Moving Identities: KAIHO

STL is hosting the Belgian dance company KAIHO from the 31st of October to 11th of November for the international residency program “Moving Identities”. 

Moving Identities is a 3-year residency programme for performing artists funded by The Creative Europe Programme that creates a more sustainable, diverse and including platform for European Identities in the performing arts. Focusing on European identities today, the aim of the project is to create a network of residencies and experts, connecting artists, venues, and experts across borders in an eco-friendly way.

KAIHO’s residency project “AVoid” is rooted in the Japanese concept hikikomori—the withdrawal into seclusion, a particular condition where people avoid social contact on an extreme level. The interdisciplinary research project connects acro-dance, contortion, contemporary dance and physical theater with personal stories while using innovative physicality and characterisation. Meeting with the artists will take place at STL on 11. November at 4 pm.  

This project is born from Brandon Lagaert’s (KAIHO’s artistic director) and Marina Cherry’s, contortion artist, co-director of AVoid) mutual fascination with solitude, incompleteness, contradictions and Japanese culture. Though this phenomenon has a common place in Japanese society, it exists on many levels all around the world, but is rarely addressed socially. Some of the questions driving our project are:  What are the discernible differences between solitude and loneliness? What does hikikomori mean on the European continent and how do different cultures deal with social withdrawal?

During the first residency in Belgium at Kunstenwerkplaats VONK, Kaiho collected local stories, culminating with the creation of a video. Based on the personal stories, the artists plan to start a physical research at STL in Tallinn. To describe the creation of a language of movement, the artists draw parallels with being immersed in an alternate universe – confronting their fantasies, fears, neuroses, as a disruption to the conventional social movements and interactions. KAIHO’s last residency will take place in Spring 2024 at Nau Ivanow International residence space of performing arts in Barcelona, where their focus will be on creating lighting for the performance. 

Founded by Brandon Lagaert, Kaiho is a performance art company that uses dance, theater, visual art, and film to tell narratives with a surreal twist. The works are mostly of a collaborative nature with other companies and artists of different backgrounds, enriching the world and the vocabulary of the collective. For Moving Identities, Kaiho collaborates with the contortionist artist Marina Cherry co-directing the solo AVoid together with Brandon Lagaert, with the presence of Sara Angelucci as artistic assistant, and Thibault Condy as a light designer. Marina Cherry is a contortionist-acro-dancer, graduated from École supérieure des arts du cirque in Brussels (2019) and École nationale de cirque in Montreal (2016). Her research-based approach to creation and performing puts her somewhere between dance, contemporary circus and physical theatre; with her body as the tool of manipulation, the artist aims to deconstruct and redefine traditional standards and established techniques to write her own language. 

Moving Identities is a 3-year residency programme for performing artists of 2-5 people based in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Norway, and Spain. Moving Identities offers an opportunity for companies to develop a project idea and artistic vision through 3 paid residencies – 1 local and 2 international. The artists selected for the 1st residency year from Estonia are the Artefactourists – choreographers Valeria Januškevitš, Keity Pook, Sigrid Savi, Kadri Sirel and dramaturg Kerli Ever. Aiming to create a more sustainable, diverse and including platform for European Identities in the performing arts, Moving Identities offers the artists a network of residencies and experts to enable the exchange of best practice, challenges, and solutions across Europe.

Participating venue partners are:

• Udviklingsplatformen for Scenekunst Denmark
• Davvi – Centre for Performing Arts Norway
• Vaba Lava, Estonia
• Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava – STL, Estonia
• HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts Germany
• Kunstenwerkplaats VONK Belgium
• Nau Ivanow Barcelona 

The next open call will be out in spring 2024. In the meantime, you can stay updated on the project and any deadlines on Moving Identities webpage  and following our Instagram.

Contact:

Sirli Oot, Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava (STL), sirli@stl.ee

Helen Maandi, Vaba Lava, maandi@vabalava.ee