We Will Not Be Moved is an artistic project that focuses on the relationship between the individual and collective, and the contemporary represented woman and non-binary body in resistance. It does so by investigating the gestural language and somatics within protests, and engaging with the historical struggles for women’s, LGBTQIA+ and immigrants’ rights, and racial justice.
We Will Not Be Moved was first presented for the performance series, Stage as a Social Platform for the Milan XXI Triennale in April 2016. For each iteration of this project, a group of women and non-binary people from diverse professional backgrounds – dancers, writers, researchers, and activists – was brought together. In a series of meetings, they studied and discussed the gestural languages of protests and explored their own personal expression of resistance, through the body. The New Dance Group (NDG) – a dance school dedicated to social change that helped industrial workers to translate their political unrest into movement in New York City from 1932 to the 1960’s – serves as a historical reference and inspiration for Blake’s methodology.
For the adaptation in Leipzig, an archive on the history of women’s dissonance in Germany from 1920–2000 was assembled with the assistance of Hanar Hupka and Lissy Willberg. In collaboration with graphic designer Sandra Kassenaar, Blake developed a poster series out of this material highlighting five moments of protest in Germany. The posters were first displayed throughout the city. In a series of meetings, the Leipzig group studied archival images, discussed the gestural language of specific protest groups and their slogans, and questioned what solidarity means to them. Through embodiment and discourse, a choreography of gestures and collective movement for the present was explored, which was then performed publicly in Leipzig.
We Will Not Be Moved was part of the exhibition Looking For A New Foundation on view at GfZK in summer 2023.
