Category: about

PERFORMANCE – WORKSHOP – RESEARCH

1. Performances are thoroughly researched frames, on the intersection of science (biology, physics, environmental studies, sociology, psychology) and art.  First, we invite  scientists, philosophers, artists to experiment and elicit ideas. In a second step, we hold free open events for anyone interested to participate. With all the input, we design installation-performances based on co-creation. The audience can choose their level of participation in our collaborative artistic formats. We rely on and further develop participatory techniques, relational and dialogical art, the pedagogy and theatre of the oppressed, sortition and ethno-theatre, building a unique collaborative relationship and methodology with our audiences-participants.
2. Workshops are conceived for mixed communities: vulnerable layers of the society are brought together with majority communities to share experience and weave common narratives. Sideways storytelling is one of our new developments based on the above-mentioned concepts and discoveries of neuroscience on establishing temporary communities, using rituals and metaphors, also ekphrasis for storytelling.
3. Research is based on our performances and workshops: we use action research, a learning by doing method, to enhance experience and knowledge. We use action research, the grand theory as qualitative research for education and arts, also mixed research methodologies such as action research and DataWise.

Othernessproject cooperates in various artistic and research environments internationally. Our partners reside in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, the UK, Montenegro, and the spectrum is getting larger every year.

Our installation-performance, IF, developed with the action research methodology, invited to several festivals across Europe: Bådteatret, CPH / Actor Training in a Globalised World, CPH /Altofest, Naples (IT) / International Time Perspective Conference, Nantes (FR) / Passage Festival, Helsingor-Helsingborg (DK-SE) / Bridges Festival, Cluj-Napoca (RO) / Rahvusvahekine A-Festival (ET).

From 2019, othernessproject relocated to London, UK, as a grass root organisation, and has become a member of the prestigious publib directory in 2020: https://www.publib.co.uk/othernessproject, having participants from the UK, China, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, the US.

Between 2014-2019 othernessproject was based in Helsingør, Denmark, with a core group of artists and researchers residing in Nordic countries: Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

TEAM

artistic director: Rita Sebestyen (RO/HU/DK/UK)

performer: Minni Katina Mertens (NO/DK)

performer: Sara Vilardo (IT/BE/DK)

light- and sound designer: Ivan Wahren (SE)

EU-project manager: Stine Ebbesen (DK)

dramaturge: Mira Nadina Mertens (NO/DK)

social media editor: Nora Ugron (RO/FI)

 

CONTACT:

othernessproject@gmail.com

 

 

 

Jugend- & Kulturpoject e.V. (Germany)

AddArt NGO, Thessaloniki (Greece)

Creativity Platform & YET (Greece)

CESIE (Italy)

Stowarzyszenie Moje Marzenia Spełniają Się MMS (Poland)

Stichting Caracola (the Netherlands)

Biznosova (Serbia)

Kulturno Izobraževalno Društvo Pina (Slovenia)

GoEurope (Spain)

Memorare Pacem e.V.  (Germany)

Glaser Jakab Foundation (Hungary)

Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, Oldham (the UK)

Civil Centre for Sustainable Development – EGRI (Macedonia)

Institute for Regional Development, o.p.s., Prague (the Czech Republic)

 

FOUNDING MEMBERS in 2014/15:

Sisso ARTNER (HU): journalist, author, editor, critic of theatre, dance theatre and pop music. She is member of Lábán Jury,  also teaching journalism and communication at (PTE), Pécs University, at ZEN project.

BATARITA (HU): choreographer, dancer, director, teacher, director of the KINJIKI International Performing Arts Festival in Budapest. Since 2000 she has her own dance company, she has worked in Singapore, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Austria, Germany, Ecuador and Thailand.

Åse Eliason BJURSTRÖM (SE): drama teacher and lecturer in education at the Göteborg University. For the last twenty years she has worked with drama in intercultural network settings, mainly in East Africa and Sweden, and she has co-authored a number of articles and book chapters in this subject.

Adam CZIRAK PhD (GE): wrote his dissertation on participative practices of looking in intersubjective based art. Currently he is assistant professor at the Department for Performance Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on aesthetics of contemporary theatre, visual culture, psychoanalysis, and performance art in the Eastern European Neoavantgarde.

Melanie DREYER (US): director, actor, translator, teacher and producer.  She specializes in multilingual theater projects and has directed over fifty productions nationally and internationally. More about her work may be found at http://www.melaniedreyer.com.

Réka DUNKLER (RO): dramaturg, librarian, teacher, cultural organizer and web editor. She has worked as a dramaturge at several award winning theatre productions and was co-organizer and co-worker of international theatre festivals in Romania.

Kinga KELEMEN (RO): cultural manager working with several NGOs in Cluj. She is founder and director of GroundFloor Group, a contemporary dance association, producer of dance and theatre performances and exchanges, and an International Contact Improvisation Festival.

Márta MINIER (UK): Lecturer in Drama at the University of South Wales. Her main research interests include European drama with a special emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe; translation studies; adaptation studies; dramaturgy; stage and screen biography; Shakespeare studies.

Lilla PROICS (HU): has been writing reviews, essays, interviews, tvmonitoring material for more than fifteen years, and she works for the independent Tilos Rádió.

Sándor SAJÓ PhD (HU): philosopher and in some sense a poet and a writer too. Currently, he is assistant professor at Eötvös Loránd University Budapest (his Habilitation is in progress). He feels close to various philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. For different reasons, to be sure.

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS

The Centre for Studies in Otherness (DK) is a collaborative project between scholars primarily from the University of Aarhus, Denmark and Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland. The Centre works to initiate vigorous and productive interventions into nominal areas of otherness as a site for critical, socio-political, cultural, and literary exploration.

Diasporic Genius (CA) is grounded in the creative process and the development of creative capacity and agency, in individuals and communities. It brings the impact strategies of artists (and scientists, business leaders, teachers and innovators in every sector): http://diasporicgenius.com/

European Theatre Collective (FI) is bringing artists from many diverse cultural backgrounds together to create new and exciting artistic work, strengthening both the Finnish artistic community and the international artistic community with every collaboration.

The Theatre Studies Department at the University of Malta (MT) specializes in a number of different aspects of theatre scholarship, including physical theatre, musicality in theatre, the Russian twentieth century, Baroque and postcolonial theatre. Further information about the department can be found at http://www.um.edu.mt/performingarts/theatre.