17 Movements

Edited by Astrid Kaminski, Jeroen Versteele, Julie De Meester. A personal and intimate look behind the scenes of Meg Stuart's creative process over more than a decade. 

Since the early nineties, Meg Stuart, and her dance company Damaged Goods, based in Brussels, have produced a remarkable and audacious body of choreographic work. In 2010, Damaged Goods published Are we here yet?, which spans the first twenty years of Meg Stuart's career. In the follow-up book Let's not get used to this place, the choreographer looks back on more than a decade of works through reflections, interviews, scores, and notes on the practice of creating, performing, teaching and living dance. These are mixed with reports, essays and poetry by collaborators and other observers, photos, performance texts and archive material. The book's title, gleaned from one of Stuart's recent video works, ties together these multifarious sources in a desire to discard tried and tested strategies, explore new contexts, and transgress the edge of what we (do not) know. 
Let's not get used to this place gives a sense of the plentitude of motions, inspirations and personalities that energize Meg Stuart's creative cosmos. It offers a personal and intimate look behind the scenes of the creative process, and expands this to include the world around it. As a journey through her more recent career, an inspiring manual and a work of art in its own right, it has a wide appeal to an international base of artists, students and peers, and to anyone who is interested in performance.

Contributions by Jean-Marc Adolphe, Preethi Athreya, Mariana Tengner Barros, Sandra Blatterer, Esther Boldt, Márcio Kerber Canabarro, Varinia Canto Vila, Descha Daemgen, Jorge De Hoyos, Igor Dobricic, Brendan Dougherty, Doris Dziersk, Tim Etchells, Moriah Evans, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Jule Flierl, Alain Franco, Davis Freeman, Ami Garmon, Philipp Gehmacher, Jared Gradinger, Ezra Green, Claudia Hill, Maija Hirvanen, Elise Misao Hunchuck, Astrid Kaminski, Kiraṇ Kumār, Göksu Kunak, André Lepecki & Eleonora Fabiano, Jean-Paul Lespagnard, Marc Lohr, Matthias Mohr, Anne-Françoise Moyson, Anja Müller, Kotomi Nishiwaki, Jeroen Peeters, Alejandro Penagos, Léa Poiré, Leyla Postalcıoğlu, Ana Rocha, Tian Rotteveel, Hahn Rowe, Isabela Fernandes Santana, Maria F. Scaroni, Bernd M. Scherer, Kerstin Schroth, Gerald Siegmund, Charlotte Simon, Mieko Suzuki, Claire Vivianne Sobottke, Poorna Swami, Meg Stuart, Margarita Tsomou, Kristof Van Boven, Elke Van Campenhout, Myriam Van Imschoot, Jeroen Versteele, Doug Weiss, Stefanie Wenner, Jozef Wouters, John Zwaenepoel.

A performance text by Jozef Wouters, The Soft Layer traces and proposes visions and words that enfold the historic building of Dar Bairam Turki in Tunis like a cloak. How can we imagine possible futures for such a place and the community inhabiting it, beyond nostalgia and the spectres of the past? Several voices muse in three languages (Tunisian, French and English) on renovation and history, destruction and cleansing, the limits of science-fiction and the soothing quality of aloe vera.

Published by Varamo Press in the essay series Gestures
First edition May 2022
48 pages, 11.0 x 16.5 cm, sewn perfect binding
ISBN 978-82-691492-4-1

Conversations about embodied strategies of knowledge production and knowledge transmission based on the choreographic and curatorial practices of about fifteen international choreographers, performers, dramaturges and curators.

In the context of the numerous ethical-political challenges of the global present, actors from the dance and choreography scene both in Berlin and internationally talk about forms of knowledge production beyond the prevailing conception found in Western modernity. They counter the mind-body separation and the notion of a universality of knowledge with multiplicities of knowledge production that emerge with and from the reality of differently situated bodies.

What potential do embodied practices offer for emancipatory movements? How can community be created through these practices, and what responsibilities does this entail? What role does the body play in the preservation and transmission of knowledge?

In this publication, edited by the choreographers and curators Martha Hincapié Charry, Sandhya Daemgen, Raphael Moussa Hillebrand and Matthias Mohr; Lukas Avendaño, Wagner Carvalho, Sandhya Daemgen, Ismail Fayed, Alex Hennig, Raphael Moussa Hillebrand, Martha Hincapié Charry, Isabel Lewis, Matthias Mohr, Prince Ofori, Mother "Leo" Saint Laurent, Léna Szirmay-Kalos, Thiago Granato and July Weber conduct conversations about embodied strategies of knowledge production and knowledge transmission based on their respective choreographic and curatorial practices.

Much in our life at this moment is often marked by an absence of clarity. Many have experienced a malaise and come to know its persistence. We seem to have become used to stasis and theoretical discussions, lingering in silence and hoping from time to time for something extraordinary to happen. Yet it might also have been a blessing; an opportunity to free ourselves from overarching narratives, to direct our attention to the individual, the local, and to subjects that have long been part of our own lives—a more agile, intuitive mindset.

