Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm

We are Black.
We will wear our “street” clothes, (as opposed to sweats.)
We will wear heavy shoes, Fred, construction boots / Ishmael, Army.
We will talk to one another while dancing.
We will fuck with flow and intentionally interrupt one another and ourselves.
We will use a recorded music score – loud looping of sounds from Kung Fu movies by Mark Allen Larson.
We will stay out of physical contact much of the time.
(Fred and Ishmael’s “Wrong” Contact Manifesto, 1983)

A ca. 4-minute video of Fred Holland and Ishmael Houston-Jones’ Wrong Contact Manifesto serve as a the point of departure for reflections by Joana Tischkau on the potential of practices that clearly define the framework and parameters of a performative encounter between two bodies.

Zinzi Minott’s work focuses on the relationship between dance, bodies and politics. Strongly identifying as a dancer, she seeks to complicate the boundaries of dance and the place of black female bodies within the form. Her work explores how dance is perceived through the prisms of race, queer culture, gender and class. Zinzi is interested in the space between dance and other art forms, and though her practice is driven through dance, the outcomes range from performance and live art to sound, film, dances and object-based work.  Zinzi Minott’s lecture at im*possible bodies #2 is a reflection on the exhibition “Afterlives of Slavery” at the Tropen Museum Amsterdam. The exhibition looks at how the dehumanizing act of enslaving a people comes to impact and construct the images of their ancestors. What she is interested in looking at is how these notions, specifically notions of the body and how parts of the body become gendered, and impact on the cultural expression of multiple black communities.