Dance & Resistance, Endangered Human Movements Vol. 2

Milamala, Danza de la pluma, Rey Colorado and Sakkudei: Traditional dances from all five continents, according to choreographer Amanda Piña, function as a knowledge depository on people, environment and relationships, reaching far beyond language. In “Dance & Resistance”, her work is dedicated to dances from all around the world, dances that were anthropologically classified as “ritualistic” during the last century, ethnographically documented in studies and prohibited during colonisation, persecuted or forced into other forms to the point of unrecognisable change. 

Amanda Piña collaborates with her audience on bringing those dances into the present: Through movement, the bodies recharge knowledge and resistance potential that was inherent in those dances and almost lost through exploitation of nature and humans alike. So, it becomes a rediscovery of skills that mark living with and in our environment. In this, the work explores the body’s potential resistance in the context of neo-liberal economics and an increasing privatisation of natural resources. Visual artist and film-maker Daniel Zimmermann created a dedicated space in constant transformation that grants an intimate performance experience despite global questions. 

“Endangered Human Movements” is a long-term research project and performance series all in one: Amanda Piña and Daniel Zimmermann, under the umbrella of their label nadaproductions, have been working on this project continuously, with different co-operation partners, since 2014. In different formations, they delve into reconstruction, recontextualisation and re-interpretation of movement as a form of cultural resistance. 

Duration: 70 min.