The third issue of te magazine took shape in this context, and chose to confront experiences of “plight”—plight of the persecuted, of the artists, of the forgotten, and of those living with colonial legacies. How might we, as individuals, transmute plights in order to learn to live in this world? If each piece in this issue can be said to propose a mode of healing, the aim is not only about specific pathologies, but rather to recommend adjustments and defenses in moments of crisis. While writing on the plights of others, the authors also look inward for the roots of questions that they have long harbored about their own experiences. As introduced by Jacques Lacan, the theory of “the mirror stage” refers to children's initial awareness of their own existence. As adults, we continue to grapple with the process of self-discovery and understanding, at times feeling trapped deeply in the “mirror.”

This issue’s theme, Mirroring represents a continuous exploration of the self. On the one hand, these pieces document the processes of setbacks, negating, questioning and reconciling; on the other, delineate the self through the other, a process discernible in several jointly-authored pieces in this issue, where a special connection and sense of fellowship formed through dialogue, correspondence, and collaborative research. In Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse described how the protagonist's worldview was shaped through seeking and struggle, and we hear in it an echo of the inspiration behind this issue of te: “But now, his liberated eyes stayed on this side, he saw and became aware of the visible, sought to be at home in this world, did not search for the true essence, did not aim at a world beyond.” (Siddhartha by H. Hesse, translated by Hilda Rosner, Bantam Books,1971)

Contributors:  Guadalupe Maravilla, Lucía Hinojosa Gaxiola, Kader Attia, Gantala Press, Peng Jen-Yu, An Mengzhu, Chang Yuchen, Chris Zhongtian Yuan, Chu Yun, Chen Zhe, Lieko Shiga

Chile Chico et le quartier Versailles, c'est une exploration qui inventorie, interroge et révèle les mémoires invisibles en listes et en collections. Une mémoire qui ne soffre pas en bloc, qui résiste, se fragmente, se transforme. A travers cette archive collaborative, nous avons voulu capter ces va-et-vient ď'un passé qui dialogue avec le présent, des images qui oscillent entre Vintime et le collectif. 

Le point de départ de cette fabrique visuelle, c'est lexil des Chilien.nes, débarqué.es dans les années 70, qui se tissent une nouvelle vie sur le sol de Neder-Over-Heembeek, dans le quartier Versailles à Bruxelles. Ces trajectoires, arrachées à un ailleurs, s'ancrent dans des espaces rêvés comme de transit pour devenir des lieux d 'appartenance, où lexil se mue et les racines finissent par se déployer. A ces récits se greffent d'autres histoires, d'autres trajectoires. Un quartier comme un carrefour, ou les individualités se rencontrent, où les vies se croisent et s'allient.

‘One Shape of the Language: Cyrillic Archives’ is an artist’s book documenting Inna Kochkina’s research into the history, style, and politics of traditional Cyrillic.

This research was born from Kochkina’s self-reflective curiosity about the relationship between cultural heritage and typography and evolved into an examination of the socio-political role of traditional Cyrillic. An ancient script, Cyrillic has been used to express various forms of cultural and territorial domination and continues to serve as an imperialist tool, having long been deployed in support of Slavic nationalism both in Russia and in the former USSR territories. 

This publication is the result of Kochkina’s own research into and engagement with archives of typography, as well as conversations with anti-colonial activists, artists, and historians who interrogate traditional Cyrillic and its relationship to colonial power. 

Alongside conducting scholarly research, Kochkina also produced drawings in response to archives of traditional Cyrillic. Making these drawings constituted a form of “studying by making.” With these efforts she has sought to construct an anti-colonial feminist narrative, employing both typographic artifacts and ‘patriarchal’ letterforms.

To make her drawings, Kochkina took samples from these low quality typographic archives, enlarging and transforming them into unexpected graphic shapes that were then recorded in a series of experimental prints. The drawing, collating and contact printing process that she followed allowed her to document and reveal the qualities lent to historical artifacts by digital noise. Through this working method she sought to rethink both the subject of her work as well as traditional approaches to type design practice. This book presents the prints in a roughly chronological sequence, poetically portraying Kochkina’s complex relationship with her native script. Variously precise, messy, and destructive, these works ultimately convey a series of “imaginary” shapes through which to reinterpret traditional Cyrillic of the past and present.

New York-based professor Lytle Shaw journeys to Italy in this adventurous exploration of the life and work of architect, designer, and photographer Carlo Mollino (1905–1973). In 1933 the young Mollino received a commission from Mussolini’s regime for his first building: an administrative centre in Piedmont. Later works include furniture and interior design, a book on photography, and an asymmetrical car that raced at Le Mans in 1955.

The book centres around Shaw’s realisation that this prolific talent’s conflicted legacy offers a unique window on the role that post-war Italian politics and culture played in the country’s reimagining of itself as a victim, rather than a proponent, of fascism.