Close Encounters: Embodied Journeys

Close Encounters: Embodied Journeys Choreographic Exhibition curated by Julienne Doko

Artwork: Barly Tshibanda

June 6–10 2023

At Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art

Produced by Dansehallerne, and presented in collaboration with Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art

Close Encounters Embodied Journeys Welcome to the fifth edition of Close Encounters presented by Dansehallerne in collaboration with Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art. Close Encounters is a meeting between contemporary art and choreography. This edition, Embodied Journeys is curated by choreographer and dancer Julienne Doko.

Julienne Doko has put together a program with six new works by Danish-based pan-African/ Afro-European artists. They have been invited to produce works for this choreographic exhibition within dance, performance and installation art. The works examine their identity as one of the “others” in Denmark and give an expanded perspective on Danishness and decolonization. It is an investigative journey about belonging and the right to speak.

Experience works by Jeannette Ehlers, Jupiter J Child, Wanjiku Victoria Seest, Sall Lam Toro, Phyllis Akinyi and Julienne Doko.

In the choreographic exhibition, there will be a guided performance journey which premieres June 6. From June 7-10, the guided performance journey happens twice a day.

“The fifth edition of Close Encounters – a live exhibition bringing together visual and performance arts – is entitled Embodied Journeys, a multidisciplinary installation-as-invitation to audiences to journey with the artists. Indeed, Embodied Journeys aims to connect Nordic audiences and Black performance. In moving around and through the different installations, from room to room, from performing body to performing body, the public body will itself occupy the Embodied Journeys space. This multi-genre exhibition is an invitation to amble, pause, reflect, stroll, contemplate, and perhaps identify with the multiplicity of Black performance.

This invitation to journey encourages the public to remember the importance of traveling, of the encounter with the unknown, moreover of the imperative to “go towards the Other,” or “aller vers l’autre.”

For this project, a curatorial journey for me as well, I wanted specifically Denmark-based, PanAfrican, and Afropean art workers to amplify our distinct – and overlapping – voices, through contemporary art. Together, we each represent a wide array of the Afrodiasporic world, with roots ranging from The Central African Republic, Kenya, and Guinea Bissau, to Mozambique and Trinidad. I chose these particular artists for their unique way of employing art to affirm multilayered identities in Denmark: Wanjiku Victoria Seest breaks down the single story told about Africa by way of story sound, music, video and performance to suggest a humane alternative to the prevailing stereotypes. Jeannette Ehlers eulogizes sisterhood in a work where dance and visual arts meet to address the legacy of the Middle Passage in the loss of family connections; Jupiter Child unravels and knits history quite literally by engaging the audience

to unravel sweaters as a way to cultivate collective liberation practices and dismantle ‘colonial’ patterns; Phyllis Akinyi takes us on a flamenco journey that examines clichéd contradictions, freedom in the in-between, ‘invisiblized’ African flamenco roots, folkloric futurism, and an eternal struggle to claim space and oneself; and Sall Lam Toro reclaims the body as an archive in a multimedia performance installation piece that draws upon a love letter to black erotic consciousness. In my piece with Meire Santos, we explore the road to self-discovery in a boxing ring, facing off in a dance of Self-as-Other. Each guest artist’s work has been newly commissioned for this innovative installation.

Because Embodied Journeys is configured as a voyage, audiences will embark on and witness six separate yet interconnected performances of about ten minutes that all speak to each other in their pursuant reflections and artistic interventions . You will follow a trail of expressions and narratives that are told in a specific order, moving from one performance to the next in a predetermined time frame, through the rooms of Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art holding all six embodied performance installations. Without offering too much detail, as it is important to us as performers for the public-as-traveler to experience the surprise and delight of discovery, I can say you will hear some powerful oratory, see some carefully crafted movement and your senses will be activated. Embodied Journeys invites you to journey with us, to experience our artistic expression, to connect with it, to reflect upon what it means to you personally and perhaps, on what it means for us all.”

