Moving from brief presentations into a dialogue with everyone in the room, three perspectives are singled out: the non-fascist body in contemporary dance; choreographic tools and dance skills moving from studio experimentation into political action; and the antifascist lessons of bodies targeted by contemporary fascism.
• Introduction by Bojana Cvejić
What do we expect from antifascism today in the face of the contemporary rise of fascism? Can it live through the stubbornness of artistic and activist practices dispersed across societies that are slowly being transformed by new authoritarian and militarist governments? Or must we renew our understanding of antifascism as a political ideology capable of both unifying an ethos and coordinating political action across dance and activism? How might the know-how of choreography, performance, and activism—through collaboration, self-organized communities, and allyship—move us toward antifascist “world-making,” through the gestures of bodies, the force of collective action, and the everyday practices of resistance?
Bojana Cvejić is author of several books, notably Choreographing Problems (2015), Toward a Transindividual Self (co-written with Ana Vujanović 2022) and Dramaturgy at Work (forthcoming). As a practicing dramaturg, she has co-created numerous performances and collectively self-organized platforms for artistic production, critical theory, and education in Europe and the former Yugoslavia.
• How is fascism inscribed in, or resisted by, bodies across the longue durée of twentieth-century Portugal?
“This is the greatest achievement of the 25th of April: the freedom with which these young men and women are moving. We had fascist bodies.”
How does Portuguese New Dance of the 1990s engage freedom as a performed practice, enacted through everyday gestures? How does it expose, through gesture, the embodied practices of consumer society and colonialism? Is freedom a constellation of practices — learned, repeated, and embodied? What might constitute a non-fascist body, and how does this intersect with democratic practice?
This presentation is part of the historical and artistic research project Para Uma Timeline a Haver – genealogies of dance as artistic practice in Portugal (2016–ongoing), in which Ana Bigotte Vieira and João dos Santos Martins explore the emergence of "Portuguese New Dance" against the background of coloniality, Europe’s longest dictatorship, an intense revolutionary interval, and the 'normalization' under the European model of democracy.
Ana Bigotte Vieira (Lisbon, 1980) is a historian, cultural critic, dramaturg and curator. Her research focuses on experimentalism in the arts and its intersections with cultural and urban transformations. She is currently an associated researcher of RESONANCE Epistemologies of Documenting Forms of Affect and Becoming in Cultural Performance (1969–1979) and PERCUR Performance and Curatorship: Transformations of Curatorial, Collecting, and Spectatorial Practices from a Comparative Perspective: Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and Argentina, 2003–2028.
João dos Santos Martins (Santarém, 1989) is an artist whose work spans multiple forms within dance, exploring formats such as choreography, exhibition, and publishing. He studied at E.S.D. (Lisbon), P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), and e.x.er.c.e (Montpellier). His practice values collaborative and cooperative modes of working, engaged with questions of transmission, language, and labor. He has performed works by Eszter Salamon, Xavier Le Roy, Moriah Evans, Boris Charmatz, Jérôme Bel, Ana Rita Teodoro, among others. In 2019, he founded the publication Coreia, devoted to artists’ writings. He also engages in curatorial work on an occasional basis.
• Scores of protest
What is the relationship between protest, dance, and choreography when observed through the lens of scores? How are activist scores learned and rehearsed in comparison to artistic choreographic practices? The research departs from an interest in the scores of protest and direct action by the climate justice movement in Germany and Europe of the last years, while also acknowledging the growing urgency for antifascist mobilisation. This presentation will lay out the context and scope for this research that also draws on Benjamin Pohlig's doctoral research project, in which he conducts interviews, mappings, and field studies, as well as experiments that confront protest scores and artistic scores.
Benjamin Pohlig is a choreographer, dancer and researcher originally from Berlin. He studied contemporary dance both in England and Belgium. In his choreographic work, he explores the theatre as agora, a place in which social and political behaviours are not only practised, but are also experienced physically. This concept appears across his works, including the participatory solo "dance yourself clean", and his collaborations "5 seasons" and "A Farewell to Flesh". As a dancer, he has worked internationally with amongst others Martin Nachbar and Isabelle Schad. From 2019 to 2022 was he an ensemble member of Cullberg. As a researcher he continues to investigate both the concept of social choreography and how to speak about climate change through dance.
• “Labanotation is a very bad system”
This lecture performance builds on Levy and Rørvik’s project “Labanotation is a Bad System” (August 2024). Addressing the decontextualized and apolitical manner in which Labanotation has been utilized and promoted, Levy and Rørvik examine the image-laundering of Rudolf Laban’s collaboration with the Nazis and its implications for dance studies. What can we learn from such a strategy and how does it relate to the ways dance is being used to disguise fascism in the present moment? They examine the politics of false neutrality in relation to how Gaga and the Batsheva Company operate on behalf of contemporary Israel.
In an affirmative breakthrough, Levy and Rørvik observe how dance artists are repurposing their skills from the studio into political movements today. They propose ways in which choreographers and dancers can engage in direct action. How do we recognize the politics of our practices? What steps can we take away from disclaiming, hesitation and individualism? As artists, and as people, we have work to do!
Sunniva Moen Rørvik is a choreographer, dancer and drag artist from Namsos, currently working in Oslo. Their choreographic work explores queerness in Norwegian pop-culture and looks at the movement potential for dyke camp. They have a BA (Hons) in contemporary dance from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, and an MA in choreography from KHiO.
Miriam Levy (they/them) is a queer artist working with dance and poetry. Their work explores the relationship between personal and political, with a focus on care, community and rage. Their writing is published by t’ART Magazine and Arcana Poetry Press.
• How much ableism and fascism?
How can anti-ableist principles be integrated into anti-fascist struggle to create inclusive visions of freedom and justice? How can oppression be resisted by shaping artistic and social practices through accessibility, care, and lived experience?
This presentation is part of Asentić’s artistic practice, grounded in an accessibility-centered approach and solidarity with disabled communities navigating ableist regimes in contemporary artistic and cultural production. Drawing on on examples from Yugoslav partisan songs, anti-fascist music, and the enactment of historical memory and solidarity, Asentić explores how disability-centered perspectives reframe traditional understandings of resistance—including the anti-fascist struggle.
Saša Asentić is a choreographer, researcher, and cultural worker born in former Yugoslavia into a working-class family. During the war in Bosnia, as an anti-militarist, he illegally escaped and found refuge in Serbia, where he began working in the independent scene in the mid-1990s. Since 2007, his artistic work has been showcased at major venues and festivals in Berlin, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Vienna, Tehran, Athens, Moscow, and other cities. His artistic practice focuses on solidarity and resistance against cultural oppression and indoctrination. He is the founder of Per.Art, an organization that has been gathering disabled and non-disabled artists since 1999 to challenge and counter ableism in dance. He lives in Oslo and works as a researcher at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
About:
This initiative emerges from Bojana Cvejić’s research Choreographing Antifascism at Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo (conducted in collaboration with Dora García, Benjamin Pohlig, and Goran Sergej Pristaš), extending the conversation to a broader, more widely concerned public.
Bojana Cvejić is author of several books, notably Choreographing Problems (2015), Toward a Transindividual Self (co-written with Ana Vujanović 2022) and Dramaturgy at Work (forthcoming). As a practicing dramaturg, she has co-created numerous performances and collectively self-organized platforms for artistic production, critical theory, and education in Europe and the former Yugoslavia.