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.”