Workshop with Lorene Bouboushian, current artist-in-residence at Sub Rosa Space

Suggested donation of 10 euros to support the artist's costs; no one turned away for lack of funds.

Bring a pen to write with, and wear comfortable clothing!

"What needs to be undone in order to do?

Can a quest for liberation, and a path toward resistance, begin with our flesh and blood, and the energies and histories we contain?

Beginning with accessible work with somatics (influences include Feldenkrais, Qi Gong, Bodytalk, and meditative practices), we will move into a state that opens up new apertures for discovery of what our bodies hold. This is a sensitive state, a state that requires us to be open to what emotions and histories could be unlocked from our insides. We will reflect on the desires and motives that arise in that kind of state, and how they could apply to activist practices outside this room, via writing and discussion.

Bouncing back and forth between these ‘cerebral’ and ‘physical’ modalities will take us out of our normative beings and into a space of possibility. By addressing what arises in our somatic experience, we open ourselves to full-bodied intellectual pursuit of what activism and education can look and feel like.

Finally, we distill and cull our findings into new intentions or observations to take forward into our work outside this room.

In this way, we engage in a rigorous and difficult process of inquiry together with no endpoints but what is experienced. This is not necessarily a ‘redemptive’ process. It could be difficult, boring, fraught; we hold space for all results.

No past movement or vocalizing experience necessary or desired. This is a non-prescriptive environment. Please plan to stay and participate the full 3 hours, bring writing material, and wear comfortable clothing.

Bibliography:
David Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives
Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle
adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
Monique Wittig, Les Guerilleres
Caroline Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit
Deane Juhan, Job's Body
Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde
Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre"

--Lorene Bouboushian

About the Artist: Lorene Bouboushian is a genderqueer artist originally from rural Texas, with family ties to Lebanon and Armenia. They work within dance, experimental music/noise, and performance art. They build a rhizomatic practice through visible forays into performances and workshopping, and less visible forays into curating, writing, dialogue, modes of care and support, and resource sharing. They utilize “self-exposure and vulnerability in real, risky ways” [CultureBot, 2011], and produce “thought-provoking commentary on social limits” [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2016].

They have shared work in New York City at Dixon Place, JACK, Danspace Project, Issue Project Room, Center for Performance Research, and the Queens Museum. They have held residencies at New York Live Arts (Fresh Tracks) and Chez Bushwick, and currently are in residence at Movement Research.

They have also performed in Seattle, Madison, Athens, and Beirut, performing in festivals including New Genre Festival (Tulsa, US), Miami Performance International Festival, QueerNY and Queer Zagreb, Inverse Performance Art Festival, and Month of Performance Art-Berlin. They have shared their interdisciplinary teaching practice at universities in Kentucky, Beirut, and Mexico. They also curate interdisciplinary performance at the Glove in NYC.

They have performed for Jill Sigman/thinkdance, Yvonne Meier, Melinda Ring, luciana achugar, Daria Fain, and Kathy Westwater. They are a former member of NYC based collectives XHOIR (organized by Colin Self), Feminist Art Group (organized by IV Castellanos), and Social Health Performance Club. They are currently leading the UNDOING AND DOING Social Practice Collective.