ARTISTIC AND CURATORIAL PROJECTS
- “iDANS #7: Unbound,” international program interrogating how artists bear witness and respond to contemporary authoritarianisms, with particular focus on the case of Turkey. In preparation.
- iDANS #6: On the Road, international festival featuring live performances, talks, workshops, and exhibitions at multiple venues and urban public spaces, Istanbul, 2012-2014.
- iDANS #5: At Work, international festival encompassing live performances, talks, workshops, and exhibitions at multiple venues and urban public spaces, Istanbul, October 2011.
- iDANS #4: The New CosmopoliDANS, international festival encompassing live performances, installations, screenings, talks, and workshops at multiple venues and urban public spaces, Istanbul, October 2010.
- iDANS #3: Laughing ↔ Crying, international festival encompassing live performances, installations, talks, seminars, screenings, and workshops at multiple venues, Istanbul, October 2009.
- iDANS #2: Dance on Time, international festival encompassing live dance and theatre performances, film screenings, conferences, workshops, and publications at multiple venues, Istanbul, May 2009.
- iDANS #1: Solo?, International festival encompassing live dance and theatre performances, concerts, workshops, publications and conferences at multiple venues, Istanbul, October 2007.
- iDANS #0: IstanbulReConnects, international marathon program for staged dance performances and exhibitions at Kenter Theater, Istanbul, April 2006.
- Critical Endeavor Turkey #2, writing workshop and theoretical seminar series for performing arts scholars and journalists, Istanbul, October 2012.
- Critical Endeavor Turkey #1, writing workshop and theoretical seminar series for performing arts scholars and journalists, Istanbul, October 2011.
- Critical Endeavor Jardin d'Europe, international workshop for upcoming dance journalists and critics within the context of iDANS International Contemporary Dance and Performance Festival as part of the European Network “Jardin d’Europe,” Istanbul, October 2010.
SCHOLARLY RESEARCH AND WRITING
The EUropean Dance: The Emergence and Transformation of a Contemporary Dance Art World (1989-2016)
This research is an empirical investigation of the development of a contemporary dance art world as a distinct field of cultural production at a transnational level. I argue that this art world came to being organized around the recasting of dance as a field of knowledge production. I contend that the aesthetic transformations within the artistic realm became successful due to the confluence of wider political and organizational factors. The transnational networking movement that began in the independent performing arts field in the late 1970s and 1980s were given an additional boost by the “cultural turn” of the European integration process since the end of the Cold War. I analyze the impact of EU programs on dance networks for the dissemination of the aesthetics and production models of dance throughout Europe. In other words, I investigate the process through which contemporary dance made in Europe became European contemporary dance. The inquiry deploys a mixed-methods qualitative approach and is based on seven years of field work.
Cultures of Protest and the Body
My recent research examines from an interdisciplinary perspective particular instances of recent social protests as examples to rethink the relation between the aesthetic and bodily dimensions of the “political.” In my article "Gezi Uprising: Performative Democracy and Politics of the Body in an Extended Space of Appearance," in dialogue with Hannah Arendt's work on political action, I analyze how the Gezi protests laid claim to and extended the political sphere. From multiple disciplines traversing political theory, cultural sociology, media and performance studies as well as my personal experiences of the protests, I discuss the online and offline culture of protest as a case of “performative democracy.” I envision the Gezi Uprising as an instance that allows for rethinking the highly nuanced bodily dimensions of the “political.” Focusing on the image of the “lady in red,” I inquire how the performativity of a photograph that circulated on the media in combination with the non-violent resistance of the body it depicted contributed to the initial mobilization of the protesters. Furthermore, I examine the “standing man” protest as an example of mobilizing vulnerability for resistance. In the working paper/impulse statement "Bodies Unbound," I comparatively analyze some practices that defy the boundaries of the body such as contemporary dance, suicide bombing, necro-political forms of resistance (i.e. hunger strikes and self-immolations), and non-violent protests (i.e. the “standing man” protest). I discuss how these phenomena differ in their attitude toward bodily vulnerability.
