MICHAEL KLIËN
Propositions To Dance Differently

2nd Week – 3 hours/day
17:00 – 20:00

Dance as an artistic discipline predominately sustains itself upon its institutional arrangements, through the history of the development of certain techniques and abilities to manipulate and master aspects of bodily, physical exertion. This has been at odds with the individual’s direct aesthetic experience of dancing, and in this workshop choreographer Michael Kliën’s will examine notions as well as consequences of ‘the cultured flesh’.
The workshop-element will enable participants to develop a rigorously personal approach to dancing. Kliën’s method enables individuals to anchor their practice firmly inside themselves and/or between each other, as opposed to somewhere external (i.e.: a choreography). It provides dancers with an appropriate context and methodology to cultivate, grow and question their own movement-repertoire and physical ability. In concise, yet understandable language he positions the exercises and experiences in a wider social and ecological context, making them at once urgent and relevant to the current political discourse.

Kliën’s workshop proposes a methodology for dance to manifest itself against the backdrop of wider ecological, social and political structures.

www.michaelklien.com

www.vimeo.com/klien

www.facebook.com/klien.michael

image: by Brigid Pearce, Parliament (Martha Graham Dance Company) by Michael Kliën

portrait: image: Christina Gangos

Michael Kliën is a choreographer and artist whose work has been situated around the world. Recognised as one of Europe’s notable thinkers in the field of dance today, he has been commissioned by leading institutions such as Ballett Frankfurt, Martha Graham Dance Company, New Museum, Irish Museum of Modern Art and Hayward Gallery. As Artistic Director/CEO of Daghdha (2003-2011, Ireland) he developed notions of an extended, socio-politically engaged choreography referred to as ‘Social Choreography’. Kliën’s artistic practice encompasses interdisciplinary thinking, critical writing, curatorial projects, and centrally, choreographic works equally at home in the Performing as well as the Fine Arts.