Projects—Master PPS Performing Public Space

Jun 28

Jun 28 BECOMING POSTHUMAN WITH-IN ANTHROPOCENTRIC LANDSCAPES

CLASS 2021/22

For this artistic research project, I draw from feminist, new materialist, posthumanist perspectives to extend my contemporary dance practice out of the studio, and into public space. It is motivated by my urgent will to find new, more response-able ways of practising and performing as a (post) human in the Anthropocene. This research unfolds predominantly from and through the work of feminist, materialist, posthumanist philosophers Karen Barad and Rosi Braidotti, as well as through the proposition of the “somatic camera” by dance artist and academic Heike Salzer. In the first months of research, I investigated human relations with the material components of peri-urban sites, as solo experiments and also in collaboration with a visual artist. In the second phase, the camera was brought in, and hence also a videographer as collaborator. We worked with-in a political site in Valletta (MT). We applied this knowledge to the final phase, with 8 different performers in 7 different sites, to develop a series of screendance performances in anthropocentric landscapes: the wanderMust series. All throughout, I have attempted to co-create with the human and more-than-human, the living and non-living agents of these public spaces.

SPECIAL THANKS

Sincere gratitude to my coach, David, for his generosity of presence and for supporting me to explore my own path. Thank you to Heleen and Danae for helping me sharpen my (knowl)edges as an artistic researcher. Many thanks to Xenia, Ulla, and Liesbeth, for their care and dedication. Immense gratitude to all my PPS colleagues, for all their parts in the co-constitution of our beautiful PPS journey. Ineffable gratitude to my family, for their eternal support and faith, and to all my artistic collaborators, for their trust and invaluable input - Niels, Abigail, Masha, Keit, Romeo, Karl, Ruth, Dali, Zoe, and all the more-than-humans. Thank you to Ms Rosaria Bulteel, offi cer of the ENDEAVOUR Scholarship which is supporting this research.

Florinda Camilleri

Florinda is a dance artist and community pharmacist from and based in Malta. Her artistic practice dances through and between arts, humanities, and sciences. As an independent practitioner, she initiates, leads, and supports performing arts projects in Malta and internationally, taking on various and variegated roles as performer, maker, collaborator, educator, coach, producer, and facilitator. Florinda is interested in the unearthing and exploring of human-world relations in public space(s) through the moving body, particularly through more-thanhuman perspectives. Her performance practice has expanded to encompass screendance performance and direction.