The Movement Research Festival returns with events happening over two weeks, February 28-March 9, 2024. The 2024 Festival is curated by Marýa Wethers, Director of the GPS/Global Practice Sharing Program at Movement Research, with a focus on the artists and partnerships developed through MR’s GPS MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Exchange Program. The Festival features performances at Movement Research at the Judson Church and Danspace Project, artist talks (GPS Chats and Studies Project), and movement workshops led by festival artists. 

The program on Monday, March 4, features artists Lori Kharpoutlian (Lebanon), F.M. Sayna (Iran), Sahar Damoni (Palestine), and Charlie Prince (Lebanon).

This MR@Judson evening features solo works by Lori Kharpoutlian and F.M. Sayna and culminates in a group improvisation with the festival artists.

Lori Kharpoutlian will offer a work-in-progress presentation of looping, loading, falling out of time (working title). It is an excerpt from a set of musings into the politics of waiting as it manifests in digital algorithms, economic and political strategies, and the design of everyday objects and services. Through a process of sampling and juxtaposition, formatting and reformatting, the work explores the temporal, psychological, and spatial tensions this bodily condition creates. 

F.M. Sayna will present a new short dance film about leaving your beloved land through forced immigration. The displacement is like being trapped behind walls but in a larger prison. The work honors an Afghan friend of the artist and all people who are forced to choose between leaving their homeland or staying in prison’s dictatorism.

Lori Kharpoutlian is a Lebanese Armenian dancer and architect based in Beirut. With a shape-shifting practice, she uses different ways of researching and making from the performance, architectural, and visual arts worlds. 

F.M. Sayna is an Iranian Azerbaijani dance artist with experience in ballet, gymnastics, and traditional Iranian and contemporary dance forms. She is from the underground generation of dancers in Iran and is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Tehran. She received a BFA from Soore Art University in drama lecture. She started ballet training when she was a teenager and has always been curious about different styles of dancing. During this personal search, she discovered contemporary dance as a special ability to move out of frames and the best tools she has to create artwork. Currently, she is working on dance and film media and is really interested in working in different lanes with different media.

The GPS/Global Practice Sharing program provides a platform for the international exchange of ideas, processes, and reflective practices surrounding dance and movement-based forms between the U.S. and independent performing arts communities internationally. GPS posits that dialogue across differences necessarily catalyzes the generation of new knowledge and creative innovation. By investing in the mobility of artists, curators, and cultural workers, GPS advances cross-cultural understanding and the development of the contemporary arts field at large. Officially established in 2016, GPS consists of an informal network of partners currently supporting exchange projects in Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). 

All events are FREE and open to the public. Advance reservations required at: https://movementresearch.org/events/series/festival/.