Voodoom: waking the model

Vertical Exile – Stockholm / Botkyrka 2010, final performance at Dansens Hus, Stockholm.

“Come then, let us create a city in theory from its beginnings.”

From the passage at Republic 11, 369 c, Plato

Vertical Exile is an INTERNATIONAL project defined as an artistic platform where citizens, local artists and architects meet to share and exchange creative knowledge and define collective ideas in relation to the urban space. The project uses different aspects of the map as a platform for a process that deals with transformation of movements; from the field of dance to the social movements between people, experiences and ideas.

The project was first created in the refugee camps of Jalazoun and Dehiesha in the West Bank/Palestine in April 2009. It was defined by Sara Gebran and Anders Paulin through workshops, installation, discussions, and ending with performances.

Sara continued the development of Vertical Exile in the suburbs of Copenhagen, August 2009, and from January to the 4th of June 2010 the Vertical Exile project is been developed in Botkyrka and in Stockholm, through different workshops like: mapping, photography, Hula Hoop, conferences on Community Art, Residency spaces for dance groups from Botkyrka at Dansens Hus and at Moderna Dansteatern, Super Residency for artists among other activiteed more. The project will end with a final performance at Dansens Hus - lilla scenen 2, 3, 4 June.

In all three countries the project and the performance deals with the trilogy of Power, Territoriality and Identity that defines the urban space in question. This relationship various in every city we visit, as the socio-political and cultural contextual situation are very different, and the relationship between the local artists involved are also contextually different, producing new outcomes every time. This investigation is done in Alby, Tumba, Fittja & Tullinge with local architects and artist as animators, photographers, dancers, choreographers, musicians and filmmakers.

All Vertical Exile performances and the upcoming performance ”Voodoom: waking the model” uses a similar technique consisting of a system where a video camera is set up to record what is created on a  ‘Table’ which image are simultaneously projected on a dance floor area of 7 x 5 meter. The spectators watch the construction of an imaginary world/reality through a model scale – the table, versus a parallel virtual dimension – the floor.

“In Republic v, 472, Plato, the reality of the idea of justice is shown to involve necessarily a model of Justice:

Then it was in order to have a model that we were trying to discover what justice itself is like.”

Healy,2008,  the Model and its Architecture

In the Vertical Exile- Stockholm/Botkyrka performance we are lifting the spell off Stockholm and Botkyrka with Voodoo rituals. With help from the Gods and the common sense of our full imagination, we empower ourselves in the invention of a new mutual and connected space utilizing models.

Models simplify and aids communication. Communication operates as an extension of perception. The model emphasizes the totality of a situation due to its small size, and it also encourages re-arrangement. The power of the model is that the model allows us to visualize those and new arrangements, because it exists in space, as we do. It semblance the world as a collective, it is communal, it is our home. Architectural models also allow the clients/audience to participate in the dialogue, like in theatre because of the three dimensional space and scale.

Our model is Voodoom. The ultimate alternative model, understood as the transformation of the real towards the imaginary, the spiritual. Through ritualistic ‘Possession’ the performers utilize Voodoom as a forum for common experiences and the invocation of the super-natural powers of the spirits, to help us in the production of new knowledge, places, people and relationships. With these models we are presenting what things could be, to provide means of achieving new ways of being in the world and imagining the world. We are examining the actions and ideas which will help us entering our visions and our fantasies, outside of our limitations reality.

One and a half hour performance of multiple and unexpected layers:

dance, live music, programmed sound, video images, analog media, models, installations of shrines and ritualistic acts.

Directed by choreographer/dancer Sara Gebran, created in collaboration with the following artists: The dancers/choreographers Ylva Henrikson (Se), Eliisa Erävalo (Fi/Se); the animator/dancer Olle Söderström (Se) and the musician/composer Martin Vognsen (Dk). Consultant/dramaturgy: Anders Paulin (Se). Sound and light Technical Staff of Dansens Hus. Production Leader: Andrea Balassa, Assistant: Elin Samuelsson, Video Documentation: Tomas Smulkis.

Collaborators: Botkyrka Kommun, Dansens Hus Theatre, Moderna Dansteatern, Mångkulturellt Centrum (Fittja), SITE studio.

Support: Kulturrådet, Nordic Kultur Point, Innovativekultur, Stockholm Kulturförvaltning & Botkyrka Kommun.

About Sara Gebran
Sara Gebran works as a dancer, chorographer and teacher. She is born in Venezuela, raised by Lebanese parents. Between 1996 and 2006 Sara lived in Denmark and since 2007 she lives in Stockholm. She has a master degreed in City Planning /Urbanism, 1982-1987 from University Simon Bolivar, Caracas. She received her dance degree at Instituto Superior de Danza, Caracas in 1992 and continued to take courses in release technique, improvisation, klein technique and yoga, in New York until 1995. Sara started to work and to develop her own chorography and collaborated with other chorographers 1994, and has been touring in North and South America, Europe, Middle East. Among other prices she has received the international price from Bagnolet/Scandinavian Platform for her work  ”She Shrienks” 1999. For more information see www.public-e.dk

For more information about Vertical Exile and the upcoming performance please contact Andrea Balassa, vertical.exile.andrea@gmail.com 0737207121 or Sara Gebran directly on saragebran@yahoo.com 0739231632.

Participating artists: Sara Gebran, Anders Paulin, Tor Lindstrand, Paloma Madrid, Arena Baubo, Jessyka Watson, Ylva Henrikson, Victor Marx, Eliisa Erävalo, Olle Söderström, Elin, Tove Strandell, Hanna Strandberg, Nasreen Al Janabi, Marta Dauliute, Tomas Smulkis, Martin Vognsen and more.

Super Residencies: Arena Baubo, Jessyka Watson, Nils Personne & Johan E Andersson, Kajsa Sandström, Päivi Vettenranta & Nadja Pärssinen, Lena Kimming & Majula Drammeh.

Participating groups: Emma Dominguez professional Break dance group,  Alexandra Vazques, young Break dance group, Bolivian Folkloric dance group, Tatiana Vega, bolivian dance grupp, Ungdomens Hus, Fittja, Norsborg Ungdomsgård, Trädgårdsstadsskolan Tullinge, Björkhaga skola Tumba and many more…