DAY 1 – the seminar:
January 25th, 2025
Duration 10:00-15:00 (lunch break 12:30)
English vocal language
– CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION –
About:
This dramaturgical seminar will explore how accessibility tools can serve as artistic methods, focusing on Saša Asentić’s approach to the "aesthetics of access". Participants will learn from Asentić’s collaborative, disability-led work, which understands accessibility as a foundational material condition shaping a work's aesthetics. This approach incorporates accessibility and disability into the core of artistic creation, redefining time, form, and structure of artistic work, as well as transforming sociability and communication in public through performance. In doing so, it challenges traditional dramaturgy and invites us to envision practices free from ableist norms that often exclude disability from performing arts.
In the first part of the seminar, Asentić will present video, audio, photo, and written materials from his practice to provoke questions such as: how does visual accessibility both expand choreography and translate it into other media? What is the dramaturgical impact of vocal language translation and Crip time on dance? How do the poetics of sign language interpretation and performance function in dance? And what effects do captions have on narrative and dance expression? During this session, Asentić plans to engage dance artists Claire Cunningham and Elen Øyen in a conversation about the transformative potential of the aesthetics of access to fundamentally reshape the art form of dance.
In the second part, participants will engage in creative exercises and tasks to explore accessibility's relationship with dramaturgy. The exact examples and activities will depend on the number of participants and their access needs, ensuring an inclusive and adaptable session.
Accessibility information:
Step-free access space with accessible toilet
The seminar will have prerecorded audio description and will be sign language interpreted (from English to Norwegian sign language)
Please let us know of any access requirements in advance.
For accessibility information, please contact:
Jo Even Bjørke
+47 932 47 111
joeven@dansenshus.com
Address:
Dansens Hus – foyer / bar
Vulkan 1
0182 Oslo
Bios:
Saša Asentić is a choreographer and cultural worker. He was born in former Yugoslavia. During the war in Bosnia, as an antimilitarist, he illegally escaped and found refuge in Serbia, where he started working in the independent scene in the late 1990s. Since 2007, his artistic work has been presented internationally in major venues and festivals of contemporary performing arts in Berlin, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Vienna, Teheran, Athens, Moscow, and other cities. After being a victim of homophobic and xenophobic violence, and fundamentally disagreeing with the corruption in the public sector in Serbia and the right-wing renaissance, he moved to Germany in 2011.
Asentić works in the field of contemporary dance, performance, and disability arts. His artistic practice is based on the principle of solidarity, and resistance against cultural oppression and indoctrination. Allyship and long-term collaborations play a crucial role in his work. He is an initiator of Per.Art organization, which gathers since 1999 a group of disabled and non-disabled artists, that challenge and counter ableism in dance and culture.
Asentić is a PhD researcher at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
He works and lives between Berlin, Oslo, and Novi Sad.
Elen Øyen is a Norwegian dance artist, who works as a producer and dance artist for DansiT choreographic centre in Trondheim. She is a dancer in Danselaboratoriet, which she has been since 2005. Elen was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair. She dances in her wheelchair and on the floor. Her main focus is improvisation. Elen works closely with NTNU professor and founder of the Dance Laboratory Tone Pernille Østern. She has lectured at conferences, seminars and festivals in Norway and abroad. She has developed a broad experience in dance, and worked on the research project ‘Accessible artistry?’ from autumn 2021 to spring 2023.
Claire Cunningham, is both a dancer and classically trained singer based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her work is rooted in the study of her crutches – something she started working on in 2005 after working with choreographer Jess Curtis (USA/Berlin). The collaboration sparked her interest in movement, which led her to begin training and exchanging experiences with various practitioners, including artist Bill Shannon (also known as The Crutchmaster) and the development of her own movement vocabulary based on her physical disability and use of crutches.
Claire Cunningham is now considered one of the UK's most recognised disabled artists, with a body of work that challenges normativity and explores the potential of experimental dance techniques and the multidisciplinary - both in the form of intimate solo performances and large ensemble works. As a choreographer, she is conscious of the non-normative body and the social implications of living as a disabled person.