Naked in a cage…. For art

ART WEEK | Workshop Series 2017: Joint Performance Summer Class by La Pocha Nostra & VestAndPage

Original was uploaded on 2018-01-03

Excerpts from the final public presentation of the “Joint Performance Summer Class by La Pocha Nostra & VestAndPage”

As part of the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK | Workshop Series 2017
C32 performingartworkspace
Forte Marghera, Mestre-Venice (IT)
June 6, 2017

Video captured and edited by Matilde Sambo

In the framework of the Educational Learning Program of the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK, Studio Contemporaneo in collaboration with Live Arts Cultures presented the fourth of a series of practical workshops on performance art in Venice. Upon invitation by Francesca Carol Rolla, the performance troupe La Pocha Nostra (US/Mexico) and artist duo VestAndPage have chosen to merge their unique pedagogical practices for a 10 days joint immersive performance class as part of the ART WEEK | Workshop Series.

“On our world’s stage, where economic and social systems move deeply into relations of the capital, La Pocha Nostra’s and VestAndPage’s generous theory and practice stress the complexity of being human – the pleasures and the pains. Before knowing you I was wondering what motivates artists to give, to share initiatory processes. To me, you have been the experience that embodies what art can do: assigning sacred tasks to the human imaginary, you showed me that I might be able to live my life as a work of art. I understand that efforts are required, as well as sacrifice – but everybody has his part on the stage.” (Francesca Carol Rolla)

With the participation of Sabrina Bellenzier (IT), Giorgia De Santi (IT), Marisa Garreffa (AU), Arturo Herrera (US), Milan Jovanovic (RS), Sara Kostic (RS), Fenia Kotsopoulou (GR), Bandu Manamperi (LK), Giulia Mattera (IT), Emalia Mattia (US/IT), Amy Mauvan (UK), Bon Mott (AU), Vena Naskrecka (PL), Daiane Rafaela (BR), Enok Ripley (CA), Cristiana Zeta Rolla (IT), Giovanni Saldì (IT), Saulaman Schlegel (US), Marcel Sparmann (DE), Alexandra Tálamo (AU), Joan Wyand (US), Hee Tia Yoon (CN), Adam Zduńczyk (PL), Imke Zeinstra (NL).

LA POCHA NOSTRA
La Pocha Nostra is an ever growing cross-disciplinary arts organization and non-profit based in San Francisco, California with branches in Central and South America, Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. La Pocha Nostra was founded in 1993 by Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Roberto Sifuentes, Michèle Ceballos Michot and Nola Mariano in Los Angeles. The goal was to formalise conceptually Gomez-Peña’s collaborations with other performance artists. Current core members of La Pocha Nostra include Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Michèle Ceballos Michot, Saul Garcia Lopez, Balitronica Gomez, Emma Tramposch, and Nayla Altamirano. The troupe’s projects range from performance solos and duets to large scale multi-sensory performance installations involving photo, video, sound and projection. If there is a common denominator, it is their desire to cross and erase dangerous borders including those between art and politics, art practice and theory, artist and spectator – ultimately to dissolve borders and myths of purity whether they be specific to culture, ethnicity, gender or language. | www.pochanostra.com

VESTANDPAGE
Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes have been working together since 2006 as VestAndPage, creating live performances, performance-based films, performance visuals, and poetic writings since over a decade, exploring performance art as phenomena through their collaborative creative practice, as well as through theoretical artistic research and curatorial projects. VestAndPage’s art practice is contextual and situation-responsive, conceived psycho-geographically in response to social contexts, natural surroundings, historical sites and architectures. In a “Poetics of Relations” they examine notions of temporalities, memory strata, communication and fragility of the individual and the collective within social and environmental spheres, applying the themes of trust in change, endurance, union, pain sublimation and risk-taking with a poetic bodily approach to art practice and a focus on universal human experiences. | www.vest-and-page.de

VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK
Conceived and initiated by VestAndPage, the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK is the international live art exhibition project taking place since 2012 at historical Venetian premises. Up to date, the trilogy has extensively presented historic pioneer works on exhibit in conjunction with live programs of durational performances, showing over 120 international artists, as well as the ongoing Learning Program, coordinated by Francesca Carol Rolla and realised in collaboration with Live Arts Cultures and other international partner organisations.
www.veniceperformanceart.org

http://www.veniceperformanceart.org