iDANS Festival ‘ to be ‘at work’ in Istanbul

The fifth annual iDANS Festival will encompass diverse expressions of contemporary art, dance, theater, music and performance art and will take place at multiple venues in Istanbul between Sept. 30 and Oct. 23.

The conceptual framework of the 2011 iDANS, organized around a curatorial theme and presented annually by Bimeras Cultural Foundation, was named “At Work.”

 The program events were devised to show to what extent each step in the creation a contemporary performing arts work can be considered as “work;” how the notion of “immaterial labor” as the predominant mode of production in current economies is reflected in the conception, implementation and organization of artistic processes; and how artistic labor contributes to and transforms creativity-centered economic and symbolic production.

The festival program consists of 25 events including live performances, iDANS’s own co-productions, specially created performances, film screenings and talks. iDANS 05 will also feature two training and capacity development programs.

Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 10, iDANS 05 will host the travelling international development program for upcoming choreographers titled “Europe in Motion,” or EIM, a project supported by the European Union.

Next to intense dialogue and discussion sessions between mentors and peers, participants will have the chance to develop “first propositions” and work-in-progresses relevant to the questions and concerns iDANS 05 will present to an interested and engaged audience on Oct. 9 in a marathon program. The mentors for EIM in Istanbul are the renowned choreographers Jonathan Burrows and Mustafa Kaplan.

In 2010, iDANS hosted “Critical Endeavour,” an international educational program designed for the professionalization of contemporary performing arts journalists, writers and critics. This year, a local version of the workshop will take place within iDANS to answer with the questions, concerns, ethics and responsibilities of critical practices in contemporary arts and to contribute to the development of an accessible discourse on live arts.

The festival venues include garajistanbul, Mimar Sinan University Bomonti Campus, Beşiktaş Fulya Sanat, Kadıköy Pier Square, Sultanahmet Square, Bebek Park and SALT Beyoğlu.

BiDANS: ‘Guest Workers’ in Berlin

Beginning in 2011, iDANS will hold a special section of the festival in another world city. The event begins in Berlin with a special international program entitled “biDANS: Guest Workers in Berlin.”

Under the rubric of the general curatorial theme and research of iDANS in 2011, Bimeras is going to launch a sub-section of the festival in Berlin for the special occasion of the 50th year of the “Guest Worker Pact” between Germany and Turkey.

With its international artistic and discursive program, the festival is going to address the changing notions of work, creativity, innovation and productivity; issues pertaining to work-related mobility and immigration; and transformed temporalities of production and the blurring of life and work through precarious labor relations that in turn introduce new forms of alienation and suffering on top of existing problems of integration and xenophobia.

The following are examples of questions that will be asked during the event: To what extent can a stranger be accommodated as a guest? When and under what conditions does hospitality turn into hostility? To what extent is such a shift fuelled by changing modes of production that privilege symbolic and cultural capital and capacities on the part of “workers” instead of the old school definitions of and dependencies on “manual labor”?

All festival tickets are on sale at the garajistanbul box office. All tickets can also be purchased at Biletix. Tickets for events taking place at Fulya Sanat must be purchased at the Fulya Sanat box office.

For further information, please visit www.idans.info.