Author: Louis Laulanné (tutor)
Cover photo: Marianna Kaprara
Re:claiming the streets and public spaces of the city in a fun, humouristic, artful way; through performance – this is the ambition we set for the test-Protest workshop. It took place within the RE:EASA event during two weeks in the summer 2018 in Rijeka (Croatia).
Inspired by situationists, the workshop combined games, performances and provocation. It bypassed common public space rules and hijacked the streets, bringing in new situations, emotions and forms of political expression. Detaching ourselves from urban social laws and injunctions, we invented our own rules for the game and claimed a political reenactment of urban use and misuse.
By intruding ironically and artistically into overlooked urban spaces, the performances sought to bring attention to our daily patterns and city habits. The workshop tried to invest and re:inhabit them, liberate them and their inhabitants. The extension of play and dance out of the Theatre boards and into the city, gave it a new role and created other narratives of human presence and movement.
Ultimately the form of the demonstration addressed a situationist critique to the spectacle of the society. By disturbing or perturbing the everyday life, it challenged the roles (characters) and the decor we live in.
Notwithstanding with the situationist claim, we above all deeply believed that the workshop should be freed from any utilitarian approach and therefore demanded the right for EASA to be called a great platform for failure!
The first goal of this experiment was purely educational and deeply personal. It was a journey towards satisfaction where everyone can be a dancer! The atelier was mainly focused on body consciousness, confidence and self-expression, in order to trigger in everyone new ways of looking at the urban environment and playing with it. The idea was to show the power of human being in shaping the space.
Individually, collectively – our moves made cities.
“And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
– Nietzsche
Actions
The improvised performances, called actions, were the core of the workshop, happening every morning in the city. Through various techniques and methodologies, using simple rules like those in children games, twisted protest methods or more complex urban analysis tools, we have been shaking up common public space rules, creating other layers of urban understanding and behaviour.
Despite their non-architectural form, the actions remained fully anchored in their location. Through choreographic investigations of the city, characterised by a direct search for social realities and spatial, kinesthesic and haptic qualities, it provided an instantly contextualised proposal. The urban existence and fabric was the canvas to spur the creative process. By taking place in the street itself, the collective and individual performative improvisations, interfered and interacted with the city life and spaces, thus becoming an actual player in the urban planning game. Be it with the everyday life from Rijeka, or the ephemeral activity due to RE:EASA, test-Protest actions sought to generate interaction and surprise.
Sometimes actions happened on specific workshop sites in collaboration (or not) with others and including their work in the performance. This collaborations have been a rare experience and a great opportunity for RE:EASA participants to bring more to each other. Allowing the outcome to exceed the sum of the parts, they permitted a stronger and wider impact on the place of intervention.
Besides our frequent encounters with the inhabitants, we also played with the RE:EASA community and invited everyone to join our folly. During the Open Doors Day we engaged together in a large happening with a crowd of participants. The performance made a visually recognizable element of the RE:EASA and for a while test-Protest became the street crew of the community, announcing and promoting the arrival of new structures and events.
- Protest Presentation
- Interruption (inverting the audience/stage relation and the established order)
- Morning Rave (sweating rather than talking)
- Children Games at Kont and various locations:
- The Floor is Lava
- Grandma Steps (1, 2, 3, Freeeze!)
- Wolf and Sheeps
- Monkey and Bears
- Collective Body (jellyfish, snake, penguins)
- Blind Tours in the Old Town
- Shadow Tracking around the city
- Rain Dance at Jadran Square
- Fountain Ballet in various fountains in the city
- Speaker Corner at the Main market
- Big Action (around 70 participants) from Exportdrvo to the Bus Station and back
- Re:Room X test-Protest Collaboration on Korzo
- Catwalk na Mostu hrvatskih branitelja iz Domovinskog rata i u Harteri
- Open Doors Day Hack
- Collective Nap in the Exportdrvo Main Hall
- Mirror Pas de Deux on both sides of the Dead Canal
- Final Riot on the top of Hartera
Training
Involving a lot of falling down and public exposure, the actions would not have been possible without a solid base of training in the studio and team building. Tutored by professionals, the afternoon dance classes have been a precious time together that allowed everyone to gather the skills and confidence needed for the performances.
- Contact Improvisation in the Dance Studio (IVEX)
- Voguing in the Dance Studio (IVEX)
- Swimming and Diving at the Old Villa
- Film Watching (Pina – Wim Wenders) with Body on Hot Line
- Dancing every night in the Bar
- Playing with the city and people nerves
Discussion
Dancing in the city revealed a need for research on political discourse and the urban cityscape. In this sense we invited a couple of foreign and local contributors to discuss about public space, phenomenology, activism, situationism, demonstration, dance and politics. The discussions happened at the end of the day, during the third shift.
- Nataša Antulov, dramaturge from the National Theater from Rijeka
- Filip Pračić, organiser of RE:EASA
- Christopher Maloney, architect and activist from Manchester
- Franka Blažić, organiser of the Porto Etno Festival
- Isabel Slušanj, local dancer from Rijeka
- Bláthmhac ó Muirí, tutor of the EASA Archive workshop
- all the informal and exciting debates with locals or fellow students triggered by our weird behaviour
Organisation, budget and material
In order to achieve a dynamic workshop, a methodological framework
was needed to keep integrity and encourage a dynamic flow of creativity. It was supposed to trigger motivation and challenge imagination while letting participants flexibility.
To preserve our physical condition while boosting up the pedagogical dimension of the proposed activities, the day was articulated in three shifts: Actions/Trainings/Discussions also called City/Body/Mind (Morning/Afternoon/Evening). Each part included strict moments with challenging introductions, individual experiments and collective feedback.
Thanks to the partnership with IVEX, which provided the dance studio, it’s been a virtually free workshop. Dance is actually so much cheaper than architecture.
“I am broke.”
“Me too.”
“Let’s dance!”
– a hypothetical conversation with Ionuț and Louis at RE:EASA
Outcome
Considered as an educational process of abstract form, test-Protest outcome is merely of human quality. Together we have learned some cool moves and gained knowledge and confidence, but above all bonded friendships and lived crazy times.
Still, one thing can be added here: four months later, Mike and Maria, both participants, organized an offspring of test-Protest, together with Valeria Khripatch in Malta: test-Protest 2.0
Congratulations to them!
“I am crowd and I am proud.”
– one of the slogans used during the guerrilla campaign
Team
The collective body was made up of three tutors, twelve participants and two extras, with only two guys among participants. Intensive team building at the bar and relaxing sessions at the beach besides training and practice helped constituting a united group.
- Louis Laulanné, architect from Paris
- Valeria Khripatch, dance artist from Minsk
- Venla Miila Kaarina Keskinen, vogue performer from Helsinki
- Anna Bunina, Elina Liiva, Emil Dworschak, Gia Khuong Nguyen, Karolin Kaup, Luka Smišek, Mike Zerafa, Maria Azzopardi, Svenja Nomkea Lindner, Salome Schramm, Sophia Chtysanthou, Tuulia Kivistö, Vassiliki Apostolaki, Eveline
- all the EASA participants, tourists and inhabitants that joined us spontaneously during our explorations
