Call for Participants! Unicorn Research Labs: “Enjoy the Silence” Workshop

Call for Participants!
Unicorn Research Labs: “Enjoy the Silence” Workshop
Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki
30 March – 2 April, 2015

Consider the paradoxical nature of the unicorn as a queer symbol. On the one hand, the unicorn is mythical – it does not exist – but on the other it is also a magical being, and serves as a powerful symbol of queerness. Can there be the possibility of some magical excess emerging from invisibility and erasure in queer performance – something not previously known or knowable? Can absence itself be thought of as a queer kind of presence and appropriated as a queer performance strategy?

Unicorn Research Labs are a series of workshops focused around the issue of queer presence in performance. Is presence a question of technique? How can we approach this question from a queer perspective? How can we challenge what it means to be present, problematizing the dichotomy between presence and absence? There will be three in total, each dealing with some relation to absence not as a lack, but as part of a spectrum of possible ways of be(com)ing.

“Enjoy the Silence,” the first workshop in this series will explore sound, voice, silence, listening, text and score. It will take place 30 March – 1 April from 10-17 and 2 April from 10-15 at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. Participants are asked to bring 3 songs that they connect with that they know the words to and 3 materials they are drawn to that produce a sound. Participation is open to anyone, whether or not they identify as queer. The language used will be English.

Space is limited. Email david.frankovich@uniarts.fi to reserve a space.

What: Unicorn Research Labs: “Enjoy the Silence” Workshop
Where: Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, Haapaniemenkatu 6, Helsinki
When: 30 March – 1 April (10-17), 2 April (10-15)

photo by Monika Sobczak
photo by Monika Sobczak