Workshop

SG - Exploring the Utopian Impulse

What would your utopia be like? Explore this together with others in this interactive theatre workshop where we use our body as a tool to create the building blocks of new utopian narratives.

Organisator Studium Generale
Datum

ma 9 mei 2022 20:00

Locatie Impulse, gebouwnummer 115
Stippeneng 2
6708 WE Wageningen
+31 (0) 317 - 48 28 28

About the Theatre Workshop

Freedom, desire and happiness: age-old paradoxical ideals which drive utopian and dystopian narratives. Embody these concepts through a participatory theatre workshop facilitated by performer and researcher Maja Grzeczka. In this workshop, we will work on other-than-cognitive methods of gathering and exchanging information. Through movement, we direct our attention to the body as a carrier of knowledge and a communicator. By attempting to connect as a group through movement, we will reflect upon the social dynamics we create. No experience is needed, just a curiosity to use your body as a tool to create the building blocks of new utopian narratives.

There is only limited capacity to attend and registration is required, please register by sending an email to info.sg@wur.nl.

About Maja Greczka

Maja Grzeczka is an Amsterdam-based Polish theater maker and performer. Her physical language was shaped by studying diverse techniques of contemporary dance and improvisation. After getting her BH from Dance and Body Studies at Poznan University of Social Sciences in 2015, she moved to the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, she connects with Mime School (AHK,ATD) first as a student and currently also as a teacher.In 2018 she started to work with Marcelo Evelin (Demolition Incorporada). Collaboration with this Brasil-based artist brings a big influence to her own work.

About Open Mind Lab series Exploring Utopias: Imagining Alternative Worlds

In a world of both plenty and plenty of longing, rapid digitalisation of our daily lives, and ongoing global crises, how can we make sense of ‘utopia’?

Are utopias a window into a brighter future - alternative horizons to set sail for - or are they false political promises fuelling dystopian realities? Where is the line between utopia and dystopia?

Popular literature and the media brim with dystopian works, whereas the existence of utopias has dwindled. This could be seen as a reflection of our current times, growing disappointment and a loss of hope. Do we face a crisis of imagination and could a renewal of utopias fuel hope? Or can we shed a different light on the power of imagination and re-fuel our abilities to construct narratives of alternative realities?

Come on a journey with us through historical and contemporary works of utopian and dystopia expressed through literature, philosophy and art as we critique and celebrate their contributions, analyse their political groundings and question the place of utopian thinking today.

Across three evenings, we will explore some of the fundamental paradoxes of utopian ideals, such as happiness, freedom and desire. Through talks from inspiring guest speakers, interactive theatre and other engaging participatory methods, come and dream with us, feel hopeless with us, learn with us, and create a unique, collaborative utopian narrative!

*Sadly, Dr. Dan Hassler-Forest cannot join us the 11th of May (as announced in the flyer). Check the website for the latest update on the 11th of May.