Tiny
Type of Proposal
Performance (Music, Dance, Dramatic Art, etc.)
Faculty
Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Proposal
For my original performance project I use the aesthetic medium of movement to bring Judith Butler’s theory of human vulnerability and her concept of “grievability” into conversation with the current migrant crisis, particularly with the tragic story of Alan Kurdi. In 2015, Alan Kurdi and his family attempted to flee the Syrian civil war when their inflatable boat capsized off the coast of Turkey. Many of the refugees aboard were killed. When the devastating photographs of Alan’s body were published, it sparked a global conversation regarding the international community’s inadequate response to the ongoing refugee crisis and its terrible human cost. The images of Alan’s dead body are disturbing because they depict a dead child whose innocence and human rights were fundamentally violated. In the context of the current refugee crisis, with particular attention paid to Alan’s tragic story, the questions that Judith Butler raises in Precarious Life, such as “who counts as human?,” “whose lives count as lives?,” and “what makes for a grievable life?,” are incredibly pressing and necessary in order to move towards a new political order that provides the conditions for peace, community, and human dignity. I explore these ideas through abstract movement. In the first part of my piece, I am Alan, living joyfully in childhood; next, I embody the sea, unrelenting and unforgiving; finally, I transform into Alan getting swept under the waves, illustrating the wave's capacity to extinguish life. Therefore, this juxtaposition of innocence and violence was a fascinating way for me to explore these questions in an abstract work.
Start Date
23-3-2018 10:35 AM
End Date
23-3-2018 11:55 AM
Location
Alumni Auditorium B
Special Considerations
Background: For my performance piece, I explore the life and death of Alan Kurdi through the aesthetic medium of movement, as developed by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau in their monograph entitled “Viewpoints Training.”
Keywords: Refugee, Crisis, Alan Kurdi, Drowning, Syria, Movement Composition
Tiny
Alumni Auditorium B
For my original performance project I use the aesthetic medium of movement to bring Judith Butler’s theory of human vulnerability and her concept of “grievability” into conversation with the current migrant crisis, particularly with the tragic story of Alan Kurdi. In 2015, Alan Kurdi and his family attempted to flee the Syrian civil war when their inflatable boat capsized off the coast of Turkey. Many of the refugees aboard were killed. When the devastating photographs of Alan’s body were published, it sparked a global conversation regarding the international community’s inadequate response to the ongoing refugee crisis and its terrible human cost. The images of Alan’s dead body are disturbing because they depict a dead child whose innocence and human rights were fundamentally violated. In the context of the current refugee crisis, with particular attention paid to Alan’s tragic story, the questions that Judith Butler raises in Precarious Life, such as “who counts as human?,” “whose lives count as lives?,” and “what makes for a grievable life?,” are incredibly pressing and necessary in order to move towards a new political order that provides the conditions for peace, community, and human dignity. I explore these ideas through abstract movement. In the first part of my piece, I am Alan, living joyfully in childhood; next, I embody the sea, unrelenting and unforgiving; finally, I transform into Alan getting swept under the waves, illustrating the wave's capacity to extinguish life. Therefore, this juxtaposition of innocence and violence was a fascinating way for me to explore these questions in an abstract work.