DANAE THEODORIDOU

BIO

Danae Theodoridou is a performance maker and researcher based in Brussels. She studied literature and linguistics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and acting at the National Theatre of Northern Greece. She completed a practice-led PhD on dramaturgy and performance making at Roehampton University, London. Since 2008 she creates solo and collaborative live works and artistic research projects all over Europe. The last three years her work focuses on the notion of social imaginaries and the way art can contribute to the emergence of social and political alternatives. At the same time, Danae teaches in various university departments and art conservatoires of theatre and dance and publishes her writings internationally. She is one of the creators of the three-year research project Dramaturgy at Work and a co-author of The Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance (Valiz, 2017).

More information: www.danaetheodoridou.com

FRAME OF RESEARCH

IMAGINARY MACHINES

Imaginary Machines elaborates on the maker’s three-year-long research on social imaginaries. It departs from ideas such as those of A. Dunne and F. Raby, who posit that since the 1970s a series of key changes in the world (fall of communism in Eastern Europe, triumphal victory of market-led capitalism, individualization of society etc) have made imaginative, social and political speculation more difficult and less likely (Speculative Everything, 2013). The working process then focuses on the construction of a series of performative tasks that aim to reactivate our imagination in terms of the way we imagine our social coexistence and approach the deeper normative notions and images that underlie our social expectations.

The tasks created in the frame of Imaginary Machines are tested in two workshops (18 & 26 March 2017) that invite audience members to come and work together on the way we can shift established modes of thinking and reimagine our commons. Participants then offer their feedback for the further development of the suggested tasks, as well as their visions in terms of what we need today in order to co-create dreams for the 21st century.

Imaginary Machines is conducted with the support of the Flemish Community