The traumatised body: a practice of listening, processing and remembrance

When dancers from the Global South move inside European institutions, they are not neutral bodies performing on neutral stages. Many of them are exiled, dislocated, split, uprooted. Many of them are resisting, denouncing, processing, joining the dots, healing the many wounds they carry and the many injustices they receive and witness. If they don’t give in to the same dynamics that create these conditions, then with their work they can create spaces for solidarity, refuge and transformation. The collective ‘Dancing at the Crossroads (As We Walk)’ wants to honour this work and those doing it. They are hosting a non-argumentative, restorative and integrative moment for their guests and themselves, to speak and listen to each other, and to practise remembrance.

All audiences are welcome, with the disclaimer that this frame prioritises artists and cultural practitioners of the diasporas.

• Since 2020, Fabián Barba, Cecilia Lisa Eliceche, Moya Michael, Sujata Goel, Jolie Reymond Ngemi and Carlos Maria Romero aka Atabey Mamasita have been coming together to write, work and converse as Dancing at the Crossroads (as we walk). They are a group of non-European, migrant dance professionals who have studied in, lived in or are based in Flanders. Their collective work seeks to unveil and confront colonialism and racism in the established international dance networks of western Europe. For the past two years, they have been supported by workspacebrussels as resident artists. After a period of slow and patient labour they will be sharing their process during the Open Studios. The five-day programme consists of text readings, performances and conversations.