New Adventures 2023 #2

2023

New makers, new ideas, new adventures. New Adventures is a programme by ICK Dans Amsterdam for new dance makers who want to deepen their creative practice.

On 6 and 7 October, Liza Sulaiman and Wojciech Grudziński will present their research findings after four weeks of New Adventures residency during Space for Dance Art Presents:
Get inspired and engage with these new makers, who will take you through their vision on the fragmented body as a dystopian landscape in Iraqi Bodies and the power relations between master and apprentice in Teach Me Not!
The New Adventures presentations will be preceded by a short presentation of Roshanak Morrowatian's choreographic research, danced by ICK Next (Junior Company) based on the text Indigo and Blackstone, by Abdelkader Benali.

Liza Sulaiman grew up in Amsterdam in an Iraqi and Belarusian family. Her work aims to create a bridge between the tragedy in ourselves and in the world: the images we prefer to look away from, the untold stories and repressed feelings. In doing so, Liza aims to highlight and embody both the fragility and resilience of the human condition, with hope to (re)find harmony within ourselves and with each other. In Iraqi Bodies, she explores how the crossing of boundaries in time and space nestles fragmentarily in the body.

Polish Wojciech Grudziński, artist, choreographer and dancer, explores in-between and interdisciplinary spaces. Grounded in the performative freedom and emancipatory power of dance, his artistic practice navigates implicit and explicit power dynamics in theatre and choreography, embracing queerness and diversity. Teach me not! is an ode to students' longing for the bittersweet memories of their masters. What is the choreography of disagreement? How do you dance 'NO'?

Roshanak Morrowatian & ICK Next present Indigo and Blackstone
Roshanak Morrowatian (Iran, 1989) is currently one of the Artists in Residence at ICK. She is doing choreographic research with the text Indigo and Blackstone by writer Abdelkader Benali. This research focuses on the relationship between dance and language. Together with dancers from ICK Next ( junior company ), Roshanak works on themes such as sisterhood, homelessness and the paradox of an infinite desire to arrive somewhere and at the same time keep moving.
On 6 and 7 October, this can be seen as a 'prologue' to the New Adventures double-bill.

"They have to keep following the wind, the promise that it will be better later still lives in them." - From: Indigo and Blackstone

A ticket to New Adventures gives you free entry to Club Night: 'The Night of the Intuitive Body' on 7 October. This applies to both a New Adventures' ticket on 6 and 7 October.

New Adventures #2 is supported by Gemeente Amsterdam, Fonds Podiumkunsten and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Trailer: Iraqi Bodies - Liza Sulaiman

Liza Sulaiman (Netherlands, 1994) is one of the New Adventures makers of 2023. Liza grew up in Amsterdam within an Iraqi and Belarussian family. At the age of twelve, she started taking hip-hop classes at Solid Ground Movement and danced in several productions from Alida Dors and Bryan Druiventak. After obtaining a Bachelor in Law (2015), Liza started at the Urban-Contemporary Dance department at Fontys University for Fine and Performing Arts in Tilburg, where she graduated in Choreography (2021). The year following her graduation, Liza was supported by Theater DeSingel Antwerp and worked on projects within the Netherlands and Belgium.

photo © Alwin Poiana

Through her work, Liza wants to build a bridge towards the tragedy within ourselves and the world. The images we prefer to look away from, the untold stories and repressed feelings. Liza explores how we relate to our own body and other bodies within an unjust world. Despite the confrontational themes, Liza is interested in the nuance of things. Balancing on the border of turmoil and stillness, tragedy and comedy, chaos and control, distance and proximity, connection and disconnection. She attempts to illuminate and embody both the fragility and resilience of the human condition. With a poetic hope to (re)find the harmony within ourselves and with each other.

Liza got inspired by the concept of the 'fragmented body' from philosopher Jacques Lacan. A body that can be constructed by an imaginary anatomy. During New Adventures (2023), Liza wants to explore how the body moves when it exceeds its own anatomical borders. How it can adapt or defend itself from all circumstances that makes it vulnerable. The inviolable body as an utopy within a dystopian landscape.

Video by saskia Habermann

Teach me not! - Wojciech Grudzinski

Wojciech Grudzinski (Poland, 1991) is one of 2023's New Adventures makers. Wojchiech Grudzinski graduated from the National Ballet School in Warsaw and the faculty of contemporary dance at the Codarts – Rotterdam Dance Academy. Currently graduating from DAS Theatre, he is fascinated by power relations, hierarchy and consent within the dance world. In his New Adventures residency, Wojciech Grudzinski - after researching the movement of 'the bow' - will research the relationship between the teacher and the student.

“”In the centre of my work stands the empathising body. I am a child of the 90s rooted in a residential area of gigantic blocks of flats and shopping malls in Poland. What I explore in my work is inclusion, queerness and embracing diversity. My practice is based on choreographic and performative freedom, there are no boundaries, there is no shame, embarrassment or “too much. It is also a praise of dance and choreography heritage. In my work I aim to generate a welcoming playground space and celebrate different perspectives of the body image.” - Wojciech Grudziński