Social Choreography: moving towards new ecologies of change

This artistic research investigates the intersections between embodiment, choreography and political life in the context of modernity’s ecological urgency. It is concerned with the forces of acceleration and exhaustion driving the global community into deepening states of crisis. Pivoting on a relational understanding of the world as a nest of bodies and objects bonded together by corporeal affects, desires and dependencies in a constant state of dance, the project argues for a need to investigate these constellations as forms of permanent becoming and hence, change. What does it mean to move and be moved? The research aims to create strategies for envisioning systems of ‘being with’ that transcend present day economic forces of social ordering processes. The research engages the transdisciplinary field of Social Choreography to sketch out new patterns for how to move in the world, exploring ways of learning and unlearning pre-choreographed aspects of our personal, social, cultural and political lives. Two collaborative artistic projects investigating movement and notation form the core of the research, thus bringing the potential of choreographic thought to (re)negotiate the forces shaping our experiences of inhabiting an ever-changing environment. The research is based at Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture and further extended through collaborations with the University of Ludwigshafen am Rhein and the Social Movement Lab at Duke University.