New Performance Turku Biennale and Yasen Vasilev invite artists based in Turku to participate in INTRODUCTION TO NUTRICULA workshop, based on 7-year long international movement research practice, leading to IMPOSSIBLE ACTIONS, a production of a collective performance piece with local artists, with а public presentation in the frame of the New Performance Turku Biennale in September 2023.

Conditions:

• Dates and times:
  • Introduction workshop and research process June 7-9th 2023 – (Regional Dance Centre of Western Finland Studio in Turku) – rehearsal days 4hrs / each
  • Preparation before the performance (3.-4.9.) and one public presentation/showing in the New Performance Turku Biennale week, Sep 5-10th 2023

• Up to 12 participants will be selected 
• The workshop is suitable for professional dancers, performers, actors, dramaturgs and is also open to people without professional stage experience. 
• The workshop includes movement exercises, critical discussions, creative writing and an introduction to the structure of the physical solo that will be developed throughout the process.
• A fee of 850 € will be paid for the selected participants.

NUTRICULA puts the performers through a series of tasks that aim to test and re-imagine the limits and functions of the body and deconstruct (un)conscious habits of movement. The work aims to liberate the body and its movements from meanings imposed on them. NUTRICULA was first developed in 2015 in Shanghai in collaboration with Philip Kwame Boafo, performance artist and researcher from Ghana. 

IMPOSSIBLE ACTIONS is a collective performance for a group of performers who activate the physical solo, change it according to their bodies and biographies and together create and perform a variety of versions in the same space. The work deals with the dynamic between global and local within the performer’s body, with the ways the socio-political reality and the personal biography inform the process, and the possibility of the performer to claim space beyond the concept. 

The workshop is open for professional dancers, performers and actors (but doesn’t exclude those without stage experience) interested to go through an introduction of the working method and start developing their own versions of the solo, but who are also curious about the dynamics of working in a group and the creation of horizontal working processes. 

You can fill the application form here: 
https://forms.gle/fXFyARqAWjbyd25u7

Deadline to submit: 17.5.2023

In collaboration with Regional Dance Centre of Western Finland
Supported by Turku2029 Foundation

About the artist and the work

Yasen Vasilev works internationally in the field of contemporary dance as a dramaturg and critic. He holds a BA in Dramaturgy from the Academy in Sofia (2013) and MA in Intercultural Communication from Shanghai Theatre Academy (2016). The practical research of his Master thesis on the politics of dance, NUTRICULA (2015–) has been developed and presented in the form of workshops and performances internationally. IMPOSSIBLE ACTIONS, a collective performance for multiple participants, prototyped during a residency in Taipei in 2019, was produced in 2021 by Radar Sofia and won the annual award for dance of the City Hall of Sofia. He’s a regular contributor for Springback magazine and is active on the topic of working conditions in the frame of different initiatives, most recently Kunstenpunt’s A Fair New Idea where he co-authored a Letter for transnational fair practice in collaboration with Anna Manubens and Pieternel Vermoortel. 

IMPOSSIBLE ACTIONS was prototyped in residencies at Taipei artist village (Taiwan) and La Caldera (Spain) in 2019, and first produced in 2021 by Radar Sofia at DNK – space for contemporary dance and performance with the support of the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, followed by new versions with local performers at Moving body festival (Varna, Bulgaria), CoFestival (Ljubljana, Slovenia), DansiT / Rosendal teater (Trondheim, Norway), Spazju Kreattiv (Valletta, Malta). It received the annual award of the City Hall of Sofia for contribution to the field of dance in September 2021 as well as a nomination and the award of the audience at the IKAR awards 2022, given annually by the Union of Bulgarian Actors, in the contemporary dance and performance category.