- Curator Julienne Doko

Sall Lam Toro Phyllis Akinyi

Julienne Doko

Jeannette Ehlers Jupiter J Child

Wanjiku Victoria Seest

Program June 6 17:00 — 18:15 18:30 — 22:00

Opening performance – a guided journey through six works Vernissage – open exhibition (without performers) Speech by curator Julienne Doko.

DJ MOF!YAH will be playing.

June 7 13:00 — 18:00 18:00 — 19:15 18:45 — 19:45 20:00 — 21:15

Open exhibition (without performers) Performance – a guided journey through six works Panel discussion - The predatory eye on the black body Performance – a guided journey through six works

June 8 – 9 13:00 — 18:00 18:00 — 19:15 19:15 — 20:00 20:00 — 21:15

Open exhibition (without performers) Performance – a guided journey through six works Open exhibition (without performers) Performance – a guided journey through six works

June 10 13:00 — 18:00 14:30 — 15:30 16:00 — 17:15 18:00 — 19:15

Open exhibition (without performers) Artist talk with artists from Embodied Journeys Performance – a guided journey through six works Performance – a guided journey through six works

Wanjiku Victoria Seets / Photo: Bryan Nyandwaro

Wanjiku Victoria Seest BLINKERED

A cross-disciplinary piece that invites you to listen, see and challenge your biases through an array of narratives. It breaks down the single story told about Africa. By way of story sound, music, video and performance it suggests a humane alternative to the prevailing stereotypes. ‘…never have I felt confronted by my identity as from the moment I set foot outside of my place of origin. I have felt words, stereotypes, prejudgments cling to my body without an immediate outlet.’

BLINKERED - a word that translates as having or showing a narrow or limited outlook (Oxford Languages) - takes on the narrative of the one story told about Africa and explores its effect on the African body. It bounces the words and experiences back into the consciousness of enmasse and breaking it down to the story of the individual.

Wanjiku Victoria Seest is an actor, writer, singer, digger and a passionate cultural and historical enthusiast, born and raised in Kenya.

She speaks five languages.

Wanjiku addresses the question of nationalism and digs into the historical context of human movements and migrations, the cultural aspects of traditions and the similarities between seemingly differed societies with these traditions as the glue.

Wanjiku is a founding member of ACT Denmark with productions including Merchant of Copenhagen, Enemy of the people and For Colored Girls, as well as an active member and board member (2020 – 2022) of the New Nordic Network, a network of performing arts organizations, groups and collectives based in Helsinki Finland.

Blinkered begs you to listen, see and question your preconceived notions when it comes to the portrayal of Africa in the media, versus the real stories on the ground. It invites you to open your imagination to the myriads of narratives and lived experiences found daily on a continent inhabited by over a billion people.

Blinkered, though inspired by Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk titled The Danger of a Single Story, is based on personal experiences with stereotyping and why these do not match our existence. ‘…the narrative has never matched my own upbringing and meeting it has forced me to confront and embrace my own identity.’

Idea and performer Wanjiku Victoria Seest Manuscript Wanjiku Victoria Seest, Gathoni wa Wairura Dramaturge Gathoni wa Wairura Director Delia Trice Music, sound design, Video Kibby the Freak, Brian Opendo Staging and scenography Delia Trice Costumes and props Wanjiku Victoria Seest, Gathoni wa Wairura

Jeanette Ehlers & S.W. / Photo: Casper Holmenlund Christensen

Jeannette Ehlers & S.W.

CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora

Jeannette Ehlers is a Copenhagen-based artist of Danish and Trinidadian descent whose practice takes shape experimentally across photography, video, installation, sculpture and performance. She graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2006.

My uncle once told me that my father would swim out to a small island from time to time. Often he would spend whole days, even nights out there, alone, surrounded by the Caribbean deep blue. What did he study in the waves, ripples and foam of the sea as it slowly ate away the shore? What caught his attention? Was it past cries swallowed by the sea? Or maybe future calls whispered on the horizon? What was he searching for out there?

