Inauguration: On the Choreography of Social Imagination | Workshop by Michael Kliën

“I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of citizens who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need citizens who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality.”

—Ursula K. Le Guin (modified)

This workshop is a collaborative effort to develop a new social choreographic work, “Inauguration.” It challenges established norms and rigid practices to highlight the artificial nature of our reality and the insanity of our doings. It thus creates a different kind of space for citizens, poets, visionaries, and realists to gather, allowing new social imaginaries to emerge.

Besides “Inauguration”’s immediate political overtones, its title hearkens back to the original meaning of ‘augury’—to predict the future from omens—and applies it to our current context. The workshop will offer practices for a new kind of politics in which people come together to both make prophecies and begin enacting them.

The core of “Inauguration” consists of an interwoven matrix of thoughts, movements, and dreams. Together, we will create an entirely imagined dance floor that holds everyone’s abilities, ghosts, and aspirations; an analog virtual reality shared by all participants. Impossible worlds will emerge amongst everyone present, a metaphysical atmosphere governed by one rule only: “The dignity of the other is sacred.”

Wednesday, March 12 (Day 1)

10:30 | Introductions

11:00–13:00 | Guided ‘social dreaming’

—Lunch—

14:00–17:00 | Social choreography movement practices

Thursday, March 13 (Day 2)

11:00–13:00 | Guided ‘social dreaming’

—Lunch—

14:00–17:00 | Social choreography movement practices

Friday, March 14 (Day 3)

11:00–13:00 | Guided ‘social dreaming’

—Lunch—

16:30–19:30 | Semi-public ‘rehearsal’ of “Inauguration” followed by a guided reflection