Can a club be considered an entire habitat of diversity? According with their own poetry of the “unity in the raveology” and crossing it with the power of the traditional elements of the ball groups, Mara Oscar Cassiani co-creates a group dance with a crew from Santarcangelo. It is a way to celebrate identities and diversity: the group dance becomes the tuner and the choreographic sign of union of our stories and bodies. We will dance together again!

Be Water, My Friends is one of the fieldworks hosted by Santarcangelo Festival. The project was presented during the International Assembly III in Ghent, Belgium and International Assembly IV in Riga, Latvia.
More information can be found here.

No matter how different you are, We are a whole habitat of diversity. 

Danced by the wind, touched by the water, fed by the clouds.

We will wear many different colors and live together in the same dance.

Maybe, We can move without you, but we can dance better with you. 

Crossing the paths, sharing our stems, 

Danced by the wind, touched by the water, fed by the clouds. 

Hugged  by a leaf, touched by the bees, danced by the drops, watched by the sky, we’ll look extra fly

We will be Water, We will be River, We will be the same Dance. 

We may have no Shape, but we may also have the same Shape.

We will be Different, but we will also be Equal.

We will be separated, but we will be united.

If you put the water in a cup, the water becomes the cup.

If you put the water in a cup, the water becomes the cup.

If you put the water into a dance, the water becomes a dance. 

Water can flow, Water can split. Be Water, My friends.

Inspired by the imagery of the famous monologue “Be water, my friends” by Bruce Lee on the Pierre Berton Show in 1971, in accordance with her own poetics of “Raveology that unites”, and crossing with the power of the traditional elements of group dance, Mara Oscar Cassiani constructs a place, a group dance, as a container for our identities and our diversity. Group dance becomes the tuner and the choreographic sign of union between our biographies, in the hope for a future of coexistence.

GENESIS

We will be water, We will be river , We will be the same dance. We may have no shape, but we may also have the same shape We will be different, but we will also be equal. We will be Separated, but we will be united. If you put the water in a cup, the water becomes the cup. If you put the water in a cup, the water becomes the cup. If you put the water into a dance, the water becomes a dance. Water can flow, but it can also split. Be water, my friends.

CREDITS

concept e performance Mara Oscar Cassiani / performing act Mara Oscar Cassiani, Muna Mussie e un coro di Santarcangelo / testo Mara Oscar + Bruce Lee / con il supporto di BE PART, Santarcangelo Festival, Motus, Super Bubble / in collaborazione con Fluxo movement un ringraziamento speciale per il supporto con le traduzioni a Ammar Yesser, Einar Kajmaku, Huang Ding Yun, Glen Caci, Datcu Lili inserito all’interno del progetto europeo BE PART cofinanziato dal programma Europa creativa dell’Unione europea

After four years of exploring the ethics of artistic participation, the BE PART partners, artists, community members and audiences will gather in Riga for a final Symposium.

The Symposium aims to highlight projects from around the network, invite provocations from the participants and provides further inspiration to dive deeper into an ethical framework of co-authorship. Collectively for three days we will listen, talk, discuss, watch, participate, dance, sing and toast to the future.

PROGRAMME – Wednesday September 6

14:00 Feel for the Game – Keynote by Darren O’Donnel (CA)
Darren O’Donnel is the artistic director of Mammalian Diving Reflex, he shares strategies for co-authoring the cultural sector with young people who couldn’t really give two shits about the cultural sector.

16:00 First Panel Notes from the Future with The Shake Down curators
In the last two years, several different projects within the BE PART network have given context, power and artistic freedom to young people. However, were the right frames in place to achieve true artistic freedom? With Ikars Graždanovičs, Karu Treij, Samuels Ozoliņš (LV) and Kiasma young curator Alex Mitiku (FI).

17:30 Wrong Families – Festival School Debrief
The Gob Squad (GB/DE) will run a 6-day workshop, sharing different strategies for co-creation, all framed by the concept of ‘wrong families’ and notions of collectivity.