Did he ever find it? ”Dear Jeannette, You don’t know me, but I believe we may be related. I think we share the same father. My name is S.W, and I am a dance choreographer. I discovered your artwork online and was immediately drawn to it.

Dear sister, wow! this is quite unexpected! What a fabulous surprise! For so long, I have been wondering how to find you, but I had no idea where to begin. I was aware of your existence, but I had no name or location to go on. I am overjoyed to finally be able to connect with you. I would love to get acquainted. How can we meet? “ Two sisters who had never met, and who lived on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, were able to connect through their mutual love of art. The sisters’ artistic pursuits allowed them to find common ground, enabling them to communicate through their art and express ideas and emotions that might have been difficult to convey otherwise.

Through artistic interpretation and taking turns in instructing one another, they were able to forge a meaningful bond.

Dance and visual arts form the basis of CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora.

The legacy of the Middle Passage includes the loss of family connections, as parents, children and siblings were torn apart and sold into slavery. This separation created a sense of loss and longing that has persisted for centuries.

Yet despite this, the bond of sisterhood has remained strong, as women have found ways to connect and support one another across time and space.

CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora uses the power of art to connect and is a bond between women that transcends time and distance. It is a connection that is strengthened by shared experiences, both joyful and painful.

Ehlers’ work often makes use of self-representation and image manipulation to bring about decolonial hauntings and disruptions. These manifestations attend to the material and affective afterlives of Denmark’s colonial impact in the Caribbean and participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade—realities that have all too often been rendered forgettable by dominant history-writing.

Ehlers insists on the possibility for empowerment and healing in her art, honoring legacies of resistance in the African diaspora. She merges the historical, the collective and the rebellious with the familial, the bodily and the poetic.

She has exhibited internationally and was shortlisted to create a national monument to The Windrush Generation at London Waterloo Station 2021 as well as for the decolonial monument in Braunschweig Germany 2022/2023. She is the co-creator of the public sculpture project I Am Queen Mary, 2018.

S.W, a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, is originally from the UK. She served as Chair of the jazz department at The Ailey School at the Joan Weill Center for Dance (NYC), and on faculty 1992 - 2021. She was a member of The Ailey School/ PPAS Dance Programme, and its Administrative Coordinator 1998-2000. Currently, she serves on the Advisory Board of DOTL (Montclair, NJ), Artistic Liaison for IPSOD (Orlando, FL.), and was selected by Academic Keys: Who’s Who In Fine Arts Higher Education (December 2017). In addition, is also included in “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers” editions 8-12. S.W was a Visiting Professor of Dance 2005-20022 at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where she taught Modern and Jazz Dance, while choreographing for dance concerts, H2 Dance Company and Strike Time Dance Theatre.

Incidentally, her choreographed works have been performed nationally and internationally by dance companies, theatre schools and universities.

Choreography S.W. Performer Jeannette Ehlers Sound Trevor Mathison (voice material from Zoom conversation between S.W. and Jeannette Ehlers) Videographers Sara Jordan, Christian Brems Hair Beilul Arefaine Concept Jeannette Ehlers Assistance Mai Takawira

Jupiter J Child

Jupiter J Child

UNRAVELLED: WHOSE LABOR IS IT TO DECONSTRUCT OPPRESSIVE STRUCTURES?

Unravelled is a performative process.

Through gathering collaborative efforts we reflect and experience the intrinsic labour involved in dismantling “colonial” patterns.

‘Inspired by Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1964), this process is a continuous journey that started with Unravelled I, performed at Heirloom center for Art & archive and followed by Unravelled II, performed at Bevaegelse i lille format festival.

Julia under the name Jupiter J Child is a versatile performance and visual artist. Born in Mozambique with a base in Copenhagen.

I draw inspiration from black / African history, my Makonde ancestry and the black arts movement. combining theatre, dance, song, spoken word, creative writing and storytelling.

