If I Can´t Dance, I Don´t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution I

If I Can't Dance… is a rolling curatorial project based on performative practices which departs from a spirit of open questioning and a long term enquiry with artists. Currently it focuses on the legacies and potentials of feminism(s) in relation to art today. Inspired by the quote of Emma Goldman, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution", the project explores the critical and celebratory implications of this statement in artists' work.

This edition of If I Can't Dance… explores how feminist thinking on all levels (social, artistic, political, theoretical, ideological or structural) may be important in our cultural life. The project has explored these tendencies as inquisitively and openly as possible over the last year and a half by repeatedly working with an expanding group of over thirty artists and mounting exhibitions, organising symposia and performance events, and running an on-going reading group.

This May for Festival a/d Werf in Utrecht a new programme of performances by Jutta Koether, Jon Mikel Euba, Itziar Okariz and planningtorock will take place. If I Can't Dance… will also premiere the newly commissioned film of The Otolith Group,"Otolith II", at Casco in Utrecht. This film is co-produced with KunstenFestivalDesArts and Argos, Centre for Media and Art, in Brussels.

The Otolith Group Otolith II The Otolith Group writes, compiles exhibitions and makes essay films. In the film Otolith II, the group explores the situation of women in the lowest castes in India, and how these women are the driving force behind Bombay’s impressive slum architecture. The archive left by Sagar’s grandmother – a leading feminist in India in the 1960s – moved the Otolith Group to report on the unrealised ideals described in this archive.

Jutta Koether Touch and Resist In her new performance Touch and Resist, leading artist Jutta Koether merges the art of painting with other disciplines, such as performance and music. For Koether, painting is not an autonomous medium, but much rather a ‘vehicle’. She said in an interview that painting, for her, could as easily be a flyer, piece of scenery or music. Koether’s work is an intense exploration of feminist ideas in relation to painting.

Jon Mikel Euba RE: HORSE & RGB Horse RE:HORSE A white horse is central to this ‘live concert of images’. Improvisation by the participants is stimulated using a script. Simultaneously, a film is made, and can be watched on screens. In this film, links are made between the performance Titus/Iphigenia by performance artist Joseph Beuys (which also featured a white horse), and a legendary recording made by Andy Warhol of the Velvet Underground (Symphony of Sounds).##

RGB HORSE In RGB HORSE, Euba attempts to fathom an indefinable feeling he experienced on seeing Diego Velasquez’ paintings of royal cavaliers. Through a prominently present horse in the ‘corvette’ position, Euba attempts to share this intense experience with others and open it up to several interpretations. Become a partner in a work of art created in the here and now, with the ultimate synergy of collective experience and individual sovereignty.

planningtorock Show me what you got Planningtorock is Janine Rostron’s new one-woman act, specially for the festival; actually, multiple-women act, as a fascinating aspect of planningtorock’s work is her ability to present several identities. With her fantastic masks, costumes and videos, her impressive music and commanding presence, she creates indefinable characters. Show me what you got corresponds to Peggy Phelan’s description of feminism as ‘the performative creation of new identities’.

Itziar Okariz Climbing Buildings Look around you and you may well see the performance in which Itziar Okariz climbs a building on Neude square. Okariz uses media and performance to question our conditioned behaviour in public spaces. Inspired by the feminist art of the 1970s, she investigates the relationship between art and public space. Climbing Buildings could be seen as an extreme example of the Situationists’ concept of creative walking in the urban space.

www.ificantdance.org

If I Can´t Dance, I Don´t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution 
Edition I

mit Otolith Group, Jutta Koether, Jon Mikel Euba, Janine Rostron, Itziar Okariz ...

Stationen:
16.11.06 - 14.01.07 De Appel, Amsterdam
17.05.07 - 26.05.07 Huis & Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht
28.10.07 - 06-01-08 Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerpen