Join us in the weekend of 22 and 23 April for the durational live project Basically by Nikima Jagudajev at WIELS. You can arrive whenever suits you: the performance has no beginning or end and can be experienced whenever you feel like it, and for how long as you want.
Saturday 22.04.2023, between 17:00-23:00
Sunday 23.04.2023, between 12:00-18:00
Tickets: € 10 / 7 / 4 (Exhibitions included on Sunday, and on Saturday until 18:00)
Performance view, Nikima Jagudajev: Basically, part of 'Protozone6: Are you coming?’, Shedhalle. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Laila Kaletta
Basically is an ongoing live project whose exhibition format is a hybrid production space, residency space, school yard; a context to practice and perform within. Jagudajev’s collective, prefigurative practice is called re-schooling, coming together and sharing devotions. A reconstruction of what so many of us—some more than others—were deprived of as children: the laughter that fills the halls between classes, locker decorations and secrets underneath the bleachers. Re-schooling requires the input of many artistic practitioners, sharing with one another their most impassioned selves, sewing relational threads, building strong bonds with themselves and others.
The performance is structured as a choreographic game for several performers with interactive and playful rules. It includes nonlinear dance choreographies that fold in on themselves like portals through time, fugue-like contrapuntal guitar melodies, vocals and Ableton soundscapes, daily I Ching castings that locate the performers in a shifty universe, a deck of collectable cards called POWDER, Arcane Clothing, Still Lifes, “crits” – art class crit turned oracle – and unscheduled time that leaves room for contingency. Visitors are invited into this shifting constellation. They become involved in making and remaking the environment; a sociality of difference.
Curated by Helena Kritis
With the support of Phileas Foundation
In collaboration with Dhaka Art Summit & Workspacebrussels
Biography:
Nikima Jagudajev (1990) is a US American, Austrian/Uzbek choreographer. Their process based collaborative practice looks at social forms; social relations as spatial relations and how we assemble in fulfilling and considerate ways. Harnessing the choreography of play as a framework, performers (Conduit) and visitors (Arrivor) are incorporated into an open-ended game. World building is aided by a group of artists who shape the playground with elements such as live music, food, a deck of collectable cards, secrets and nonlinear dance choreographies that fold in on themselves like portals through time. These elements work as informal invitations to engage in different ways, shifting attention and offering agency and ontological transformation. Like 3-dimensional Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) this mythopoeic world is both serious and playful, enchanted with meaning and full of mods. One’s experience is determined by the games’ formal properties as well as the interaction of various interpreting subjectivities. Performers and visitors share this slippery universe.
Credits:
Creation, direction & choreography: Nikima Jagudajev
Musical collaboration and technical direction: Jordan Balaber & Lester St. Louis
Dance: Laurel Atwell, Matilda Cobanli, Lara Dâmaso, Emmanuel Diela Nkita, Ezra Fieremans, Hanako Hayakawa, Yevheniya Kravets, Ikenna Nwaogu, Shelmith Øseth, Louise Trueheart, Alexandra Tveit, Marie Ursin, Amalia Wiatr Lewis
Music performance & movement:
Bård Aarvik, Jordan Balaber, M I M I, Ashley Morgan, Salomon Poutsma, Julie Silset, Lester St. Louis, Amalia Wiatr Lewis
Rehearsal direction and game development: Laurel Atwell, Louise Trueheart
Graphic design: Laurel Atwell and Zoë Field
Fabric design:
Magnus Håland Sunde, Laura Stalleci, Louise Trueheart
Videography: Salomon Poutsma, Marie Ursin
Video editing: C. Oyama, Salomon Poutsma
Basically album mixing and mastering engineer: Chris Pawlusek
Musical contribution: June Jenkins, Amina Olsson
Powder deck contribution:
Laurel Atwell, Sanne Dodier, Nina Emge, Olivia Erlanger, Zoë Field, Polina Filipova, Padyn Humble, Abigail McNamara, C. Oyama, Ra Tack, nick von kleist (nvk), Maïra Villena, Petra Webb
Production:
Hiros
Co-production:
workspacebrussels, WIELS, Mumok
Residencies:
Decoratelier, kunstenfestivaldesarts2021, workspacebrussels, Im_flieger Wien, Frankfurt LAB, KAAP, Centre Pompidou, Dhaka Art Summit
Partners: Bergen Kunsthall, Oktoberdans, BIT Teatergarasjen, Shedhalle Zurich, KAAP
With the support of: Flemish Government, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, Re-imagine Europe, Phileas Foundation
Collaborators: The Class of the 21st Century: Bård Aarvik, Laurel Atwell, Jordan Balaber, Matilda Cobanli, Lara Dâmaso, Dounia Dolbec, Emmanuel Diela Nkita, Zöe Field, Ezra Fieremans, Magnus Håland Sunde, Hanako Hayakawa, June Jenkins, Yevheniya Kravets, M I M I, Ashley Morgan, Ikenna Nwaogu, Shelmith Øseth, Cody Oyama, Chris Pawlusek, Salomon Poutsma, Julie Silset, Lester St. Louis, Louise Trueheart, Alexandra Tveit, Marie Ursin, Nicoline Ursin, Amalia Wiatr Lewis and Stav Yeini