I describe my art as decolonial practices, anti-colonial resistance, feminism, migration, black queerness and empowerment.

The performance asks for engagement and action from the visitors, collaborators and people involved in it’s making. Everyone is invited to practice some crucial movements for dismantling and liberation, starting by unstitching the installation in front of us.

Allyship, responsibility, power and labour are concepts in the core of this piece.

Unravelled is an immersive experience that challenges visitors, but not only them, to consider the impact of their actions in the fight for liberation.

Concept and performer Jupiter J Child Production and assistant Felis Dos Performer Abdul Dube Photo and promotion Jupiter Child and Felis Dos Video documentation Eva Berg

Phyllis Akinyi / Photo: Rooz Amad

Phyllis Akinyi FLAMENCURA

La locura y la cura. The madness and the cure. Supposed opposites, but for dancer and choreographer Phyllis Akinyi, flamenco contains precisely both, and her fascination of this phenomenon made her embark on a journey into the realm of flamenco, a journey that so far has lasted two decades.

Two decades of madness - from initial flamenco steps in Nørrebro to dusty and vibrant studios in Madrid, from anthropological flamenco fieldwork in Seville to durational spiritual experiments in an old warehouse in Brooklyn, and back again - and with an everlasting search for the cure, buried in the space in-between, in the meeting point of juxtapositions, where time, place and ego disappear, and the dimensions of the soul take over.

Flamencura is an installation and performance that challenges flamenco clichés; a vulnerable and personal exploration of contradictions and in-betweens, isolation and community, of overlooked voices and class struggle, of inherited intergenerational memory, frustrating invisibility, folkloric futurism, and a daring to take space. But most of all, Flamencura is a declaration of love, a multidimensional archive, and a space in which the past, present and future dance together.

Phyllis Akinyi (she/her) is a Danish-Kenyan dancer, choreographer, performance artist, and dance researcher based between Madrid and Copenhagen. She works within the realm of flamenco and has spent many years researching and highlighting its African and diasporic expressions. Her artistic practice centers a continuous investigation of the ‘betwixt and between’ - researching entanglements of movement, culture, and identity, from an anthropological lens of bodies caught in cultural ‘in-betweens’.

Akinyi plays with stretching the (imagined) limitations of flamenco, both in time, space, sound and movement, often taking flamenco on a journey away from the traditional stage and into a site-specific and/or durational performance frame - a frame she calls Spatial Listening, where flamenco meets performance art, Africanist Spirituality, and sonic movement.

Her unique approach to flamenco has made her a sought after artist, collaborator, teacher and thinker on both sides of the Atlantic, and she most recently found herself humbled by a feature on her work in Dance Magazine (US), written by legendary dance scholar Dr. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild.

Concept and performance Phyllis Akinyi Video installation Anderson Matthew and Phyllis Akinyi Residency Espacio Afro, Madrid A special thank you to the Danish flamenco community for lending me shoes.

Sall Lam Toro / Photo: Sall Lam Toro

Sall Lam Toro

OBSIDIAN DREAM LOVE LETTERS

A multimedia live performance installation piece that unfolds an everyday performative practice of black queer erotic consciousness through rituals, phantasmagoria, and archiving as embodied care practices within body and nature.

2 sculptures of obsidian raw stone companions act as the primary living subject of an autoerotic desire and contemplation throughout the performance. The sculptures are further combined in an installation with animated objects and poetic visuals on film regarding ghostly presences, rebirths of self, and caring bodily interviews conducted in the heart of Dakar, Senegal.

The performance reiterates these elements within movement scores interpreting the symbol of 8, or also called infinity sign, associated with divine power, death and rebirth. The performers draw this symbol in their movements repeatedly, backwards, attempting to trigger echoes of remembrance, active mourning and (re)birth within atemporal, multidimensional timelines.

The work schemes connections between altered forms of fugitivity, the shapeshifter body, and nature enacting spaces in which “separability becomes dissolved” (Da Silva, Denise) in non-linear time and imagination is called upon as a love gesture guiding us into remembrance.

