Less-than-human

The conversation Less-than-human aims to question the possible minor condition of humanity in the assemblage of living beings with whom we humans cohabit. Is it possible to add by subtracting? Can we propose forms of life and knowledge outside the classical human condition without acquisition of new or extra skills?  

The three guests invited to the encounter will dialogue with each other through a discursive game device generated from their own practices. Each of them has a long trajectory on decentralizing the classical-Western human condition to its possible limits.  

Amanda Piña works around the decolonization of choreography, introducing what she calls Endangered Human Movements at many levels: oral knowledge, shamanism, diplomatic rituals, or plant wisdom, among others. Paz Rojo works on the remains of exhausted bodies after what she calls the decline of neoliberal choreography, proposing concrete operations of re-subjectification through body movement. Victoria Pérez Royo currently investigates what she calls the anachronistic body, the one moved by rites such as magic or by any ritual modality that counteracts the hegemonic modern-colonial corporality.  

• Victoria Pérez Royo is a performing arts researcher and professor at the Faculty of Philosophy (Unizar) and has taught internationally. Member of the research association ARTEA, she has devised and coordinated practice-based research contexts at art centers like Reina Sofia Museum, La Casa Encendida and Matadero (Madrid).  

• Amanda Piña is a Chilean-Mexican artist living between Vienna and Mexico City. Her work embodies the political and social power of movement, grounded in indigenous forms of knowledge and world-making/maintaining practices. A versatile artist, working through choreographic and dance research, creating and curating performances, educational frameworks, and writing and editing publications around what she refers to as Endangered Human Movement Practices. Her work is concerned with the colonisation of the arts and is to be found within performing and visual arts contexts. Her new creation EXÓTICA will be co-presented by Kaaitheater at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, at the beginning of June. 

• Paz Rojo holds a BA Degree in Choreography from the School for New Dance Development (Amsterdam University of the Arts) and a doctoral degree in Philosophy in Fine Arts in Performative and Media Practices from the Stockholm University of the Arts. She has a long trajectory teaching, organizing seminars, conferences, lectures and supervising artistic projects in European art programs as well as in independent artistic initiatives in Europe and Latin America.