21:00 The Publication Party – ATLAS
A small delegation of artistic and social laboratory ATLAS (BE) will come to Riga for their official presentation and they need your help!

PROGRAMME – Thursday September 7

10:00 Kubakiya kile tuko (‘Remain What We Are’) – Keynote by Joseph Kasau (CG)
Joseph Kasau is a visual artist, filmmaker and author based in Lubumbashi. Joseph will introduce his practice through his collaboration on the  films Ulemu and Return, an epic journey by Rita Mukebo. The discussion will propose a lens in which to understand art as essentially functional, representing celebrations and rituals within communities.

11:30 Second Panel Community and identity – Barbara Lehtna (EE/LV) and Katrīna Dūka (LV)
The artists will share their experience on working with identity-based communities in their piece In the Name of Love (2021) which was created with 8 local queer people.

14:00 The Book of Riga – Andy Field and Beckie Darlington (GB)
A live book launch where the book’s young authors will present their prospects for the city to the Riga City Council.

16:00 Critical Network – BE PART Protocol Presentation
The critical network will organise different meetings during the Riga assembly that will be centered around the building of toolboxes departing from the protocol. We will start by reflecting on the whole protocol process, its usefulness, necessity and efficiency for the different participants and organisations.

17:30 Wrong Families – Festival School Debrief
The Gob Squad (GB/DE) will run a 6-day workshop, sharing different strategies for co-creation, all framed by the concept of ‘wrong families’ and notions of collectivity.

19:00 Film Beyond Participation – A glimpse into the fieldworks from beyond
The Screening program invites a gaze into the process and the outcomes of many collaborations from across the BE PART network. We dance in Tunis, Sing Ode to Joy(through the unique perspective of Deaf culture) and meet young traveler artists. After the screening there will be a short Q&A with the artists present at the Symposium.

21:00 Be water, my friends – a performative dance by Mara Oscar Cassiani (IT)
Be water, my friends is made to unify the people as a transgenerational open ritual, inspired by Bruce Lee’s “homonymous” monologue. We will be water, we will be the river, we will be the same dance.

PROGRAMME – Friday September 8

10:00 Artist Workshop Erased Gazes – Politics of Touch (SI)
In 1992, soon after Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia, the administrative bodies of the Republic of Slovenia arbitrarily and illegally erased more than 25,000 people from the register of permanent residents. To protest the injustices caused by the Erasure, the Artistic collective of the Politics of Touch project created the Erased Gazes memorial canvas.

14:00 Third Panel Community as Locality – heading towards the more than human
This panel will explore the techniques of collaborating with non-humans and the humans that interact with the landscapes that also contribute to the complex make up of the locality. Panel features: One step at a time like this (AU), Vinny Jones (NL), Zoë Laureen Palmer (UK) and Linda Krumina (LV).

15:30 Workshop Beyond Participation? – Reflecting on BE PART
Sophie Hope and Henry Mulhall (GB) will present their research methodology inviting participants to reflect on the changing meanings, understandings, motivations and experiences of participation, power-sharing, co-creation and collaboration, asking the audience to play a game to explore what lies beyond, and behind their own experiences of participation.

17:30 Wrong Families – Festival School Debrief
The Gob Squad (GB/DE) will run a 6-day workshop, sharing different strategies for co-creation, all framed by the concept of ‘wrong families’ and notions of collectivity.

20:00 Symposium Closing Party – QUEEREEOKÉ supported by members of the Baltic Drag King Collective
Performative means of spontaneous backup choreography, singing and show effects, memorable moments with life-changing potential.

Natural Contract Lab was founded in 2021 by artist Maria Lucia Cruz Correia in collaboration with a multidisciplinary group, including Marine Calmet (environmental jurist), Brunilda Pali (restorative justice), Lode Vranken (architecture/philosophy), Vinny Jones (sensory scenography). With the confluence of the Tejo River Margarida Mendes (research/sonic guidance) joined the collective in 2022.

