Pleasure Body – a lecture
Pleasure Body is a space I have regularly been holding for almost two years that is dedicated to the celebration of womxn, femmes, queer, trans, non-binary, intersex, (gender) non-conforming, marginalized people (++) and their accomplices.
Pleasure Body wants to be a space in which rest and pleasure are acknowledged as tools for resistance, as well as grounds through which we can reclaim our bodies away from cis-stemic policing and the patriarchal white-centric heteronormative gaze.
Sparking from the notion that womxn/femmes/queer/trans/non-binary/intersex/gender non conforming + people experience (therefore internalize and assimilate) systemic oppression, violence and trauma more than cisgender heteronormative white people, and that this translates in a series of somatic depressions and affects our chances of accessing pleasure, rest, joy and mental health, Pleasure Body focuses on recognizing where this burden is held in the body and on strategies to unpack and release it.
In my research, I interlace my somatic studies as a mover with SWANA (South-West Asian and North African, more specifically Armenian) rituals, practices and dances. Before colonization, orientalism and western body-policing, what are today marked as “Oriental Dances” where in fact fundamental practices of experiencing and living the body. These dances are characterized by circular, wavy movements of the pelvis and deep, grounding vibrations of the hips, ass and centre and were considered sacred forms of femme-celebration, self-determination, contraception and abortion, as well as a way to orgasm.
Reclaiming space and feeling through these practices is for me a political act and a form of resistance to the erasure, silencing and patriarchal indoctrination that our bodies have undergone, both as queer and gender non-conforming people as well as diasporic and colonized folxs.
Pleasure Body is about being slow as resistance to capitalist work and learning patterns, about softness as artillery in times of crisis, about reading and writing manifestos to find and invent new names for ourselves, accessing somatic practices from a queer and transfeminist perspective, dancing/sleeping/touching/vibrating/crying only if you want to and doing things only if you want to, exercising consent. Ultimately it’s about centering pleasure as a driving force and rest as a fundamental right.
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Bio
Giorgia Ohanesian Nardin is a queer identifying Italian-Armenian artist that practices within the fields of dance and performing arts.
Giorgia’s work starts from the political and emotional necessity to bring the queer body in the foreground.
The artist’s research is built of a collection of pedagogic and performative events that focus on experiencing pleasure as a form of resistance to systemic oppression by relating an intersectional feminist approach to somatic practices.
With a background in classical studies and a BA in performing arts at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, they began making work in 2010 in collaboration with artists Francesca Foscarini and Marco D’Agostin, with whom they founded Associazione Culturale VAN (2014).
Their first solo, Dolly (2012), which focuses on the multiple icons related to stereotypes of femininity, wins numerous awards and is presented in several venues and festivals both in Italy and across Europe (Edinburgh Fringe, Interplay Torino, Festival Mess Sarajevo).
All dressed up with nowhere to go is #1 on the top 20 list for the Aerowaves Network 2015. Giorgia’s work Celebration is a durational performance for gallery spaces created for Olivia Jacquet, who has tattooed the entirety of her body. The work premièred at the Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid) as part of the project Performing Gender.
Giorgia is the first Italian artist to be awarded the eight month residency at K3 – Zentrum fur Choreographie Hamburg (Kampnagel), during which she creates Season. In 2016 they are one of the artists (alongside Yasmeen Godder, Yoko Higashino and Melanie Demers) commissioned by Centro per la Scena Contemporanea to create a piece inspired by Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater. The work involves a group of women with Parkinson’s and is presented in a site specific format.
From 2015-17 Giorgia works as an associate lecturer for Balletto di Roma (Corso Professionale di Danza Contemporanea), where they taught release technique and choreographic composition.
In 2017 they are commissioned to create a version of L’après-midi d’un faune for the company of Balletto di Roma.
Minor Place, their latest work for stage, is a participatory performance based on Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch – Women, the body and primitive accumulation.
As a performer, Giorgia works and has worked for companies: Barokthegreat, Igor&Moreno, Anagoor (Silver Lion Biennale di Venezia 2018, for whom she is also a movement coach) and James Batchelor.
Giorgia periodically holds Pleasure Body, a workshop space for queer, trans, non-binary and gender non conforming identities to collectively engage is somatic strategies of resistance through pleasure. Pleasure Body is touring the world extensively, being held in a variety of situations, from cultural institutions to queer occupied spaces. Giorgia was recently invited to hold Pleasure Body at Harvard University as part of Chiasmi – Queering Italian Studies 2019.
Giorgia has participated in numerous European projects, some of which are: Choreoroam Europe, Performing Gender, B Project (that gave her the opportunity to perform in London’s National Gallery) Pivot Dance, and Kiseki – Trajectories.
Her work is produced and supported by: Associazione Culturale VAN, CSC Centro per la Scena Contemporanea, Saison Foundation Tokyo, La Briqueterie – Centre de développement chorégraphique du Val de Marne (Paris), AtelierSi Bologna, Gender Bender Festival, Dro Centrale Fies Art work Space.
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