Organized by Lindsey Drury and Mariana Simoni
At the Lateinamerika-Institut and Institut für Theaterwissenschaft
Freie Universität Berlin

To register: https://forms.gle/vnTKttwQVEEhaed19

This workshop provides a forum in which the artist/researchers Amanda Piña and Nyandra Fernandes will discuss their embodied artistic research approaches to the entangled movements of water, transmission and migration among the peoples of Abya Yala*. The artist/researchers address first nations, mestizo, and Afro-diasporic expressions of embodied knowledge encoded in dance and sound. Within the workshop, Amanda Piña critically unpacks appropriation in artistic research, contextualizing her approach to the ocean as a realm of ancestral knowledge and the vibrant presence of oceanic movements informing first nations and Afro-diasporic embodied knowledges that transcend ethnic boundaries to be embraced also by non indigenous and non African descendants in regions like Mexico, Cuba, Haiti and Brazil. Fernandes will share knowledge she has cultivated through her pivotal participation in the revitalization of Condomblé in the aftermath of its violent political suppression in Brazil. The half-day workshop includes a screening of Nyandra Fernandes’s dance film ELEGBARÁ, and its visceral dialogue with the city, as well as a dance workshop on embodying the dance movements of the ancestral entities called “Orixás”. The workshop will be conducted in a mix of Spanish, Portuguese, English, and German. 

*Abya Yala is one of the native names of the American continent today used to advance the decolonisation of the land looking to its history beyond settler colonialism.

This workshop is connected with the July 19 Closing Event of Amanda Piña's Valeska Gert Visiting Professorship @ Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg. 

@ Lateinamerika-Institut – hosted by Mariana Simoni

Seminarraum 214 Rüdesheimer Str. 54-56

12:15-13 :45 – Amanda Piña presents her latest research on Indigenous ontologies of water within the contexts of her long term performance and publication project Endangered Human Movements, addressing mestizo and Indigenous dance and social practice that relate to water and that are  present in her main areas of research Mexico and Chile.  Within this presentation, Piña will focus on questions of appropriation and extraction. Piña is joined in conversation by Nyandra Fernandes and Lindsey Drury. 

Seminarraum 202 Rüdesheimer Str. 54-56

14:15-15:45  – Nyandra Fernandes presents her dance film ELEGBARÁ (trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S0ShTTOhp8) and discusses Afrodiasporic understandings of water in the Brazilian context and within the Condomblé religion. She will further discuss the suppression of Condomblé in Brazil and the revitalization work that she has taken part in due to the return of instruments that were confiscated by police. 

Break 15:45 - 16:30

@ Institut für Theaterwissenschaft – hosted by Lindsey Drury

DanceLab Grunewaldstr. 35

16:30-18 :00 –  Nyandra Fernandes, “Oborós and Iyabás”, DanceLab

In this Afro-Brazilian dance workshop stemming from condomblé and other afro-brazilian cultures, the desire is to embody elements of the culture, including dance movements of the ancestral entities called “Orixás”, their body expression and connection with ancestral traditions. It is a way to celebrate cultural heritage and spirituality by dancing. I will present the main Orixás, their characteristics and influence on the elements of nature, beyond the culture-nature binary.

Self-paid group dinner out.

Presenter Bios

Chilean- Mexican- Austrian based artist Amanda Piña lives between Vienna and Mexico City. Of mixed ancestry, (Mestiza, Cheje), Amanda has Mapuche, Spanish and Syrian-Palestinian roots. 

Her work embodies the political and social power of movement, grounded in indigenous forms of knowledge and world making/maintaining practices. Piña is a plurifaceted artist working through choreographic and dance research, creating and curating educational frameworks, writing and editing publications around what she refers as Endangered Human Movement practices. Her artistic work looks for escape routes to the outdated logics of modernity, focusing on the political and social power of movement for temporarily dismantling ideological separations between contemporary and traditional, human and animal, nature and culture.  She works within performing and visual arts contexts. Her work was shown in various theatres, galleries and museums around the world, such as La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2023), Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral, Santiago de Chile (2023), Havre Magasinet Sweden (2022), Festival d’Automne Paris (2022), Kunsthalle Wien (2021), DeSingel Arts Campus Antwerp (2020),  Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain Paris (2019), MUMOK Museum of Modern Art Vienna (2019), Museo Universitario del Chopo, México (2019) among others.

Originally trained as a painter, her interest in performance lead her to study Physical Theater in Santiago de Chile, Theater Anthropology in Barcelona and  Contemporary Dance and Choreography in Mexico, Barcelona, Salzburg (SEAD) and Montpellier (Ex.e.r.ce Choreographic Centre Montpellier). In 2006 she received the danceWEB scholarship and in 2007 the scholarship for Young Choreographers from Tanzquartier Wien. In 2018 she was awarded with the Fonca Arts grant from the Mexican Government. From 2008-2022 she curated the gallery space specialized in expanded choreography and performance nadaLokal in Vienna. Currently works on the realisation of the long-term project Endangered Human Movements, concerned with the re appearance of ancestral forms of  movements and cultural practices. Five volumes of research in the scope of this project have been already realised which include performances, Installations, Videos, publications, curatorial frames, workshop and lectures. She was a research fellow at DAS THIRD, from the department of Theatre, Dance and Performance at Amsterdam University of the Arts.Amanda Piña is a guest teacher at  Stockholm University of Arts, (SKH), and at DAS Choreography, at the Amsterdam University of Arts. In 2024 she will teach as guest Professor of the Valesca Gert Chair of Choreography at Akademie der Künste Berlin.

Nyandra Fernandes is a dance artist, a graduate in Dance from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and graduated from the Technical Course in Dance at the Angel Vianna School (2014). She worked as an interpreter-creator of Cia Suave, directed by Alice Ripoll, in the shows SUAVE and CRIA, participating in several national and international tours (2014 > 2022). In 2021 he directs and is a dancing body in her 1a audiovisual work, the film ELEGBARÁ, a co-production of the Panorama Festival.

In 2022, Fernandes was contemplated by the Funarj Dança edict, where she created the 1o ELEGBARÁ dance show, which had its debut at the João Caetano Theatre (BR). In the same year, at the invitation of the Observatório de Favelas, she acted as an artistic consultant for the residencies in Dance in the Lab Dicró program. Participated in the commemorative 30th anniversary edition of the Panorama Festival, held at the Sérgio Porto Cultural Space (Dec/2022).

In addition to her authorial works, she has collaborated and acted with several artists. She is an interpreter-creator of the children's show Prima Volta (2022). She acted as a performer in the work Batucada by director and choreographer Marcelo Evelin (2016), in the video installation Overheated by Sofia Caesar (2021) and in the dance show Proibidão (2023) by Kinho JP. On August 12, its 2a direction premiered, the show entitled VIVEIRO through the appeal of the Firjan Dance Notice 2023, presented at Sesi Firjan in Jacarepaguá, in November (2023) at Oi Futuro, in December (2023) Midrash Festival at the Café Pequeno Theatre, in March (2024) Fábrica de Cultura at the 11o Festival Vozes do Corpo da Cia Sansacroma, SP.