In the lead-up to the conference “Moving Normativity – Agency between Confirmation and Contestation”, two additional events with artistic perspectives by Gulzat Egemberdieva and Choy Ka Fai will take place at the Uferstudios. A film screening and a lecture/demonstration followed by talks with the artists and academics will explore and expand the thematic issues of the conference programme. The two-day event presents a cooperation of the DFG Research Training Group 2638 "Normativity – Critique – Change" and the DFG Collaborative Research Centre "Intervening Arts", both at the Freie Universität Berlin. Participation for both events is free of charge and do not require a prior registration.

Address: Uferstudios (Studio 14), Badstr. 41a / Uferstr. 23, 13357 Berlin (U8 Pankstraße, U9 Osloer Strasse, U9 Nauener Platz, S-Bahn Gesundbrunnen)

Artistic Interventions as well as the conference itself are open to the public. No RSVP needed.

Program

Tuesday, May 9 23, 19.00 - 21.00 Oral Histories as Artistic Archives – Central Asian Counter Narratives in the Medium of Film

Film Screening of Neither In The Mountain, Nor In The Field (2023) and Moscowtime (2020) followed by talk with Gulzat Egemberdieva, moderated by Birgit Eusterschulte and Lisa Paland

Gulzat Egemberdieva's experimental documentary films Neither in the Mountain, nor in the Field (2023) and Moscowtime (2020) illustrate the importance of alternative historiography for the nomadic communities in central Asia. Oral traditions, family photographs and storytelling are woven into a poetic and very personal history. The films oscillate between documentary, autobiography, historical footage and video portraits, and convey a search for identity between past and present as well as national and regional borders in present-day Kyrgyzstan.

Gulzat Egemberdieva is an experimental documentary filmmaker, multimedia artist and researcher currently living in Berlin. Her work focuses on the pre- and post-Soviet cultural history of Central Asia, cultures of nomadism and remembrance. She spent her childhood in a small village in northern Kyrgyzstan. She has a BA in Journalism from Bishkek University of Humanities, and an MA from the Centre of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto. She is currently a DAAD Scholar, developing a PhD at Humboldt University in Berlin on ‘Empowerment of the Powerless: Women in Kyrgyz Culture.’ Her films have been shown at the Zerkalo International Film Festival, the Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, and the German International Ethnographic Film Festival, among others. She has previously worked at the Kyrgyz National Radio and Television, and is presently the co-founder and co-director of the documentary film production company, Chemodanfilms.

Wednesday, May 10 23, 19.00 - 21.00 Negotiating Choreography between Knowledge Transmission and Colonization

Lecture and demonstration by Choy Ka Fai followed by talk with Choy Ka Fai and dance scholar André Lepecki (NYU), moderated by Kirsten Maar and Yon Natalie Mik

In Ten Notes for Choy Ka Fai’s Prospectus for a Future Body (2011), performance scholar André Lepecki describes choreography as a “design and execution of predetermined movements.” Cross-border experiences of learning and translating history, tradition, culture and knowledge are facilitated through digitality and telepresence in Choy Ka Fai's work. A performance lecture by the artist followed by a dialogue with André Lepecki will address the relation between choreographic violence and a dancer’s agency. What kind of conditions impact the form of knowledge transmission and how can choreography negotiate the thin line between a colonizing violence and an emancipatory queering of different bodies? What is the generative potential of deviations, disturbances, and fractures that arise during the process of knowledge transmission?

Choy Ka Fai is a Berlin-based Singaporean artist. His multidisciplinary art practice situates itself at the intersection of dance, media art and performance. Through research expeditions, pseudo-scientific experiments and documentary performances, Ka Fai appropriates technologies and narratives to imagine new futures of the human body. In 2019, Ka Fai started working on the CosmicWander series exploring shamanic dance culture in Asia. CosmicWander produced a collection of performances, exhibitions and VR works. It premiered in 2021 with a solo exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum, followed by a VR experience “Blue Sky Academy” at tanzhaus nrw Duesseldorf. In Berlin, the performances of “Postcolonial Spirits” premiered at Tanz Im August Festival in 2021 and “Yishun Is Burning” was presented at Tanzplattform Deutschland in 2022. Ka Fai’s projects have been presented in major institutions worldwide, including Sadler’s Wells (London), ImPulsTanz Festival (Vienna) and Kyoto Experiment (Japan). He was the resident artist at tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf (2017–2019) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2014-15). Ka Fai graduated with a M.A. in Design Interaction from the Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom.

The two events are a cooperation of the DFG Research Training Group "Normativity, Critique, Change" with the DFG Collaborative Research Centre "Intervening Arts" of the Freie Universität Berlin, and conceptualized in collaboration with the artists.