Symposium: Towards Documentary Choreography

Towards Documentary Choreography:
Encounter #2 – Attending to Bodies

Practical information

Date

• 28-30 April 2025

Location

• Beursschouwburg, 20/28 Rue Auguste Orts, 1000, Brussels
• Les Grands Carmes, 20/22 Rue des Grands Carmes, 1000, Brussels
• KVS BOL, 146 Rue de Laeken, 1000, Brussels

“Towards Documentary Choreography – Encounter #2” is the second in a series of symposiums linked to the doctoral research of choreographer Arkadi Zaides. This event brings together scholars, activists, artists, dance and performance practitioners to explore the multifaceted meanings of “documentary choreography” and to assess its potential engagement with sociopolitical issues as well as medium-specific concerns.

This edition places the act of attending to bodies at its core, emphasizing the body as a critical site of knowledge, memory, and agency. As such, the symposium invites participants to consider how physical gestures, movements, and embodied acts act as repositories of lived experience, capable of reflecting on and responding to sociopolitical realities. Attending to bodies means not only observing their actions but also recognizing the ways they embody histories of struggle, resilience, and transformation.

The symposium delves into the intersection of documentary materials and corporealities, revealing how bodies can disrupt dominant narratives, amplify silenced stories, and confront pressing crises such as warfare, migration, inequality, and ecological breakdown. How can choreography, by centering on bodies, navigate these crises and uncover new ways of engaging with the world? Through this perspective, the symposium aims to demonstrate how choreography and related arts, when intertwined with documentary practices, can address urgent contemporary issues while critically examining the processes, ethics, and sustainability of artistic practices.

This event is organized in cooperation between: the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA); Counterpoint (KU Leuven); the Flemish Government; the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Ghent University; the Faculty of Arts (Department of Literature) of the University of Antwerp; CoDa | Cultures of Dance – Research Network for Dance Studies (funded by the Research Foundation Flanders – FWO), Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT), S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts & Media) at Ghent University; CORPoREAL (research group at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp); the Necropolis United research project (funded by the Research Foundation Flanders – FWO); Beursschouwburg.

Production assistance: Emma Meerschaert (PhD researcher, KU Leuven)

Find the programme here.

Register here.