―that was developed by its 10 network partners: Ultima Vez (BE), CCN Montpellier (FR), Workshop Foundation (HU), Lokomotiva (MK), Station (RS), Art Link (RO), Cullberg Ballet (SE), Bimeras Culture Foundation (TR), Southbank Centre (UK), danceWEB (AT). Critical Endeavour’s aim is to enhance public discourse on dance and to promote exchange about practices, ethics, and responsibilities in criticism within the respective countries and contexts.
Description of Critend 2010:
I read an article on me once that described my machine-method of silk-screen copying and painting- ‘What a bold and audacious solution, what depths of the man are revealed in this solution!’ What does that mean? –Andy Warhol
Contemporary practices in the field of dance and performance―at times infiltrating into and at other times being contaminated by related questions in other artistic and expressive fields―question, challenge and expand the boundaries of what constitutes the “choreographic”. We witness the “contemporaneity” of current live art practices and performative interventions as sites where the margins are blurred, often rendering territorial disciplinary demarcations insufficient, if not irrelevant. Granted that, within the Critical Endeavor 2010 seminars/encounters/talks, we search for the ways in which we can catch up with, contribute to, and multiply the questions and to reflect on the creative possibilities rising from such cross-pollinations. Herein, we pay particular attention to facilitating an informed yet accessible discourse and writing on contemporary dance and performance practices.
In line with the broader festival theme, cosmopolitanism, we consider whether or not it is possible to achieve and maintain a cosmopolitan perspective in performance writing and criticism. We exchange reflections on critical writing with local and transnational writers, journalists and theoreticians from visual arts criticism, music criticism and literary criticism in order to extend our vocabulary and practice of writing in/around/for contemporary dance.
The objectives of Critend can be summarized along two major axes:
• Acquiring expertise and working tools for journalistic, essayistic, and theoretical writing on dance via reading and writing assignments, discussions and public presentations;
• Working towards an ethics of evaluation by nominating a designated number of laureates among a group of 10-14 emerging choreographers featured in the Prix Jardin d’Europe series as part of the festival.
The participants of the Critical Endeavor who were nominated by the ten project partners from their respective countries are: Eylül Akıncı (TR), Bükki Nóra Ildikó (HU), Iulia Popovici (RO), Julie Rodeyns (BE), Lisa Caroline Smith (UK), Theresa Elke Christine Steininger (AT), Josefine Wikström (SE), Maxime Fleuriot (FR), Dean Damjanovski (RS), Iva Nerina Sibila (MK).Critend 2010 seminars are led by Gurur Ertem (Coach&Facilitator, TR), Jean-Marc-Adolphe (Mentor, FR), Franz Anton Cramer (Mentor, DE), Pieter T’Jonck (Mentor, BE), Ayşegül Sönmez (Mentor, TR),Tang Fu Kuen (Mentor, SG), and will be assisted by Ayrin Ersöz (Previous Critend Participant) and Berna Kurt (Previous Critend Participant, TR). In 2010, Critical Endeavor is hosted by Bimeras within the context of iDANS International Contemporary Dance and Performance Festival, in collaboration with Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Department of Modern Dance.
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