Lewis will introduce feminist sociologist Roslyn Bologh’s notion of “erotic sociability” as a form of interhuman sociality and guide a conversation about this as an alternative to the dominant 20th century relational modes of competition, conflict, and coercion. This workshop will then focus on the tuning and heightening of the senses in order to facilitate a state of hyper-presence that will be the aid towards generative and affective forms of being and dancing together.
The figure of the unambitious stripper serves as a metaphor guiding us to connect with our inner worlds in order to become more radically receptive to our outer worlds. For Lewis “unambitiousness” is key to the notion of the unambitious stripper. The outward-oriented gaze of the stripper that usually reaches out to address and arrest the client with the ambition of monetary gain is turned in on itself in this scenario. In this movement workshop instead of stripping off our clothes, we will use our imaginations to turns our attention inward, toward the surface of our own skin and imagine peeling away layers of social constructs and identity to access a personal inner space.
The unambitious stripper dances first for themselves and then for others ultimately reconnecting with the human and nonhuman presences they share space with. The dance that emerges is processual, a double motion of inner and outer, a becoming and an undoing, a movement on a continuum of becoming an object of interest and desire and being drawn out as an interested and desiring subject.
Please register for
the workshop here!
With: Isabel Lewis
Programmed by Philipp Bergmann & Thea Reifler for Shedhalle
With this workshop, Shedhalle takes part in the Fleshy Interface Festival, initiated by Theater Neumarkt. Check the full program here
