Performance

Performance as Somatic Research

Percepçao - Perceptual Stations 360°

Percepçao – Perceptual Stations is part of the somatic research material for a dissertation on the body-soma and the heterotopias formed in performance with it. The research uses Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s BMC® studies as a source of scientific and methodological insights. The dancer, movement researcher, and stage artist Yahsmine Lamar is developing this research during her Master’s studies in Communication Arts and Culture at the University of Minho, Portugal.

A Look Around

What if we had a “place Other” that offered us a space for limitless observation? Not direct scientific, political, or even civic observation, but a heterotopia for the observation of the senses, a guided perceptual heterotopia. Where feeling and action are not seen separately but are, at the same time, co-authors of the scene and history of the observing and experiencing body. A commitment to the embodied cognitive body.

I invite you to engage with your body in this poetically cellular-guided observation and experience the potential of the human-environment system in its perceptive and homeostatic capacities. A journey through the states of mind and body in a performative space.

Percepçao .analog. - Percepçao 

PERCEPÇAO 3.0 BRASIL

Curitiba – Ponto de Fuga – 16h às 20h INSTALAÇAO-PERFORMANCE : „Percepçao 3.0 Brasil“ IMP.UM.BATTON

PERCEPÇÃO 3.0 

Curitiba – Ponto de Fuga – 16:00 to 20:00

INSTALLATION-PERFORMANCE: “Perception 3.0” IMP.UM.BATTON

Three dance research groups from Curitiba – Batton, IMP, and UM – along with the talented musician Marcelo Oliveira, will come together for a unique Guided Experience conceived by choreographer-dancer Yahsmine Maçaira.

This three-and-a-half-hour Guided Experience at the Ponto de Fuga Gallery invites participants to explore the body in space, the body in motion, the body within itself, the neutral body, the body with another body, and the body as observed. The focus will be on highlighting the co-influence between these relational extremes.

With different spaces and diverse bodies influenced by varied histories, the experience will prompt questions such as: What do these bodies perceive as they move? How do they move as they perceive?

Spectators will be encouraged to become co-authors, active and passive participants in the actions unfolding in this shared time and space.

The performance will express the latent shout of work shaped by somatic perception. How much can we uncover when we pay attention to the infinite and continuous exchange with the present moment?

Here, you can trace the various pathways this performance-as-research journey has taken over the years, culminating in a master’s thesis on perceptual heterotopias and the dialogue between body, mind, and space at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Minho in Portugal.

I would also like to share some of the numerous materials that have emerged from this dialogue, such as discussions on the functioning of a utopian anatomy (available in audio/podcast format), reflections, and exchanges with bodies and minds that have experienced performance as research alongside me. Additionally, films have been developed based on the experiences born from the mind that arises out of this space.

As can be observed, these ideas have been embraced in various places, by different bodies, cultures, and minds, all engaging with the concept of Perception. This has resulted in a rich diversity and plurality of forms and compositions surrounding the core idea, while still unifying them under a common purpose: to foster self-awareness, self-perception, and to enliven empathy between beings and spaces.

Below, I provide a brief description of the encounter in Brazil with three somatic movement research groups. UM and  Batom led by Professor Rosemeri Rocha of UNESPAR (Faculty of Arts of Paraná), and another is PIP, directed by my dear friend, artist, movement and performance researcher, Juliana Adur.

Colaborative Performances 

These performances emerge from creative collaborations with artists from various disciplines beyond dance. For example, Thomas Neumayer invited a performance within his exhibition on the Right Angle in the Nature at the Museum of Concrete Art in Ingolstadt (a video of the performance here). Another collaboration involved Qian Geng, an artist specialising in BodyArt and traditional Chinese calligraphy. Additionally, there was a partnership with Hubert Klozeck, a photographer and curator for the Kunstverein Ingolstadt, among many others.