The Lived Body Under Authoritarianism: The Embodied Dimensions of "Inner Emigration"
With this research I am developing, I focus on a different yet not less important aspect of the relationship between the body and politics. While there is abundant literature on biopolitics and necropower (i.e. torture, hunger strikes, self-immolations, natural disasters and neglected populations, differential distributions of vulnerability through neoliberal policies), there has not been sufficient attention to the more microscopic and everyday bodily dimensions of living under authoritarian regimes. With this research, I aim to study the more subtle, invisible, accumulated traumas of bearing witness to political atrocities by focusing on a group of political dissidents and artists in Istanbul. Although one may not be directly subjected to state violence, one can be equally traumatized once the political means of articulating dissent have been obstructed. Given the speed of negative political developments in Turkey and the accompanying feelings of helplessness, the following questions constitute the center of my inquiry: What are the effects and manifestations of “inner emigration” on the body? How do we bear witness to and document the history of the present?
This research is an empirical investigation of the development of a contemporary dance art world as a distinct field of cultural production at a transnational level. I argue that this art world came to being organized around the recasting of dance as a field of knowledge production. I contend that the aesthetic transformations within the artistic realm became successful due to the confluence of wider political and organizational factors. The transnational networking movement that began in the independent performing arts field in the late 1970s and 1980s were given an additional boost by the “cultural turn” of the European integration process since the end of the Cold War. I analyze the impact of EU programs on dance networks for the dissemination of the aesthetics and production models of dance throughout Europe. In other words, I investigate the process through which contemporary dance made in Europe became European contemporary dance. The inquiry deploys a mixed-methods qualitative approach and is based on seven years of field work.
Cultures of Protest and the Body
My recent research examines from an interdisciplinary perspective particular instances of recent social protests as examples to rethink the relation between the aesthetic and bodily dimensions of the “political.” In my article "Gezi Uprising: Performative Democracy and Politics of the Body in an Extended Space of Appearance," in dialogue with Hannah Arendt's work on political action, I analyze how the Gezi protests laid claim to and extended the political sphere. From multiple disciplines traversing political theory, cultural sociology, media and performance studies as well as my personal experiences of the protests, I discuss the online and offline culture of protest as a case of “performative democracy.” I envision the Gezi Uprising as an instance that allows for rethinking the highly nuanced bodily dimensions of the “political.” Focusing on the image of the “lady in red,” I inquire how the performativity of a photograph that circulated on the media in combination with the non-violent resistance of the body it depicted contributed to the initial mobilization of the protesters. Furthermore, I examine the “standing man” protest as an example of mobilizing vulnerability for resistance. In the working paper/impulse statement "Bodies Unbound," I comparatively analyze some practices that defy the boundaries of the body such as contemporary dance, suicide bombing, necro-political forms of resistance (i.e. hunger strikes and self-immolations), and non-violent protests (i.e. the “standing man” protest). I discuss how these phenomena differ in their attitude toward bodily vulnerability.
The Lived Body Under Authoritarianism: The Embodied Dimensions of "Inner Emigration"
With this research I am developing, I focus on a different yet not less important aspect of the relationship between the body and politics. While there is abundant literature on biopolitics and necropower (i.e. torture, hunger strikes, self-immolations, natural disasters and neglected populations, differential distributions of vulnerability through neoliberal policies), there has not been sufficient attention to the more microscopic and everyday bodily dimensions of living under authoritarian regimes. With this research, I aim to study the more subtle, invisible, accumulated traumas of bearing witness to political atrocities by focusing on a group of political dissidents and artists in Istanbul. Although one may not be directly subjected to state violence, one can be equally traumatized once the political means of articulating dissent have been obstructed. Given the speed of negative political developments in Turkey and the accompanying feelings of helplessness, the following questions constitute the center of my inquiry: What are the effects and manifestations of “inner emigration” on the body? How do we bear witness to and document the history of the present?
For information about other publications, please see my CV.
© Gurur Ertem 2017