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TOWARDS DOCUMENTARY CHOREOGRAPHY

“Towards Documentary Choreography - Intermedial Approaches in Working with Extra-Aesthetic Materials” is the title of Arkadi Zaides’ PhD research project, which is conducted as a practice-based joint PhD between the University of Antwerp, The Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, the University of Ghent and KASK/School of Arts (HoGent). The project will run from 2021 to 2025 and will consist of a series of workshops, lectures, publications, master classes, and performances that explore the concept and practice of ‘documentary choreography’.

DOCUMENTARY CHOREOGRAPHY

This multifaceted research is encompassed by the term 'documentary choreography,' which refers to a choreographic approach integrating documents—such as interviews, testimonies, video materials, and archival information—as sources of factual information to challenge and address social and political realities. By merging these documents with embodied practices, documentary choreography strives to transcend the artistic realm and actively engage with the political sphere. Through the articulation and exploration of 'documentary choreography,' Arkadi Zaides reflects on his artistic endeavors over the past decade. This process also fosters connections with other practitioners and scholars who share similar interests, thereby cultivating a collaborative network within this field.

NECROPOLIS UNITED

The Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) Medium Scale Research Infrastructure Project, Necropolis United, aims to develop an integrated, sustainable, open-source virtual memorial commemorating migrants' deaths in Europe. Its primary goal is to engage concerned communities in the memorial's creation. The project employs "Multilingual Encounters" as its methodological approach, bringing together consortium members with representatives from migrant and activist communities. Necropolis United critically assesses technology's role, often used for surveillance and impacting the lives (and deaths) of those it intends to support. Consequently, it seeks to be a nexus for communities of knowledge, allowing diverse groups to influence both the methodology and outcomes of the forthcoming virtual platform.

The Necropolis United extended consortium includes Prof. Dr. Christel Stalpaert (supervisor, Ghent University), Dr. Martin Zícari (coordinator, Ghent University), Geert Ates (representing the United for Intercultural Action network), Pierre Marchand, Pacôme Beru, and Julie Vanderhaeghen (representing Atelier Cartographique), as well as members of Brussels-based organizations and activist groups: Comité des Femmes Sans Papiers, Voix des Sans Papiers de Bruxelles, Getting the Voice Out, Agir pour la Paix, Abolish Frontex, and Collectif Mort·es de la Rue.

Credits & Collaborators

PhD Supervisors Annouk Van Moorsel, Prof. dr. Timmy De Laet, Dr. Jelena Jureša, Prof. dr. Christel Stalpaert Individual PhD commission chair Prof. dr. Kyoko Iwaki Individual PhD commission member Dr. Kristof Van Baarle Grants Support Young Researchers Grant (“subsidie Omkadering Jonge Onderzoekers” - OJO) by the Antwerp Doctoral School for the Towards Documentary Choreography - Encounter #1 Symposium 2023, Medium-scale research infrastructure by the Research Foundation – Flanders (UGent, FWO) for the Necropolis United project (2022-2026)

Upcoming

13—24 January 2025

Workshop as part of RITCS School of Arts' Winter School, Brussels, Belgium

28—30 April 2025

Symposium at beursschouwburg, Brussels, Belgium

Past Events

9 November 2023

Public Lecture and Conversation, Skånes Dansteater , Malmö, Sweden

6—10 November 2023

Workshop, Master’s in Performing Arts as Critical Practice, Malmö Theatre Academy, Malmö, Sweden

7—9 December 2023

Symposium at beursschouwburg, Brussels, Belgium

31 January 2024

A public conversation moderated by Xavier Le Roy, ATW Gießen, Gießen, Germany

25 April 2024

A lecture as part of a seminar organized by choreographer Xavier Le Roy at ATW, Gießen, Germany

8—12 July 2024

Symposium organized by Gee Wesley (MoMA) as part of Bennington Low Residency MFA in Dance, MO.CO, Montpellier, France

