Xenia Koghilaki: Collisions, crashes, and other ways of being together

“Collisions, crashes, and other ways of being together” is a choreographic research project that explores highly energized collective motion from the perspective of crowd rituals that arise within musical spaces. The project deals with the norms and constrains that determine bodily movement in public space and focuses on the crowd dance practice of moshing as a hardcore practice of extreme dancing. It explores the practice’s performative applications examining their sociopolitical context in relation to dance and notions of collectivity. What holds moshing bodies together? What kind of collectivity does the moshing crowd embody? How can moshing strategies inform our experience of moving both singularly and collectively?

In the first phase of the residency, I grounded my research on the intersection of architectural studies and the role of the body in mass theory, as well as the role of embodiment in sociopolitical processes. With references to Elias Canetti, Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, and Michel Foucault, I researched different crowd dynamics and the physical and choreographic elements that transform a seemingly aggressive crowd to a site of social cooperation.

In the second phase of the research, I invited two more dancers, Noumissa Sidibé and Irini Georgiou, into a studio practice. Together we revisited the physical act of “pushing” as the moshing’s main choreographic element for corporeal and space negotiation. We explored pushing through wrestling moves and techniques, revisiting combat scenarios through the lens of softness and sensitivity. We worked with resistance and surrender, pulling and abandoning, attack and defend, situating our practice both in the studio and into the public space, namely in Torgalmenningen square, the central square of the city of Bergen for public gatherings.

Based on the above, we created an archive of choreographic strategies and methodologies that can be practiced both on stage and in the social realm.

An open rehearsal was organized at the end of the research process, where valuable feedback was collected. The research was situated in broader public artistic discourses and a dialogue was fostered with the local artistic community and other colleagues.

The residency is organised by Onassis AiR in collaboration with BIT Teatergarsjen as part of the Transmissions project. Transmissions is coordinated by Onassis Stegi (Greece) in partnership with Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival (Norway) and is supported by the EEA Grants program and the Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021.