Dance performance in Ankara as part of IDAHOT events

 

“Now that I think about it, it would be quite difficult for you to cease to exist,” an autobiographical modern dance performance produced by Gizem Aksu in cooperation with Basak Gunak’s Ah! Kosmos will be shown in Ankara’s Tiyatro Tempo on May 9th, Saturday, at 6pm.

 

 

The performance is part of the 10th annual International Meeting against Homophobia. Tickets can be purchased for 10TL (about 3,5 Euros) from either the Kaos GL Association [Gazi Mustafa Kemal Boulevard, 29/12, Demirtepe, Ankara], Veganka [Kızılırmak Street, 15/8, Cankaya, Ankara], or Tiyatro Tempo [Gazi Mustafa Kemal Boulevard, 114/C, Maltepe, Ankara (in front of the Ankaray Maltepe Station, Gülseren Street Exit)].

 

 

The performance focuses on the performer’s separation from her left ovary and her surprising encounter with soccer years later. The relationship that is established between the ovary, the soccer ball, and the body invites the audience to an intimate space that is outside of, internal to, in-between, and beyond the binaries of man/woman, nature(al)/culture(al), and real/fiction.

 

The performance renders as ephemeral the patriarchal and heteronormative relationality of the ovary with womanhood, fertility with fragility, and soccer with manhood and dominance.

 

As such, it questions these [otherwise naturalized] relations [of meanings] from the framework of a queer perspective that is sourced in the artist’s lived experiences. The artist’s body [sic], in struggling against these externally [sic] imposed binaries, transforms into fields of contestation, of becomings, and of texts that investigate the potentialities of in-betweenness and beyondness.

 

The piece was invited to be performed by the Advancing Performing Arts Project throughout 2015 in Berlin, Antwerp, and Zagreb.

 

 

Gizem Aksu is a contemporary dancer and choreographer who is interested in the relationality between arts, politics, and philosophy. She received her BA in Contemporary Dance Department from the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts and her BA in Political Science & International Relations from Bogazici University with honors. Recently, she has begun her studies in the Contemporary Dance Department towards an MA degree.

 

She focuses on autobiographical solo performances. Her research on the autobiography genre questions the space and time in which the body as a becoming situates itself within the relationship between the micropolitics of the self and the macropolitics of the chaos systems. Besides her professional dance engagements, Aksu has also been writing articles of contemporary art criticism for various online journals.

 

Additionally, Aksu has been arranging body workshops for queer people who experience sociopolitical pressure due to their sexual orientations and practices. She has also been performing in collaboration with Ah! Kosmos (Basak Gunak) on ‘queering the body and the sound.’

 

Since 2009, she has participated in several international festivals and biennials in Holland, Germany and Turkey as a creative performer.

 

Recently, she was invited by Ann van den Broek (Ward/waRD) and by Meg Stuart for her new research project, “Closer,” in Vienna. She will be participating in the “Park In Progress Residency” in Mons, Belgium on September [2015].

 

 

Basak Gunak produces research, location-specific installations, and compositions on the reflections of social and cultural systems on the body. Gunak received a BA in Chemical Engineering from Bogazici University and an MA at the Advanced Music Research Center from Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ). The artist is continuing their studies on the socio-political openings of sound in the Cultural Studies Program at Bilgi University.

 

Since 2010, Gunak has been preparing sound designs and compositions for modern dance, theatre, short film, and installations. The artist performed in collaboration with choreographers and modern dance performers at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg, the 18th International Theatre Festival, the ARENA Festival Nurnberg, and the 19th International Theatre Festival.

 

Ah! Kosmos’ EP, Flesh, was released on May 2013 with the label the Animal of Music. Their first LP, Bastards, is in the works to be released with Denovali Records on April 2015. Ah! Kosmos has performed in cities such as Venice, Rome, Berlin, Rotterdam, Cesena and in festivals such as the 2013 Rock’ Coke, the Berlin CTM, the Venice ElectroFestival, the Tokyo Electronic Music of Arts, the CitySonic Festival Mons, the Brussels Picnic Electronic, and the Budapest Punkurica. Ah! Kosmos participated in the Red Bull Music Academy 2014, on October 2014 in Tokyo.

 

Apart from live performances, Ah! Kosmos prepares compositions for theatre, modern dance, and video- and location-focused artworks. The recent artists they collaborated with and venues they appeared in include the Rotterdamse Shouwburg, the Prag Signal Festival, the Arena Nurnberg Theatre Festival, and the 18th and the 19th IKSV Theatre Festivals.

 

Ah! Kosmos is accompanied by Ovunc Dan in guitar and and by Gizem Aksu in visual art.

 

Translation: LGBTI News Turkey