Line. Bridge. Body: Call for Participants

Tissue, bones, tendons, veins, arteries, organs, cells, rhizomes, the frailty, vulnerability, and inevitable decomposition of the living body is in every internal joint. A body tells stories; its memories embodied and re-enlivened in contact. The multiplicity of being embodied. Present at each meeting point. Toes, legs, torso, belly, heart, mouth, hair, eyes, ears, multicolor surfaces, singular compositions and combinatory of the living, experiencing itself through its outside. Reaching across some incalculable distance. Unknown. Relationally. Our bodies are a bridge carrying us across time. At the interstice of time, bodies are relational potential improvising a crossroad. We are of unforeseeably emergent orientations, lines, movements, budding more than linguistic expressions. Body-and-with, animated by flows of breath, heat, liquids, beats, pulsations, rhythms, affects, the elements, atmospheres, others; encountered entanglements of joy, pain, contentment or fear, in and of space time. Animal bodies. These bodies, they weigh, matter, mean, transform, create, and resist with each other.

This call for participants is for a one-day explorative symposium to be held in Toronto Aug 31, 2019 at Majlis Art Garden. Its an intimate venue where we can delve into somatic praxis, relationality, movement, particularly in the arts, ecology, eco/performance, and politics. Talks and/or short workshops using any medium are encouraged and welcome; projection for film is limited.

I'm very excited to announce that our featured invited participant is performance philosopher and fast feminist Dr. Shannon Bell, Professor at York University. Bell has an extensive body of work that stems from decades long embodied experimentation and philosophy-in-action. She is the author of Fast Feminism (2010), Subversive Itinerary (2013) Reading, Writing and Rewriting the Prostitute Body (1994), Whore Carnival (2000), among other works and dozens of journals articles.

The day event will be followed by an evening of performance art in the works (one of which is butoh inspired). If you are a performance artist who wants to present a piece in the evening, you can email me around this too.

Those interested should send around 300 words to linebridgebody@gmail.com describing how they want to explore any of the topics outlined bellow, along with a brief bio. Again, any medium can be used. The deadline is July 10.

Some topics of Interest:

-relational somatics, movement, explorations of space-time, duration, memory
-embodied senses (i.e. touch), synesthesia, sensoriums, sensation, non-linguistic communication, and sense (i.e. felt-sense)
-somatics and identity,
performance art, improvisation and experimentation in the arts (i.e. music, listening, and movement)
-ecological mourning, eco-performance, relationship with nature and/or nonhuman life
-bodies and surface, skin, without organs, technology, augmentation
-bodies as sites of transgression, in revolt, resistance, decolonization
-psychosomatic considerations, trauma, critical disability
-critical and culturally diverse approaches to embodiment