Lília Mestre

Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line
Interdisciplinary research collaboration
Description
Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line is an interdisciplinary research collaboration involving artist Nikolaus Gansterer (AT), choreographer Mariella Greil (AT) and art-writer Emma Cocker (UK) in dialogue with a team of international critical interlocutors including Alex Arteaga (ES/D), Lilia Mestre (PT/BE) and Christine de Smedt (BE). With ‘arts-based research’ at its heart, Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line stages an interdisciplinary, inter-subjective encounter between the lines of drawing, choreography and writing in order to investigate those forms of ‘thinking-feeling-knowing’ produced within collaborative exchange. The project unfolds through a series of intensive ‘method labs’ where the key researchers (and invited guests) come together geographically in one place to practice thinking-moving relationally and to develop singular and sharable forms of practice-as-research. Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line (2014 – 2017) is funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF/PEEK.

Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line addresses two interconnected aims: (1) To explore the nature of ‘thinking in action’ or thinking-feeling-knowing’ operative within artistic practice, especially produced within collaborative exchange, between the lines of drawing, choreography and writing; (2) Explore forms of performativity and notation for sharing and reflecting on this often hidden or undisclosed aspect of the creative process, developing shared figures of thought, speech, and movement (choreo–graphic figures) for making tangible this enquiry. Through processes of exchange our research seeks to pressure choreography, drawing and writing beyond the conventions, protocols and domains of each discipline: for choreography, beyond the domain of the body and space of the theatre; for drawing, beyond the domain of the two-dimensional page; for writing, beyond the domain of language, the regime of signification. Choreo–graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line interrogates the interstitial processes, practices and knowledge(s) produced in the ‘deviation’ for example, from page to performance, from word to mark, from line to action, from modes of flat image making towards transformational embodied encounters. The collaborative research quest is one of tracing and understanding these permeable frontiers, to challenge the assumptions of the clear-cut disciplinary line and produce new articulations of ‘expanded practice’ between the lines of drawing, choreography and writing.
Credits
Based on original research and edited by Nikolaus Gansterer, Emma Cocker and Mariella Greil with contributions by Alex Arteaga, Arno Böhler, Christine De Smedt, Catherine de Zegher, Christopher Dell, Gerhard Dirmoser, Karin Harrasser, Adrian Heathfield, Victor Jaschke, Simona Koch, Krassimira Kruschkova, Brandon LaBelle, Erin Manning, Dieter Mersch, Lilia Mestre, Werner Moebius, Alva Noë, Jeanette Pacher, Jörg Piringer, Helmut Ploebst, P.A. Skantze, Andreas Spiegl.

Program text