Call for participants: Summer Lab in Porto

CONVERSATION PIECE: Thinking Body Moving Mind   

A hearty invitation to a journey of spatial choreography, exploring the way we engage, perceive, and create space by moving.

A transdisciplinary exploration, Dancing Architects (DA) Summer Lab will take you to a personal journey of architectural choreography. It is an invitation to open up fresh perspectives by moving, and relate anew to the world around us; to the sensibilities of objects and materialities; to the childhood memories of the space that secretly formed who we are; to the speed of the streets where we hurry walking every day; to the environment we breathe in; and to the quality of light where we have yet been in our imagination… And perhaps to question what makes us move, and start asking new questions about the construct of the space, place, city, architecture and the life that contains. All through our thinking body and moving mind because the world is ever changing and never static. ​

Inspired by Conversation Piece by Juan Muñoz (1953–2001)—curious full-size bronze figures seemingly in conversation to and with each other in secret whispers—DA Summer Lab CONVERSATION PIECE will listen to the voices and desires of the space and the place through the choreography of our moving bodies. We will uncover and express the embodied relationalities and layered constellations of intentions of the city of Porto, a terrain of the oblique. By translating our spatial engagement and felt senses into movement vocabularies, DA Summer Lab will culminate in a collective performance as experimental architectural dialogue. ​

Invigorating movement sessions will awaken our spatial awareness, while playful activities experiment with architectural ideas. With individual inner motivations and senses, participants will learn to express embodied ideas through the physicality of the body and choreography. Nestled within the heart of the city, our field of operation is an artist residency space at INSTITUTO, our partner in Porto. The urban streets and public spaces rich with cultural and culinary delight will also be our playgrounds. ​There will be a day of excursion to visit wonderful architectures that Porto has to offer where we will also engage with movement.

Aimed for those who work and study in architecture and spatial practice, as well as social and cultural practice in wider context, DA Summer Lab hopes that the participants encounter and challenge something unfamiliar or even strange. Because it is these moments of fresh encounters when our creative intuition works at its best and discover something of lasting importance. Choreography as an agency for architecture also encourages something a little autobiographic that reflects who we are through moving, and moving together towards creating collective experience. According to Cambridge dictionary, “conversation piece” also means “an unusual object that causes people to start talking.” Let’s start talking in the language of movement and choreography of architecture. ​

Expect the infectious happiness of moving together.​ No prior experience in dance and choreography necessary, only your curious self!

We hope you will join us on the journey. For more information and application, please visit Dancing Architects Website.

About Dancing Architects
Approaching architecture through choreography and as choreography, transdisciplinary research platform Dancing Architects (DA) cross-pollinates architecture with contemporary dance investigating how choreographic thinking and its creative process can inspire and provoke architecture in its making and experience. By activating architectural ideas through the physicality of our bodies, DA’s inquiries seek for alternative dialogues by placing the architectural experience at the core.

DA’s activities engage with movement as an agency and medium for architecture through the lens of embodied and intangible choreographies that make up the world. It invites transformative shifts in our perception while enabling us to naturally engage with human senses and emotions as values. Moving together also let us learn to trust oneself and one another with a deep sense of sharing and togetherness that contribute to our collective future. By allowing not knowing where this journey might take us to, we arrive at unexpected and enriching.