There Is Always Dance In Abundance

Friday, 16.12.: 4 to 7 pm
Saturday, 17.12.: 10 am to 1 pm and 2 to 6 pm

The workshop is part of the exhibition project There is Always Dance in Abundance by Filipa César and Diana McCarty and will take place in English. Participation is free of charge. The number of participants is limited, so please register under welcome@gfzk.de until December 9.

The two-day workshop by Welket Bungué and Lucas Rehnman deals with bodies in motion and invites for encounters and dialogue. Starting out from the interest in the anti-colonial liberation struggles in Guinea-Bissau and the legacy of Amílcar Cabral, who was a central figure in these struggles, the workshop begins with a lecture-performance. The subsequent movement exercises, film screenings and conversations make us aware of how we perceive ourselves in the built and social environment in which we live, of how we look at things and each other. The workshop revolves around experiences that inform our mindsets and our behavior. The exercises help to activate memories and knowledge and to create new narratives.

„The right to narrate is the right to be a conscious and active protagonist in the story that is told. […] Because we do not live History, but we do it, by inscribing ourselves in the world. […] I’m Welket Bungué, original from the balanta ethnics, I was born in Guinea-Bissau in a small village called Xitole, then I went to Portugal with 3 years old with my parents and my young brother, then I grew up in Lisbon until my 24 years old when I moved to Brazil to study Performance Arts. Since then I’ve been traveling all over the world to work as an actor, in 2020 I did my debut on German cinema, I played the role of Franz Biberkopf, in a new version of ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’, a film directed by Burhan Qurbani. Well, that’s one of the reasons why I moved to Berlin! This mobility, these circumstances, led me to this way of being… A body in transit. Aware of all the political implications of being an African-European man with a migrant background, it’s basically what makes me re-signify the term or concept: PERIPHERAL.“

Welket Bungué born in Guinea-Bissau (1988), is a transdisciplinary artist of Balanta ethnicity, based in Berlin. He is co-founder of the production company KUSSA, holds a degree in Theater from the Actors branch (ESTC / Lisbon) and a postgraduate degree in Performance (UniRio / Brazil). Bungué is an artist featured by the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art (Berlin), and since 2021 his films are part of the institution’s collection. His films have circulated internationally through numerous film festivals such as Berlinale, ABFF (USA), Africlap (France), Zanzibar Intl. Film Fest., Afrikamera (Berlin), BFI London and Sheffield DocFest (UK), IndieLisboa, DocLisboa, Fest. Intl. de Cinema do Rio de Janeiro or the Stockholm Dansfilmfestival. Welket directed the short films ‘Calling Cabral’ (2022), ‘Mudança’ (2020), ‘Intervenção Jah’ (2019), ‘I Am Not Pilatus'(2019), ‘Arriaga'(2019) and ‘Bastien'(2016). In June 2022 Welket released his first book ‘Corpo Periférico’ on the Amazon platform, it is an autobiographical essay on auteur filmmaking based on the eponymous concept of “self-portraying cinema”.

LUCAS REHNMAN is an artist-researcher and curator born in São Paulo, Brazil, based in Berlin. After completing a Masters in Arts in the Public Spheres at édhéa (Sierre, Switzerland) supported by the Wyss Foundation, his research and practice evolved from drawing and conceptual art to a broad reflection on decolonizing processes, democracy, writing and oral transmission strategies. Since 2020, he investigates the legacies of East-South cooperation during the Cold War years, and the lessons of modernism in Global South contexts (Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Brazil). Together with Kristin Bethge, Welket Bungué and Filipa César, he is involved in the ongoing artistic research project Aura Cabral.

AURA CABRAL is a collective project developed by Filipa César, Kristin Bethge,Lucas Rehnman and Welket Bungué, is made possible by the Sonderstipendium INITIAL 2, supported by the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR programme.

Kindle supported by the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb) 

Friday, January 27, 10 am -1 pm and 2 -5 pm
Saturday, January 28, 11 am – 2 pm and 3-6 pm

At the invitation of Filipa César, Valentina Desideri will host a two-day workshop in the exhibition There Is Always Dance In Abundance. Performance will be used as a means of collaborative learning, whereby attention, empathy and mutual care play an important role.  Together with Valentina Desideri, the participants will explore the connection between sense and sensing, between experience and knowledge. As a conclusion of the workshop, a public performance is planned in the exhibition on Saturday, January 28, from 3 to 6 pm.

Valentina Desideri is involved in collaborative artistic projects, such as the Performing Arts Forum in St-Erme, France or the Oficina de Imaginação Política in São Paulo, Brazil. She trained in contemporary dance at the Laban Centre in London (2003-2006) and later completed her MA in Fine Arts at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (2011-13). She is currently a PhD candidate at the Social Justice Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

The workshop is part of the exhibition project There is Always Dance in Abundance by Filipa César and Diana McCarty and will take place in English. Participation is free of charge. The number of participants is limited, so please register under welcome@gfzk.de until December 9.

At the invitation of Filipa César, Valentina Desideri will host a two-day workshop in the exhibition There Is Always Dance In Abundance. Performance will be used as a means of collaborative learning, whereby attention, empathy and mutual care play an important role.  Together with Valentina Desideri, the participants will explore the connection between sense and sensing, between experience and knowledge. As a conclusion of the workshop, a public performance is planned in the exhibition on Saturday, January 28, from 3 to 6 pm.