Dancing on the Edge Festival will bring performances by and in collaboration with artists from the Middle East and North Africa to The Netherlands once more in November 2019.
The wind whistles: Not another festival, not another ‘big’ budget, no flying artists in, flying artists out, no audience tally. Not if the cultural and socio-political systems and their power structures remain unchanged. Not unless DOTE publicly examines its practice within the frames of (post-)colonial practices. Not whilst the distance between here and there, between ‘the other’ and ‘I’ keeps growing.
DOTE is listening. It feels the urgency, longs for change, and takes the responsibility to reflect on its own position within these dynamics. DOTE wants to imagine and realize a shift.
The Table Talks series is one of the spaces in which to do this. Through these encounters, we hope to sense and imagine together: what are the urgencies that guide our practices, which structural changes do we desire and, what are we doing to achieve them? The starting point for each Table Talks is formulated out of what emerges as urgent in the preceding edition, formulated by the group that is present. There will be a Table Talks XL during the festival in November 2019, and the series will conclude with a final edition at the end of the year.
The Table Talks #1 took place on the 5th of June 2019 at the Dancing on the Edge offices.
Read the blog and look at the drawings made of the first Table Talks here.
Table Talks #2 will take place on the 9th of July 2019 at Zina Ateliers. If you would like to be part of this conversation, please contact us at office@dancingontheedge.nl