Together they develop a body of care, as  water carriers searching for new forms of water justice through practices of reciprocal care, such as walking-with, water governance and stewardship, River Agora’s hearings, restorative justice  and grief circles, somatic and audio scores and other actions that move along with the water’s flow and its communities.

Mara Oscar Cassiani is a wifi based visual artist who works in the field of performance, choreography, digital languages, ritual clubbing. Their research is centered on the creation of a contemporary visual iconography, in which new languages and rituals are borrowed from the world of the internet, memes, trans queer avatars, underground subcultures and from the brutal capitalism imagery. The relationship they maintain with their audience, in an expanded dimension – both live and mediated – is explored through those visual imaginaries, open space set ups and live streaming made up for stimulating the awareness of the discontinuity between visions, reality and the conscience of the user. A global snapshot, a “visual fast food” between kitsch, raw rituality and apocalypse.

In the framework of BEPART they works on the fieldwork Be water, my friends at Santarcangelo Festival.

QUEEREEOKÉ is a project born out of love for a good show, singing and bonding over a night full of self-expression. Danny Banany and their friends are using the format of karaoke to redefine a fabulous party night with self-empowerment by blurring the lines of audience and artist, but also to provide a space where expressive queerness is central and real – and not a marketing gag.

QUEEREEOKÉ is one of the fieldwork projects hosted by Homo Novus Festival. On Friday the 8th of September 2023 they hosted in collaboration with members of the Baltic Drag King Collective the Symposium Closing Party of the International Assembly IV in Riga.

Family Affair is a documentary and participatory theatre project which questions the state of the art of the contemporary family – small nuclear families to larger ones, couples without children, single parents, families and fraternities by choice, rainbow families, co-habitation and family groups of all kinds – using video, voice and live presence. The work in Santarcangelo is the 17th stopover of a European project that began over four years ago; the starting theme is living together, from cohabitation to sharing in times of pandemic. How are the spaces and times of a family circle organised? How many types of families exist? What do we call ‘family’? How many types of stories are produced within the same family? How many families are we part of?

BIO

ZimmerFrei was born from the fellowship between Anna de Manincor (artist and filmmaker) and Massimo Carozzi (sound designer and musician). The collective was founded in Bologna in 2000, together with Anna Rispoli, artist and director based in Brussels. ZimmerFrei works in various fields of contemporary art producing sound and video installations, documentary films, performances and interventions in public space. Noises of crockery, doors which slam, water running, children crying, the centrifuge of the washing machine, TVs switched on, dogs barking. The families are all the same, like the sounds coming from the houses, like the time that passes the days, and the events of life: births, deaths, parties, accidents, moving house. The life of families takes the floor on stage in a game of cross-references and correspondences. And while small narratives are remodelled into a mythology of everyday life, the group portrait of what it means to be a family today is composed.
Sabina Minardi – L’Espresso

CREDITS

concept e regia ZimmerFrei / regia video Anna de Manincor / suono Massimo Carozzi / assistente alla regia Muna Mussie / comunicazione Gaia Raffiotta / con la partecipazione di famiglie e gruppi di abitanti di Santarcangelo e dintorni / co-produzione Santarcangelo Festival e ZimmerFrei / con il sostegno di Emilia- Romagna Film Commission, Network Open Latitudes con il supporto del Programma Cultura dell’Unione Europea / inserito all’interno del progetto europeo BE PART cofinanziato dal programma Europa creativa
dell’Unione europea con Raffaella Albertazzi, Raghad Al Khawli, Khadija Belahsen, Achille Brigliadori, Elettra Brigliadori, Dario Costigliola, Ginevra Costigliola, Alessia della Pasqua, Onide Fabbri, Giulia Ghinelli, Alberto Gnola, Abdelrahim Hsyan, Iftikar Hsyan, Melania Marcatelli, Isabella Pieroni, Margherita Peroni, Stefano Pieroni, Elena
Tontini, Enea Tontini, Ramona Tosi e la partecipazione di Ali Al Khawli, Qutayba Al Khawli, Simone Brigliadori, Ulisse Brigliadori, Hiba Hsyan, Luna Hsyan, Mohamad Hsyan, Samar Hsyan si ringrazia Arianna Valentini

