Trans practices (PERFORMANCE/RESEARCH/TEACHING PROJECT)

Trans Practices is the overarching title of a research, performance, and pedagogical practice that has spanned years (2021-2023), locales (Frankfurt, Berlin, Macedonia, Iceland), and that continues to unfold in diverse ways. Here I share the various manifestations of this project that centers trans and genderqueer experience as a nexus for embodied research.

Workshops so far taken place in the following contexts:

Studio 2 ITI in Berlin, DE (July 2022)
Curating in Context Summer School in Struga, Macedonia, supported by Nomad Dance Academy (August 2022)
ChangeNOW Scholarship Conference in Paris, France (November 2022)
Ringtheater in Berlin, DE (May 2023)
heima Queer Art Residency in Seydisfjördur, Iceland (Upcoming: September-October 2023)

TRANS PRaCTICES for everyday life, 2022

Performance
Premiered June 24-26, 2022
Kunstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt, DE

We (a group of trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people and theater artists) gathered over 4 months to mine our expertise in being radically ourselves. Together, we built a series of practices that we share with you here in this digital version of the project.

As queer people, we wake up everyday ready to thwart reality, choosing to shape our bodies and identities through self-determined improvisation – even in the face of systems that threaten to pathologize or erase us. To do this, we embrace consent, questioning, pleasure, play—and lots of gender euphoria. If that sounds like a nice vibe for you to encounter, we would love to share our physical practices with you. Click the button below to join us.

Initiated by elena rose light (they/them)
and developed with Alice Pacheco Nogueira (they/them) in collaboration with Fan-Yu Pu a.k.a. Lady Bubu Tea (she/her), Isaak Kudaschov (he/him), Jiji (they/them), Jonathan Schmidt-Colinet (he/they), and Ramona Lena (she/her)
Performed by Bubu, Isaak, Jonathan, and Ramona
Lighting design by Ariana Battaglia (they/them)
Sound design by Marie Engert (she/they)
Video documentation by Lisa Strozyk (they/she)
Photo documentation by Hemansingh Lutchmun (he/him); Polaroids by other collaborators
Website design by elena rose light (they/them)

Supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK - STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Assistance Program for Dance.

TRANS PRaCTICES, 2022-present

Solo Research
July 2022
Studio 2, International Theater Institute, Berlin, DE

How is transness already a disruption with cishetero, patriarchal choreographies of the body? This research project culminated in a series of scores for singing/moving/ritualizing, developed through casual studio visits with friends of the artists. The research project is ongoing and proposes to continue building a body of movement scores that document trans life and the practices that these lives engender.

Initiated and developed by elena rose light (they/them)

ZINE WEBSITE >>

First iteration funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media in the NEUSTART KULTUR programme, DIS-TANZEN aid programme of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland.