crossing boundaries
Diego Agulló & Lea Martini

The skill that belongs to the cross-dilettantes is the ability of transversality… becoming insect to carry the pollen between different systems, but also the ability of infiltration…becoming spy to absorb knowledge

This module proposes an open research and laboratory on the topics of cross-disciplinarity, dilettantism and hybrid performance. Without distinguishing between theory and practice we will display a mixed domain of exercises in order to elaborate on a landscape of diverse concepts and approaches. This will allow us to reflect on what constitutes our specificity as individuals and as a group.

Terms such as transversality, networking and versatility have become key words to understand the notion of the new worker in the contemporary professional field. This is why we will take as a paradigm the role of the 'dilettante', which - as opposed to the amateur - is free from negative connotations, and does not measure its success according to a framework defined by a professional field but rather operates like a cross-pollinator. The dilettante functions as an insect that transfers the pollen from one flower to another allowing fertilization. The dilettante stimulates influence among diverse elements, it is the one who has the agility to move across, to mix up and fertilize but also to become a pirate, steal knowledge and work as a virus producing contagions and interferences. A dilettante works as an interface that drills holes allowing transpiration between systems to take place, and therefore permitting the possibility for interchange. It is a matter of fact that methods, habits, knowledge and tricks will be exported from one domain to another.

Working together on a series of game-like tasks we will attempt to articulate performative situations in order to decide for ourselves what is of value, what is the practice of self-education and self-valorization; how self-realization implies to be immersed in a constant learning process which is actually a process of absorption. The bigger one's hunger, the richer the learning.

As for the physical practice we will explore - through durational movement sessions - how the question of crossing boundaries can be brought to the innermost matter of our body. We will draw our scores from a range of diverse body practices like the dancing plague, dynamic meditation, Kundalini yoga, automatic talking, celestial praying, running. Through collective excesses of movement and language we will seek to create a sphere of compelling contagiousness and interference that can reach even the layers of particles and cells.

Participants will decide themselves which tools to use to generate material. You will be encouraged to bring all what is needed, as the module is definitely geared towards creation of personal work. The third and last week of this module functions as an open container for you to keep developing your own ideas in collaborative processes with the others – with the active support of the teachers' mentorship.


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Diego Agulló (1980) is a video artist, performer and researcher based in Berlin. He started to think ninja-style when at the age of five he begun to develop a NTL (nothing-to-lose) mindset while playing his favorite game 'Darkness'.

In 1998, having a background in football and Tae Kwon Do, he decided to study Philosophy for six years at the University in Madrid. During this time he got involved in the practices of music improvisation, sculpture and painting. In 2005, he decided not to open a book for the next three years. He replaced this absence with a video camera and moved to Berlin where he became a VJ. He spent four years working in clubs, experimenting with visuals.

In 2007 he accidentally got involved in performance arts and choreography, and has since been working in the field, mainly in collaboration with Agata Siniarska, Lea Martini and Ibrahim Quaraishi. He has presented work at the 57th Berlinale Filmfestspiele 2007, Oberhausen Short Film Festival, MONA Detroit, Asahi Art Square Tokio, Cinedans, Copenhagen Kunsthalle, Springdance Festival, HAU Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Beursschowburg Brussels, Frascati Amsterdam, Pact Zollverein Essen, Mousonturm Frankfurt, iDans Istanbul, Prague Quadrennial and Dance Theater Workshop New York.

In 2010 he met Dmitry Paranyushkin and they became partners in crime, developing the on-going research project in transitionary states called Transnomia, the mission-based project The Humping Pact and the participatory Kafka-esque event The Waiting Room. Diego is the initiator of the event CUE, which has been internationally active for over 70 editions in the cities of Berlin, Rotterdam, Riga, Madrid, Barcelona, Palermo and Valencia. He is currently co-directing and performing the new show "149.597.871 km" in collaboration with Lea Martini (premiered at Hau 3 in Berlin in December 2012). Diego is also working on a set of short texts that will become a book on the topic of cross-pollination, freelancing and dilettantism. He makes fresh squeezed orange juice every morning and sometimes he forgets to breathe. It's now or never.
Day by day.


website
www.diegoagullo.com

blog
www.it-is-now-or-never-day-by-day.tumblr.com

about Dilettantism and Cross-pollination
cross-dilettante-dromo-amateur

about apprenticeship
the-sponge-and-the-curiosity



Lea Martini is a fan of idols, myths and other haunting creatures within the collective memory. She works as both dancer and choreographer and is based in Berlin. She was born in Heidelberg in Germany were she got the chance to discover physical possibilities and boundaries while exercising gymnastics in the Federal High Performance Centre for three years.

After receiving a book with beautiful images from Pina Bauschs dance theatre, a certain desire was planted within, which founded its expression in a contemporary dance education in Berlin and the studies of choreography at the ArtEZ Arnhem and at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) - Amsterdam. Some time after she fell in love with the collaborative working mode of the collective and has since been part of the groups White Horse and Deter/ Müller/ Martini,
with whom she co-created different performances: "White Horse – an attempt at live therapy" (2006), "Trip" (2008), "Memor I am" (2009), "Romance" (2009), "The end of as we know" (2010),"Undead and Delicious" (2011)."Trip" dealt with mass fanatism and was created in 2008 as part of the Freischwimmer Festival and is touring since then in Europe (Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland)and abroad (Colombia, Kenya, China). "Trip en masse", the group version of Trip, has been performed by the Dansgroup Amsterdam and has won the dutch dance prize Zwaan.

Lea also regularly works with youngsters and creates pieces with and for them: she has directed the House Club of HAU theatre Berlin for Groupies in 2011, choreographed the piece 'Nachtmaal' for Het Lab Utrecht (2010), and was part of TuSch Hamburg (Tanz in Schulen); in 2013 Lea will teach in Freiburg as part of the school project 'learning by moving'.

Her desire to search and dig physically for something beyond a steady ground, to be infected and contaminate at the same time, to find a fertile environment where the unspoken can grow keeps coming back in Lea's artistic practice as an endless drive for motion.

website
whitehorsecollective.wordpress.com

determueller.com


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Photos:
André Wunstorf
Diego Agulló