OPEN CALL: Kem School 2022
We’re excited to launch the Open Call for Kem School 2022 – the second edition of a collective study programme taking place in Warsaw.
This year’s 8-week programme is devised to develop the participants’ individual and collaborative modes of working through performative action, experiments and queer-feminist methodologies. Kem School will provide the space for collective research and work, and a series of mentoring sessions, workshops, seminars and meetings in a variety of formats. The aim of the programme will be to facilitate the development of individual and collective practices in a caring, transdisciplinary environment. The participants will be invited to engage in developing methods of collective, critical and embodied knowledge production.
This year’s Kem School programme will consist of two complementary and mutually nourishing parts: How to touch movement? and Choreographies of Alliance. Kem School participants will take part in both strands of the programme.
How to touch movement?
The first part of Kem School 2022 will invite the participants to collectively develop performative and choreographic tools which will help situate artistic research and practice in forms of embodied knowledge in relation to current socio-political conditions. We will be working with the concept of worldmaking, which articulates a sense that many worlds exist simultaneously, each a continually rehearsed version of a shared reality. Worldmaking conveys that there are ways of imagining, building and inhabiting other worlds.
Choreographies of Alliance
The second part is a series of meetings with artists and activist groups that draw from queer-feminist practices, and whose encounters can result in the development and rehearsal of reparative strategies against oppressive, patriarchal, heteronormative, racist systems of power.
We understand the term ‘choreography’ not solely in relation to the practice of dance, but as a way of manifesting relations between intimacy, body materialities, sensations, society, and environment. Choreography is also a conscious engagement with movement as marked by regimes of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. Using choreographic tools, we would like Kem School to be a platform for rehearsing methods of politically conscious attention, non-normative bodily grammars, and collective responsibility.
Kem School actively acknowledges the ongoing systemic violence against minoritised and racialised bodies and communities. Kem School actively supports and celebrates histories and practices of pleasure, joy and solidarity that thrive in resistance to this violence.
Throughout the duration of Kem School we will ask questions such as: How to embody resistance? What counts as a body and which bodies matter? What do we mean by world-making practices, and what type of worlds do we desire? How can we forge new and mobilise past intergenerational knowledge? What forms of togetherness do the practices of touch, attention and multisensory perception allow us to organise? What archives can we access to draw alternative genealogies and forms of naming?
Public engagement
During the 8 weeks of Kem School, we will develop a process of research and creative production resulting in collective public activities and a sonic archive in the form of podcasts created by the participants.
PRACTICAL DETAILS
The second edition of Kem School will welcome a group of 12-15 participants residing or working in Warsaw. The participants will be selected in a two-stage open call recruitment process which is open but not limited to artists, activists, choreographers, cultural workers, dancers, performers, filmmakers, and writers.
The programme is open to candidates with diverse levels of experience (those just starting and those with already established practices), who are interested in further developing their artistic practices using choreographic, performative and collective methods.
Who is it for?
The participants should be able to demonstrate:
knowledge of English and Polish to a degree allowing for communication in group activities*;
experience or active interest in working collaboratively within a group of people with different lived experiences;
an openness to experiment with and actively participate in a variety of embodied artistic practices and pedagogical formats;
an artistic practice or active interest in expanded notions of choreography, performance, queer studies and intersectional feminism;
being self-directed and pro-active, developing one’s own research as well as finding shared formats of collective exchange;
interest in interacting with the public;
availability in the timeframes of Kem School (more information below).
* The programme will be led in Polish and English. Even if you don’t feel confident in your language skills, we still encourage you to apply. Depending on the needs that emerge in the group, we will try to provide support with translations.
There is no age requirement or professional or academic prerequisites. Kem School is free of charge.
When?
25.07-15.09.2022
Kem School will take place in Warsaw. We are planning to work together Monday to Thursday, for approximately 6 hours a day. Additionally, we will spend two weekends on pleasurable activities – such as trips and spending time together (exact dates to be confirmed).
The duration of the entire programme will be approx. 190h. Please take your availability into consideration.
How to apply?
The application process closed on May 23rd.
For questions, email julia@kemwarsaw.com.
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“Choreographies of Alliance” is a project realised by Kem Foundation with funding from the Aktywni Obywatele programme – National Fund financed by the EEA Financial Mechanism.
“How To Touch Movement?” is funded by the Capital City of Warsaw, as part of the “Centrum Jasna” programme.
Read about the first edition here.