Ella is a Masters Student at The Home of Performance Practices, ArtEZ, The Netherlands.
Her current artistic research is entitled “The Hospitality of Surrender; Redefining Agency in Dance Practice”. It looks at what else surrender is beyond the common understanding of “letting go” or “giving up” and in what ways we can invite the sharing of the state of surrender with spectators.
This page hosts assignments and work undertaken during this research period.
CURRENT
ARCHIVE OF PRACTICE
Research Tool Box - https://researchtoolbox.hotglue.me
PROTOTYPE SHOW (Nov 2020)
OT301 RESIDENCY SHARING (Mar 2021)
Photos by: Irina Baldini @ OT301
BLIND//FOLD & SURRENDER (2020)
Image Credits: Property of Home of Performance Practices, ArtEZ. Photos by: Fenia Kotsopoulou & Daz Disley
BODIES IN DISSENT ESSAY - click to read
This essay asks how hospitable spaces can be created for surrendering to happen within performance, and how this can create meaningful encounters for both audience and performer. The essay takes my performance work entitled Surrender (2020), made during the module Bodies in Dissent, on the ArtEz Master Theatre Practice program. Surrender was made in a workshop process with live artists VestAndPage as part of my artistic research into the act of surrendering. This essay will take aporia and failure as methods to open up a space for audience interaction. Throughout the essay I will refer to Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1964) to expand the conversation, evidencing the hospitality that is created through her employment of surrender.
DARK FESTIVAL (October 2020)
Curation Module
https://darkfestival.hotglue.me
WHY*
Because this festival happens under the condition of darkness
Because darkness is a parameter not a concept
Because of what is not yet known
Because of what is not yet noticed
Because of what remains
Because of what emerges
Because the collective experience
Because light might be a habit
Because you don’t really see but you are really doing something else
Because instead you smell, touch, sense, hear, imagine, remember, misinterpret
Because it can never be totally dark anyway
Because we are also praising risk
Because otherwise what
Because you might see the negative
Because you might see more
Because it’s already challenging to do a festival so let’s do it even more challenging
Because we could still be together
Because we can care without controlling
Because we can fail to care and end up controlling
Because we want to see what emerges when the lights go out
Because we want to see how you perform when the lights go out
Because we want to know what you think when the lights go out
Because the night
Because the consciousness
Because the collectivity
Because the context
Because 2020
Because what if
Because I used to be afraid of the dark
Because I still leave the light on sometimes
Because I want to stop
Because of wondering
Because of discovering
Because of questioning
Because are lights always necessary
Because when you don’t see you still see
Because not seeing is not an option
Because we are all in the same boat
Because you can’t just take part and leave
Because it’s not like the airplane but kind of similar
Because it also moves a group from one place to the other
Because you are an individual
Because you don’t need to be only that
Because surrendering
Because unfiltering
Because archiving
Because internalizing
*This manifesto is inspired by ‘’Why’’ by Bob Flanagan, written in 1985.
