Call for DANCERS - (All levels of body expression are welcome, dancers interested in conceptual choreography, embodiment, ecology, plants, and dreams, the keyword is TRANSFORMATION. Following an *"Anarchoreographic Method", Elena Bajo's interdisciplinary approach, the selected dancers will work with improvised and choreographed movements to be determined beforehand in close collaboration with the artist-choreographer, in the context of her ecological project Words Buried inside Your Petals (Datura Dreams) for Skowhegan Performs at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York.  This project explores plant systems as narrators of their own ecologies from an eco-feminist, non-binary, psychoactive perspective, focusing on ancestral botanical knowledge, the entheogenic use of medicinal plants, and the history of consciousness, which is materialized in a series of choreographies of body and material elements, performative sculptures, video and text-poems. Taking as a starting point a text-poem from her Plants Manifesto, a series of experiments and studies will be proposed.
Workshop / Rehearsals: It is mandatory that the selected dancers are available for the performance day and the virtual and face-to-face meetings:
1) PERFORMANCE DAY: SEPT 30th, 2023 -2) DAYS OF VIRTUAL MEETING + DAYS OF IN-PERSON rehearsals +: 1-2h per day. The date/time of the rehearsals will be announced and specified for the selected dancers between SEPT 9TH and SEPT 17th

Deadline for applications: Sunday, September 17th, 2023 - or earlier. 

PLEASE send your materials ASAP. Applications will be reviewed as they come in, the selection process will be “first come first serve” so there is a chance that the selection process is finished before the deadline.

How to apply:

Please send an email with  a link to a short video of your work (1-3 min), preferably a solo work in progress, or you can create a 1-3 min video following the prompts of this call, your CV and a short text expressing your specific interest in participating in this project to: elena@elenabajo.com

Workshop Costs/Public Performance Stipend for Participants:

Workshop is free of charge for participants and they will receive a very modest stipend for their participation in the final public performance

The selected DANCERS will receive at the end of the workshop and the public performance a digital copy of the video documentation, high resolution digital photographs of the public performance and a very modest stipend. Their participation will be credited in the official program and promoted on social media.

Contact details:

Name: Elena Bajo
email: elena@elenabajo.com

Website 

www.elenabajo.com

Social Media Facebook / Instagram / Twitter

www.facebook.com/elenabajo

www.instagram.com/elenabajo

www.twitter.com/elenabajo

More info

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=JOxURskzL78

https://socratessculpturepark.org/exhibition/the-socrates-annual-2023/

https://www.skowheganart.org

ELENA BAJO

Elena Bajo is an artist, educator, choreographer and founder of the P-A-D Project, Wonder Valley in the Californian desert, dedicated to perform ecological activism.  Her multidisciplinary practice investigates ideas of space, nature, and the body as a political and social entity questioning its relationship to ecologies of capital.  Using ancestral methods and her multidisciplinary art practice she mines vibrant plant systems in order to discover their unique form of consciousness. Her focus is on the research and recuperation of ancestral ethno-botanical ontologies. She works both individually and collectively, using choreography, sculpture, performance, painting, poetry, and video. .

She received an MFA from Central Saint Martins, (London, UK) and an MA in Genetic Architecture from ESARQ UIC (Barcelona, ES), studied Laban and Bartenieff Movement at TanzFabrik, Berlin Contemporary Dance Center. She has presented performances, exhibited and taught internationally. She also received support, grants and residencies from LMCC Art Center, Governors Island NY, US 2023; Rauschenberg EMGrants, 2022; NARS Studio Relief, 2022: Matadero Madrid Residency, A/CE ES for EKWC European Ceramic Work Center, NL, 2021; Hopper Prize 2020; NY Contemporary Art Foundation Emergency Grant 2019; Botín Foundation, Visual Arts Fellowship Award, ES 2018; Audemars Piguet Award, ARCOMadrid, ES 2017.