Guy Cools
Guy Cools is a dance dramaturg. Recent positions include Associate Professor for Dance Studies at the research institute Arts in Society of the Fontys School of Fine and Performing Arts in Tilburg and Guest Professor at Ghent University, where he completed a PhD on the relationship between dance and writing. He has worked as a dance critic, artistic programmer, and policymaker for dance in Flanders. He now dedicates himself to dramaturgy production, contributing to works by choreographers all over Europe and Canada, such as Koen Augustijnen (BE), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (BE), Danièle Desnoyers (CA), Lia Haraki (CY), Christopher House (CA), Akram Khan (UK), Arno Schuitemaker (NL), and Stephanie Thiersch (DE).
Workshop: “Dancing Birds”
The workshop is conceived in two parts.
In the first part of the workshop, Koen Augustijnen and Rosalba Torres Guerrero will investigate the potential of traditional Greek circle dances. The pair will build on their experiences in Palestine, where they created Badke, along with Palestinian performers, a dance based on the traditional Arabic dabke. This part of the workshop will fall under the “Tragic Body” module and will focus on group work and the collective interaction of bodies on stage. One of the questions that will be raised is whether traditional group dances bring together communities and whether they allow for the integration of the “outsider.”
In the second part of the workshop, dramaturg Guy Cools will share his ongoing research about Greek moiroloi (lament song) and how it offers a template for contemporary practices of performative mourning. This part of the workshop will explore the diaphonic nature of the moiroloi, especially in connection with all those who are absent (deceased, exiles, immigrants). Participants will be invited to write and perform their personal laments. This part of the workshop will fall under the “Voice” module, focusing on “narration as bodily action.”
Towards the end of the workshop, both aspects – group work and solo work – will be integrated, with the possibility of a public showing in mind.