My Wild Flag @ MDT

8/9 16:30-18:30 Krõõt Juurak & Alex Bailey – Workshop for Humans
Gratis medverkan i workshop, anmäl dig HÄR

8/9 20:00 Floretina Holzinger & Kristallmatrixen – DESTRUCTION LAB (visning)
Fri entré, boka biljett HÄR

9/9 11:00, 12:00, 14:00, 15:00, 16:00 Krõõt Juurak & Alex Bailey – Performance for Dogs
Fri entré, boka biljett via E-MAIL

My Wild Flag is an international dance and choreography festival in Stockholm. MWF consists of local and international acts and scenarios that proposes contemporary choreographic and artistic work. Bringing communities together and joining in social choreographies as well as works devoted for the stage.

Partnering up this year with The Blob, c.off, MDT and Danscentrum, MWF wants to meet current urgencies where bodies, thinking and beings disturb and embrace the ways we perceive the world.

My Wild Flag is curated by Karina Sarkissova and Pontus Pettersson.

For full festival program, see: www.mywildflag.com

Born in 1986 in Austria, Florentina Holzinger studied choreography at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) at Amsterdam University of the Arts. Her solo graduation work Silk was awarded the Prix Jardin d’Europe at the lmPulsTanz Festival 2012.

Her collaboration with Vincent Riebeek resulted in the pieces Kein Applaus für Scheisse, Spirit, Wellness and Schönheitsabend. Holzinger’s solo work Agon and Recovery present her recovery from a traumatic stage accident and explore different modes of female representation and physicality. As a continuation, she developed training programs for dancers, proposing training for a fight as training for life as an artist.

She is currently artist in residence at the International Choreographic Arts Center ICK Amsterdam where she is also producing her ballet Apollon Musagète that intends to be an all-female contemporary adaption of Balanchine’s neoclassical ballet quartet. Florentina, together with Meg Stuart were mentors for the DanceWeb scholarship at the  Impulstanz, Vienna in 2018.

Kristallmatrixen – Malin Kent & Indra Linderoth

We are formgivers, craftspeople, maintainers and cleaners and we always come in groups. We believe that simplicity creates stereotypes and limitations. We believe that this simplicity also shapes our common spaces. We want to broaden the horizon for what behaviour and which bodies takes space in a room and we do this by not simplifying. We are are not afraid of being contradictory, instead we embrace ambiguity. We want rooms that changes depending on what you bring to it rather than fixing you to the expected. Nothing we do is stylish and clean. In our rooms you can always wear dirty trousers.

Krõõt Juurak and Alex Bailey have been dealing with performances for pets since 2014. In addition to exploring our companion species’ tastes and humour, the project also address the fact that entertainment provided by pets working from home is often not recognised as actual work. In an aim to return at least part of this favour, Krõõt Juurak and Alex Bailey ended up devising Performances for Pets, individually adapted to the interests of dogs, cats and other species based on preliminary briefings by their owners. Although Performances for Pets is created solely for appreciation by pets, their human owners and friends are invited to join and view the performance though the eyes of the pet. Performances for Pets has already been performed over 90 times to pets in Zürich, Erlangen, Brussels, Bristol, Tallinn, Berlin and Vienna.

Performances for Pets is co produced and co curated by The Blob. www.theblob.se

Performances for Pets @ MDT:
8/9 Workshop for humans (see below)
9/9 Performance for dogs (see below)

What are the similarities and differences between human and non-human audiences, is the performer inherently subordinate, i.e. working ‘for’ the audience, how does the audience gain agency?

We will share our interest in the position of pets as cultural producers and consumers, as artists, performers and emerging audiences. Domestic pets read humans mostly through our body language. A typical pet spends at least as much time, if not more, looking at humans than looking at members of their own species. In “Performances for Pets” we mimic and reflect the pets’ body language back at them. A reversed version of this situation might be a parrot addressing humans in human language, however removed from its original meaning the gestures become more abstract. In this workshop we will introduce some practices that we share with pets.

What are the similarities and differences between human and non-human audiences, is the performer inherently subordinate, i.e. working ‘for’ the audience, how does the audience gain agency?

Anyone with an interest in art for animal audiences is welcome. There will be a dog on spot (if you are allergic) The workshop is free of charge. If you are interested in participating sign up here: https://goo.gl/forms/wyBPVGUFuXYsxofh1

The performances for dogs take place at MDT after an initial welcome conversation the performance is performed to individual dogs, with their owner and/or friends present. Multiple dogs may attend a performance if they already know one another previously. The performance itself is designed to interest dogs through dynamic movement and timing. The performance is improvised to a score and can become interactive only if the audience wish. The movement vocabulary includes imitation of various animals’ movements and sounds. For the dog audience the experience of watching the performance could resemble playing or observing a game they do not understand the rules of.

Would you like to book a performance for your pet? For booking write to Krõõt & Alex at kulturtier@gmail.com Please mention name, age and species/breed of the pet. And the preference of time* for performance. We would also appreciate a photo and a few words about what the pet likes and dislikes.

*One hour slots for a dog and their owner and/or friends present: 11:00, 12:00, 14:00, 15:00, 16:00

Krõõt Juurak is an Estonian artist living in Vienna. She studied choreography and visual arts at the ArteZ, Arnhem and Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. She has been developing projects at the interface of choreography and performance since 2003. She has presented her works at institutions and festivals internationally, among them the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) Vilnius, Contemporary Art Center (CAC) Geneva, ImPulsTanz Vienna, de Appel Amsterdam, CIAP Hasselt, Kunsthalle Vienna, Tallinn Art Hall and deSingel Antwerpen. She has for a number of years been artistically concerned with the pet, and together with Alex Bailey developed “Performances for Pets” – performances created especially for pets. Her works are represented by Galerie International.

Alex Bailey is originally from Birmingham, United Kingdom now living in Vienna, Austria. He completed a photography degree before working at Eastside Projects, in Birmingham and later moving to Amsterdam to study an MFA at the Sandberg Institute. Here he met Krõõt Juurak and together they conceived the project Performances for Pets in 2014.  Alongside they have performed for over 100 pets in cities and homes across Europe in both visual art and dance festivals. From 2016 he has also appeared and performed in contemporary ballet productions. He is the author of the practice Humourology, a study into humour related cosmic to comic communications. Both Performances for Pets and Humourology are represented by Galerie international, an immaterial gallery dealing exclusively with immaterial artworks run by Adriano Wilfert Jensen and Simon Asencio.

MY WILD FLAGis made possible by support from Stockholm City Council of Culture and the Swedish Art Council. My Wild Flag is curated by Karina Sarkissova and Pontus Pettersson.

PERFORMANCES FOR PETS: By Krõõt Juurak & Alex Bailey. Consultation: Adriano Wilfert Jensen and Simon Asencio. Image consulting: Alissa Snaider. Video: Roland Rauschmeier. Dog consulting: Bina Lunzer. Supported by SHIFT: Programm zur Förderung innovativer Kunst, Vienna. Performances for Pets is a curatorial collaboration between My Wild Flag and The Blob.

DESTRUCTION LAB: Initial idea: My Wild Flag and Florentina Holzinger. Space concept and buildup: Kristallmatrixen. Collaborators were found through Facebook callout.