Sall Lam Toro (they/them/hir)) (1990, PT) is an antidisciplinary multimedia performance artist andorganizer based in Copenhagen, Denmark, working with the mediums of performance, dance,sound, textual and visual art. Their work relates to producing and claiming the erotic as a way into decolonizing body(ies) while finding strategies to create more accessibility to multiple universes of the sensual. Their pieces strive to break or overcome the consequences of coloniality-based violence and oppression through rituals, economies of care and the senses and establishing intentional relationships with grief and death. They have been accepted into the MA Performing Arts: Critical approaches at the Malmo Theatre Academy at Lund University starting in 2023.

Their work has been experienced/shown at Kunsthal Nord, Click Festival, Åben Dans, ArtHubCopenhagen, Gammel Strand Kunstmuseum, and Danshallerne’s Kora program, and their writing pieces have been published as part of ABHIVYAKTI magazine and the Forum for Kunsthistorisk Debat Journal Periskop, 25th edition: “Sorted”. www.sallamtoro.com

Creation, co-choreography, artistic direction, script writing, performance Sall Lam Toro Script writing, performance, co-choreography, assistance Suzie the Cockroach Animation, original soundtrack composition and production, assistance Warren Jones Videography, pov, narrative Keiria Hissabu Light and visuals design Will Zawistowski Costume design Serena Coelho 3D animation and promotion visuals Janice Prempeh

Julienne Doko / Photo: Ave Maria Nielsen

Julienne Doko CORPS ACCORDS

We walk alone in the world, carrying our inheritance in our genes and our life experience. Sometimes in harmony with, and sometimes opposed to the Other.

CORPS ACCORDS explores cycles of confrontation and synergy between the self and the other on the journey towards reconciliation of identities.

The piece was inspired by the story of Saartje Baartman, a young South African woman who was brought to Europe at the beginning of the 19th century and exploited there as a piece of exotic erotica. Her story has led me to question the knowledge embedded in our physical body and in our ancestry.

How have centuries of objectification of the female body, particularly black women’s body, throughout Western culture influenced interpretations of the black female body today? What is the interplay between spirit, mind and body and how do these aspects of self, speak to each other in movement?

Sometimes taking the appearance of a deadly fight, other times a playful interaction, CORPS ACCORDS stages the search for harmony between one’s body and environment by letting the body define itself as the mind listens and accepts with humility the inheritance of the flesh and spirit.

Julienne Doko (FR/CAR/DK) is a French dance performer, teacher and choreographer with roots in the Central African Republic, based and living in Denmark. In her dance practice, Julienne explores connections between different dance styles and uses contemporary dance as a space of hybridisation, a vehicle for synergy between dance techniques and expressions. Her movement and dramaturgical line take inspiration from her homelands and the journeys she has taken in between. Julienne has performed internationally with a number of companies, in festivals, TV shows and musicals.

Choreography Julienne Doko Dancers Meire Santos & Julienne Doko Drummer and music Simin Stine Ramezanali Composer Jackie Gallant Video installation recordings Julie Malmstrøm Video installation edit and soundscape Julienne Doko

Panel discussion and artist talk On top of the choreographic exhibition we invite you to two additional events related to Embodied Journeys.

June 7th June 10th

Panel discussion The predatory eye on the black body Artist talk with all involved artists in Embodied Journeys

June 7th 18:45 – 19:45 in Café Pegasus (downstairs) free entrance

The predatory eye on the black body

Panel discussion For centuries on end the black body has been objectified scrutinized, categorized, and both poetized and belittled.

From the age of colonization, this outer gaze, or predatory eye, of the Western society has carved dehumanizing and degrading narratives into the minds of its citizens. And to this day, the physical attributes of blackness are something many people still feel entitled to comment on, to evaluate, dismantle – and even to touch unconsensually. This external view has not only tainted the perspectives of the European descendants but also affected black people’s internal notion of self.

