FFF6 | Sudden Rise

Moved by the Motion is an ongoing, iterative performance project. Initiated in 2013 by director Wu Tsang and artist boychild, it features a shifting group of collaborators, including cellist Patrick Belaga, dancer Josh Johnson, electronic musician and DJ Asma Maroof, poet and scholar Fred Moten, and others. The ensemble explores different modes of storytelling through improvisational structures. Each performance is a series of translations between text, movement, film, theater, and music.

“Sudden Rise” marks the European debut of the Moved by the Motion ensemble. The performance was newly commissioned by EMPAC (the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center) as part of their ten-year celebrations.

The “exquisite corpse” technique, similar to the game of “Consequences”, was an imaginative and collective game of chance developed by Surrealists during the interwar period. Each player could pick any word or name they liked to fill a set structure. The infinite possible combinations of words and names constitute the game’s creative challenge.

Patrick Belaga is a classically trained cellist and composer. He has performed internationally, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Getty Center, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Parcours Basel; and Donaufestival, Austria. In addition to his ongoing performance collaboration with artists boychild and Wu Tsang, Belaga has recently worked with artists Jacolby Satterwhite and Nick Weiss, Ligia Lewis, Thibault Lac, Jeremy O. Harris, Justin Sayre, Joey Arias, and Kai Kight. Recent compositional work includes the original score for the Netflix documentary “Gaga: Five Foot Two”, and a self-published solo album, “Groundswell”.

boychild is a movement-based performance artist whose work operates through improvisation as a mode of survival. Her performances have been presented at MoMA PS1; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Kulturhuset, Stockholm; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; the Sydney Biennial; and Berghain, Berlin. boychild has toured with Mykki Blanco and collaborated with Korakrit Arunanondchai, Wu Tsang, and the streetwear label Hood By Air.

Josh Johnson is a Frankfurt-based performer, dancer, and choreographer. He joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in 2009 and has subsequently worked with the Forsythe Company (2010- 2015). He is co-founder of SAD collective, which has created performances, DJ sets, video works, and installations throughout Europe, the United States, and Asia. He has performed and collaborated with artists Anne Imhof, Kandis Williams, Wu Tsang, and boychild. Johnson’s performance works include “Piety” (2018, with Total Freedom; The Shed, New York), “Allegory” (2018, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin), and “Anthony”, (2018, Philipp Pflug Contemporary, Frankfurt).

Asma Maroof (aka Asmara) is a Los Angeles–based electronic producer and DJ who tours internationally and has worked with M.I.A., Kelela, Tink, Princess Nokia, Venus X, and is a member of the musical groups NGUZUNGUZU (Fade to Mind) and Future Brown (Warp Records).

Alena Samoray is a freelance lighting designer currently working on her Master’s degree in lighting design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Recent past work includes “You Sad Legend” with the Moved by the Motion ensemble and “The Rape of Lucretia” and “November Dance: Moving Forward, Looking Back” at UIUC, as well as a multitude of work completed at EMPAC in Troy, New York with Andrew Schneider, France Jobin, Kate Super, Charles Atlas, and many more.