In the framework of the festival Openbare Werken hosted by VIERNULVIER in April 2022 the collaborative work Publiek Plan Gent N°1 (‘Public Plan Ghent N°1’) was made. Initiated by Elly Van Eeghem a question­naire was sent out to a group of people who, like herself, had been in­volved in the ‘Stadsatelier’ of VIERNULVIER, which supports artistic work about and in the city.

Where do you find public water?
Where are you unwanted public?
Which private space should become public (again)?
…

With these fellow artists, cultural workers and partici­pants, Elly Van Eeghem looked into the ‘publicness’ of the city’s public places. What are the shared beloved or less beloved places, and why?

Publiek Plan Gent N°1 is a mapping of various meanings of ‘the public’. The plan re­mains unfinished and can be completed by whoever holds it. During the festival various plans were gathered and assembled into one gigantic cartographic patchwork. It was walked on, sat on, discussed by and lived by the attending public. Later on, the XL-plan travelled through the city for further conversation on public space with involved city officials.

With contributions by: May Abnet, Peter Aers, Simon Allemeersch, Vincen Beeckman, Dominique Collet, Evelyne Coussens, Katinka De Jonge, Marieke De Munck, Fatih De Vos, Maarten Devrieze and truckers of 22 Herz Hotel, Jorik De Wilde, Ewout D’hoore, Renée Goethijn, Roland Gunst, Paoletta Holst, Naomi Kerkhove, Arnold Reijndorp, Andy Sarfo, Jaco Sette, Michiel Soete, Peter Vanden Abeele, Danielle van Zuijlen, Anyuta Wiazemsky, de Koer, CAMPUS Atelier, Manoeuvre and students of KASK School of Arts.

Concept and graphic design: Elly Van Eeghem

Copy editing: Evelyne Coussens

Proofreading and feedback: Leontien Allemeersch, Marieke De Munck, Evelyne Coussens, Jos Coussens

Translation: Jonathan Beaton

With the support of: VIERNULVIER, KASK School of Arts Ghent, BE PART – Art BEyond PARTicipation -, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

How do we understand where we are through listening? Witness Stand is an unlikely place to listen. Across a city, in water bodies, restricted and forgotten sites, Witness Stand Rīga is an invitation to gather and listen together to works that respond to the ancient, recent, and future stories of the city. On a series of bespoke seating tiers extending from the Beach at Bolderāja to the ancient Oak at Sarkandaugava, seated alongside local musicians and poets, audiences will experience a series of specially commissioned works from across the communities of Riga.

Together, we direct our gaze towards sites of contestation, cultural potency, and sites for celebration, listening towards the future:

Daugavgrīva beach, witnessed by music bands “Alejas” and “Toms Vītiņš & Uģis Vītiņš”, poet Fyodor Dzevaltovsky

Vanšu bridge, witnessed by harpsichord player Ieva Saliete and poet Ilmārs Šlāpins in honor of the 40th anniversary of Vanšu Bridge.

Former radio jamming towers, witnessed by sound artist Andris Indāns and poet Sergei Timofeyev.

An old Oak tree, witnessed by kokle player Laima Jansone and poet Agnese Krivade. 

Benches in the Great Cemetery, witnessed by composer Olesya Kozlovska and poet Elvīra Bloma with live music performers Jāni Frīdenfeldu (trumpet) and Sarma Gabrēna (cello).

Former Central Committee of the Communist Party, witnessed by Jēkabs Nīmanis, Maksims Šenteļevs together with poet Inga Gaile and audience.