Research Catalogue

This is an exposition in progress. Starting in the 2021/22 season, the professorship Artistic Connective Practices organises and curates a series of encounters with practitioners, the research team of the professorship and audience, in order to explore the notion of Artistic Connective Practices.

Anansi’s Web- Entanglements without Tripping, a Ph.D. research fellow project led by Thomas Talawa Prestø, delves into the intricate weaving of African Diaspora practices and praxis. This exploration uses several conceptual tools to examine how performance can catalyze personal, social, and communal transformation. At its core is ChoreoNommo, a praxis grounded in the African concept of Nommo, which emphasizes the power of words and gestures to create tangible change. ChoreoWanga addresses the architectural and structural aspects of performances, focusing on how these elements can hold and transmit transformative energy (Ashé). PerformancePwen focuses on the energetic effects performances have on communities, highlighting the reciprocal relationship between performer and audience. The Talawa Technique™emphasizes a holistic and culturally rooted approach to dance, and Committography underscores the importance of strategic involvement in arts organizations and policy-making bodies to influence systemic change. The project culminates in two major works: Jazz Ain’t Nothing, an interdisciplinary dance performance incorporating song, dance, music, and visual elements, and That Voudou That We Do, a performative lecture. Both works are accompanied by the Cognoscape, a new writing methodology developed by Prestø. The Cognoscape provides a non-chronological onboarding into the artist’s knowledge scape, offering insights into the artist's praxis, beliefs, and reflections. It serves as a self-referential tool that captures the culmination of practice and experience, focusing on how knowledge manifests rather than attributing ownership to an individual author

"Metamorphoses - The performance of process" is an exposition of choreographic objects. Operating in the realms of drawing, photography, and video, these objects each address a poetics of transformation. The collections expose the simple materiality of change; the wind scattering paper pieces - or being transformed into sound by the paper walls of an accordion. ::: Contextual note: Metamorphoses is the first cycle of the choreographic project Love, polyphonic. The Metamorphoses Cycle consists of four parts: 1. The Performance of Process 2. Performance object 3. International performance workshop tour 4. Choreographic Toolbox #1: Metamorphoses (publication) The project Love, polyphonic extends over six years. The work approaches movement, sound, geometry and language through the concept of "love" as a prism. A force that can only be recognized indirectly. A tool for listening to the world; polyphonic. The series "The Performance of process", which was shared on the Instagram account love_polyphonic and Black Box teater's websites through the spring of 2021, invites us into the process of Metamorphoses. The performance object that premiered at Black Box Teater September 18th 2021 was a collaboration with cellist and composer Lene Grenager and dancer Cecilie Lindeman Steen. The performance was presented in collaboration with Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival. The collaborators for the international performance workshop tour was MAD, Firenze (IT), La Regarde du Cygnet, Paris (FR) and Dansekapellet, København (DK). The Choreographic Toolbox #1: Metamorphoses (publication) was launched at Norma T in collaboration with Mette Edvardsen on March 7th 2023, and is distributed nationally and internationally by Tekstallemenningen. ::: Janne-Camilla Lyster (b. 1981) is a Norwegian choreographer, writer and performer. She gained her artistic PhD with the project «Choreographic poetry: Creating literary scores for dance», and has a particular interest in pre-figurative practices, including scores, experimental notation and notation systems for movement. She has published a number of poetry collections as well as novels, plays, essays and performance scores.

In this exposition, Falk Hübner and Heleen de Hoon share the process and reflections of their collaborative research project "Running Tilburg". In this project, Falk aimed to connect to an urban surrounding by means of long distance running. In September 2021, Falk Hübner started his work as professor of Artistic Connective Practices at Fontys Academy of the Arts in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Together with dramaturge Heleen de Hoon, he decided to get to know and connect to the city and the new surroundings by running it, and explore running as a connective practice - literally through spending time with feet on the ground. Heleen and Falk asked a group of colleagues, all living in the city, to share places to run by, and related stories to these places. Guided by these stories Falk and Heleen created a map and a script for a 53K run, documented by video, photos and field notes. Rather than presenting conclusive findings and final reflections, the purpose of this exposition is to share the documentation of the process and the experience. Thus, we understand the project and this exposition quite literally as a first step to lead to potentially next and new steps.

This project investigates Western musical instruments as being critical and even dangerous sites, which should be approached with the greatest of caution. Approached as liminal interfaces between the living and the dead, suspended between past(s) and present(s), turning these instruments into both paranormal and parasitic sites, which should be treated as such. Instruments as pathological contaminated bodies of parasitic discourse ready to jump at you and embed themselves in you, sedimenting within you and, subsequently, playing you. Instruments as haunted sites saturated with ghostlike matters of toxoplasmatic ectoplasm, fostering ghosts with the capacity to possess and inflict pain on to other bodies, active in the past as well in the present. With an interest in the notion of instrumentalization and what instruments can mean, control, and do to bodies, instruments are approached from a safe(r) distance through different (group) interventions, raising questions on how best to emolliate and soften the instrumental body? How to soften the big silent? How to soften the sedimented?

In my artistic research project, I embarked on an exploration of the continuum between the roles of a music producer as both facilitator and initiator. Through in-depth engagement with real-world scenarios in professional music production, I examined the dynamics and nuances of how these roles negotiate, intersect, and shape the final artistic outcomes. This investigation not only unveils the intricate processes that underpin music creation but also highlights the implications these negotiations have on the resulting works of art. The findings shed light on the subtle artistry embedded in production decisions and offer a fresh perspective on the evolving landscape of music production.