FORUM+ - Volume 26, Issue 3, 2019

Walking, strolling, running – these are everyday activities that everyone often does unknowingly. But these are also forms of movement that can be the subject of choreographic research. In this article, choreographer and artistic research Martin Nachbar sheds light on how he has developed a participatory walking practice that critically reflects on movement in public space. Through this physical experiment, he also reveals how choreography not only revolves around the body in motion, but can also become a mode of listening.

Dance education faces many challenges today. Both our society and the field of contemporary dance have changed to such an extent that dance educators are required to critically rethink traditional teaching methodologies. Based on their two-year research project ‘The Role of Vocabulary in Contemporary Dance’, Natalie Gordon and Caroline D’Haese identify in this article some of the most pressing gaps and goals in contemporary dance education. Their practice-based expertise leads them to formulate a constructive proposal for reconfiguring dance education today.

Although several types of dance research are labelled as interdisciplinary and open, there are in fact large differences between various models of interdisciplinarity that are currently in use. In this article, the authors aim to take a first step toward the development of ‘interdisciplinarity to the second degree’ (ID²), which is a model to initiate a dialogue between the different interdisciplinary models of dance research.

Inspired by the cave drawings of Lascaux, Egyptian hieroglyphs and proto writings from Mesopotamia, the artist duo Frank&Robbert Robbert&Frank are working on new objects in which they convert their own lives and work into simple symbolic line drawings. These drawings are a way to examine themselves, the world in which they live and their artistic practice. At the same time they are laying a foundation for translating less tangible ideas and systems. By doing so, they follow the example of the Egyptians, who, in their murals, not only depicted daily actions, but also translated their cosmological system into symbolic representations.

The artistic practice of the Belgian-Portuguese artist Maria Lucia Cruz Correia is characterised by a rigorous attention to the ecological challenges and misdeeds typical of the contemporary anthropocene. Correia always seeks the most effective strategies to involve her spectators in environmental issues and encourage them to take action. Based on an interview with the artist, this article aims to provide insight into the strategies she employs and the genesis of her most recent project Voice of Nature: The Trial.

What can a slow and by definition static medium such as sculpture signify in our rapidly changing world? This question is central to the work and research of sculptor Nicolas Baeyens. As a visual artist, he explores the varying conditions of the work of art between creation and destruction. What happens when destruction becomes part of the process of creation? Can the work of art be stripped of its static character by enrolling it in a cyclical system of recuperation and recycling? According to Baeyens, each work of art eventually constitutes a metamorphosis in the viewer’s memory. In this contribution, he illustrates that destruction and recycling are closely related by drawing connections between destructive art from the 1960s onwards and his own transformational projects.

Silences are an essential part of music. When rigorously measured, like in Michael Maierhof’s Zonen 6 for guitar orchestra, silences can structure an entire composition and help the listener make sense of a piece. Their artistic usage also has a dramatic affect on the conductor’s role and performance practice. Exactly 75% of Michael Maierhof’s Zonen 6 for guitar orchestra can be described as composed and metered soundscapes played and performed by seventeen guitar players. The other 25% of the piece is comprised of measured and conducted silence. In this article, Thomas Moore will delve in the artistic use of these silences and examine the manner in which they frame the soundscapes and help create structure. The use of the conductor throughout these silences will also be considered, as well as the possible ways in which this affects the guitarists’ performance and the audience’s perception of the piece.

In his research project An Equal Music, oboist Luk Nielandt has studied the connection between old instruments (pommers or shawms as precursors of the oboe family) and new instruments (the modern oboe). His focus is on the professional reed players who appropriate the old instruments to suit their own purposes. During the research, renowned pommer builder Fritz Heller, among others, taught musicians how to build a pommer for themselves. Jan De Maeyer and Boudewijn Buckinx composed new music for the older instruments, with which the intensely involved musicians gave concerts. The research project ended in 2017, but Nielandt is still exploring many new, unknown paths. Promoter of the research project Eugeen Schreurs will engage in a talk with Nielandt and trombonist Jan Smets.