17—19 September 2024

Online seminar at Uniarts, Stockholm, Sweden

6—8 October 2024

Workshop as part of FIT - Festival Internazionale Del Teatro, Lugano, Switzerland

View all
Articles & Reviews →

Blurry Manifestos

by Arkadi Zaides, for 'War and Aesthetics: Art, Technology, and the Futures of Warfare', edited by Jens Bjering, Anders Engberg-Pedersen, Solveig Gade and Christine Strandmose Toft, The MIT Press, 06/24

I was initially interested in the joint work of Israeli dancer, choreographer and theoretician Noa Eskhol and her student and later professor of architecture, Avraham Wachman, because their approach questions the notion of "document". The two, often referred to as avant-gardists (Zyman, Finkelman), are renowned for inventing one of the most simple and applicable systems that enable the precise notation of movement patterns (Yanai). However, when I embarked on my historical investigation, I was captivated by the way their system has transcended the artistic field to perform outside of its primary frameworks.

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Towards Documentary Choreography - Encounter #1

by Arkadi Zaides, a three-day symposium at Beursschouwburg, Brussels, 12/23

For this symposium, which follows from his practice-based PhD research, Arkadi Zaides invited various practitioners and scholars to reflect collectively on the notion of “documentary choreography”. By looking at concrete case studies and by proposing various theoretical lenses, the participants explored the strategies used by artists when combining embodied and documentary practices. Through different formats, they considered the potentiality of such blending not only to challenge the boundaries of contemporary dance and documentary theater, but also to engage critically with social and political issues.

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Necropolis. Counter Forensic Practices for Mourning the ‘Othered’ Dead

by Arkadi Zaides, in Rekto Verso, issue 96: Post Mortem, 09/22

For over a quarter of a century, UNITED for Intercultural Action, a network of hundreds of anti-racist organizations from all around Europe, has been compiling a list registering deaths of refugees and migrants who have attempted to reach Europe. This database forms the basis for the performance ‘Necropolis’, in which choreographer and director Arkadi Zaides attempts to outline an ‘invisible city of the dead’, mapped from the graves of the migrants who could not reach their final destinations in Europe.

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Tentacular Thinking in Storied Places

by Christel Stalpaert, Arkadi Zaides, Michel Lussault, Philippe Rekacewicz, Igor Dobricic, Atelier Cartographique in GPS (Global Performance Studies), 01/22

This text is an in-between report of the ongoing collaborative practices of the NecropolisLAB in relation to the research-based perfromance project Necropolis. Every performance of Noceropolis is a preliminary culmination point in the many-faceted and long-term process, placing the body and choreography (in its most expansive sense) as key attention points. The Necropolis erformance calls upon the local (European) audience to individually and collectively acknowledge the death of people wh are dying on the Europien shore by mapping their place of death, performing a grave location search and a walk towards a grave of a migrant.

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Necropolis – Walking through a List of Deaths

by Arkadi Zaides, for (W)archives: Archival imaginaries, war, and contemporary art, edited by Daniela Agostinho, Solveig Gade, Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, and Kristin Veel, Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 12/20

In Europe after World War II, there were massive efforts to search for missing soldiers and citizens, many of which remained unresolved for decades. Only in the early 1990s, after Gorbachev's perestroika, were the Russian archives opened, finally allowing access to information about millions of German prisoners of war who had been previously untraceable. Since 2004, the German Red Cross has digitized two million prisoner files belonging to missing German soldiers and civilians from Russian military archives to create a database with personal information and details about their fates. Germany has not been the only country to conduct such efforts.

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13—24 January 2025

VOICES AND SILENCES, Workshop as part of RITCS School of Arts' Winter School, Brussels, Belgium

4—5 April 2025

THE CLOUD, Perfromances at De Kriekelaar, co-presented by KAAI Theater & Charleroi Danse, Brussels, Belgium