Performing Gender – Dancing in your shoes is a three year audience development project in which Boulevard, together with DansBrabant and six European organisations, takes part. De aim of the project is building a relationship in which the dance maker and non-professional dancer get to know each other and each other’s wishes through dance and movement. This aim is the basis for the path towards Boulevard 2023 in which the community works towards a performance/art project about their own stories.  

During this project, a group of Den Bosch citizens with a background in Dutch East Indies and Moluccas regularly meet together with choreographer Jija Sohn to give workshops to the goup.  

 

Residencies 

Two guest choreographers visited Den Bosch and Tilburg to give workshops to both groups. First, Spanish choreographer, dancer, and dance teacher Javier Vaquero worked with the groups. Since 2018, Javier is closely involved with LGBTQIA+ activism with a special focus on the relationship between body and performativity. She worked with the Bossche and Tilburgse communities around the themes identity and gender but also challenged to reach further in regards to empathy and portraying memories.   

In December it was Slovenian choreographer Vita Osojnik her turn for a similar exchange. Awareness was an important ingredient for the workshops: awareness of the self, each other, and space combined with alertness and responsiveness. The participants were introduced to maginary samurai swords, fictional balls that change in form, temperature, size or weight and invisible secrets. They were challenged to play and to reflect on their leadership.  

The particpants agreed that the workshops gave them a lot of energy. They learned to be aware of each other, pay attention to each other, take space, use their voice, to give space to another, and to live as a community.

Visit of a film crew 

In the beginning of March, Boulevard was visited by a Portuguese film crew to film the project. De Bossche community and choreographer Jija Sohn welcomed the crew with open arms and even welcomed them at their house. A small group visited the HONI monument that was erected in memory of all victims of the Japanese occupation and the Bersiap in the former Dutch East Indies.  

The film is being commissioned by British Council, one of the partners in the European project. Five films will be made from the footage, with which the organisation aims to capture emotions and messages from the story of Dancing in your shoes and share them with policy influencers at local and European level, among others. Think politicians, subsidisers and NGOs in the social and artistic domain.   

The films are used to visualise the power of mixing art and the social domain. The films not only document the project, but also tell what value and qualities are involved.  

 

Community visit Marseille 

Besides our own project, projects of other European partners are visited. On 16 March, Coralie den Adel, the project’s audience developer, visited the performance made by the community in Marseille. For two seasons, artists Anne Rehbinder (writer) and Arthur Perole, in the company of dancer Luc Bénard, set the group of participants, consisting of amateur and semi-professional dancers, in motion through workshops. The community, consisting of 31 people, created a beautifully sensitive performance about love and caring for each other. 

Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
http://www.performinggender.eu/ 

Credits:
Photo header: Karin Jonkers
Photo 1: Simone Michielsen