Supporting the premise of the Embodied Journeys exhibition, the panel will address and dissect this schism of the outer and the inner views of a black person’s body.

The panel presents a strong line-up of influential and visionary people of color: Julienne Doko. Dancer, performer, teacher, and choreographer.

Curator of this year’s Close Encounters program Embodied Journeys.

Jeannette Ehlers. Artist and chairperson. Exhibiting the piece CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora Wanjiku Victoria Seest. Performing artist. Showcase her work Blinkered at Embodied Journeys.

Thandi Dyani. Change-maker and equal rights advocate.

Aida Sowe. Impact entrepreneur and model.

Crossing Borders representative: Oda-Kange Diallo, Scholar and anthropologist. Oda-Kange will moderate the panel discussion.

June 10th 14:30 – 15:30 In the exhibition space

Artist talk

Meet artists from Embodied Journeys

Julienne Doko. Dancer, performer, teacher, and choreographer.

Curator of this year’s Close Encounters program Embodied Journeys.

Jeannette Ehlers. Artist and chairperson. Exhibiting the piece CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora Wanjiku Victoria Seest. Performing artist. Showcasing her work Blinkered at Embodied Journeys.

Phyllis Akinyi. Dancer, choreographer, performance artist, and dance researcher. Showcasings her work FLAMENCURA. Jupiter J Child. Versatile performance and visual artist.

Showcasing her work UNRAVELLED: Whose labor is it to deconstruct oppressive structures?

Nina Cramer. Ph.d.-fellow at The Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, will moderate the artist talk.

The artist talk presents the following:

A unique choreographic exhibition Dansehallerne and Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art have collaborated around the creation of the recurrent program Close Encounters since 2018.

Close Encounters is a unique choreographic exhibition that unites visual art, dance and performance. For each issue of Close Encounters, Dansehallerne presents a new angle on the fruitful relationship between contemporary art and choreography.

Today, choreographers are increasingly invited into the platforms of museums and galleries because the boundary between choreography and visual art has never been more fluid.

Dansehallerne is a national center for dance and choreography.

Dansehallerne focuses on presenting and co-producing Danish and international productions for all ages. Dansehallerne both contributes with and distributes knowledge about dance and choreography as art forms. Dansehallerne supports a sustainable and strong field of dance everywhere in Denmark. Dansehallerne supports Danish and international productions and works to increase both the range and audience attendance of the productions. As a national center, an international junction, and a local meeting point, Dansehallerne serves to create the best possible conditions for artistic production and the audience. Dansehallerne.dk

Close Encounters Embodied Journeys Produced by Dansehallerne, and presented in close collaboration with Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art June 6-10 2023 PEGASUS - The cafe at Den Frie (downstairs) will be open during Close Encounters from 12PM until half an hour after the last performance journey.

Curator Julienne Doko Curator consultant Awa Konaté Director of Dansehallerne Danjel Andersson Acting Director of Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art Iben Bach Elmstrøm Producer Anne Mai Slot Vilmann Co-producers Sofie Pedersen, Anne Mette Berg Sound Engineer Johannes Hornberger Technical Coordinator Nils Engelbrecht Technical crew Mogens Kjempff, Brian Cord’homme, Madeleine Lind Hoppe, Per Lydersen Graphic design Steinunn Thorsteinsdottir Communication Coordinator Sarah Diallo Bregnhardt Close Encounters Embodied Journeys is supported by

Close Encounters: Embodied Journeys

Wanjiku Victoria Seest BLINKERED

Jeannette Ehlers & S.W.

CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora

Jupiter J Child

UNRAVELLED: WHOSE LABOR IS IT TO DECONSTRUCT OPPRESSIVE STRUCTURES?

Phyllis Akinyi FLAMENCURA

Sall Lam Toro

OBSIDIAN DREAM LOVE LETTERS

Julienne Doko CORPS ACCORDS

Choreographic Exhibition curated by Julienne Doko

Dansehallerne 2023