Working from a place of Betwixt and Between / Peer to Peer

Phyllis Akinyi and Vala T. Foltyn will touch on topics such as: Working with/from a spiritual practice, the laborious task of remaining in-between, and decolonial dance research in colonial spaces, in an attempt to share navigation strategies and healing tools with each other and their peers.

𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗮 𝗧. 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝘁𝘆𝗻

A performance and installation artist, queer witch, shape-shifter, researcher, founder and curator of Lamella the house of queer arts in Poland. She graduated from Shahar Dor’s Artness - Home and School for Movement (Israel) and Performers House (Silkeborg). She gained her masters in cultural anthropology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków with interest in anthropology of dance and embodiment. For several years she researched Anna Halprin’s legacy which was presented at Copenhagen Contemporary| Danshallerne in 2020. Currently she's enrolled at the program Master of Fine Arts in Artistic Research at Malmö Art Academy.

She recently exhibited at Tallinn Art Hall as part of the “What makes another world possible” exhibition curated by Corina Apostol and performed at Parliament of Bodies by Paul Preciado at Bergen Assembly and Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. She fled to Denmark in 2019 due to political changes in her home country - Poland.

𝗣𝗵𝘆𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘀 𝗔𝗸𝗶𝗻𝘆𝗶

She is a Danish-Kenyan nomadic dancer, sonic choreographer, performance artist and dance researcher.

She works with traditional and experimental flamenco and has spent the last five years developing research/artistic works that highlight African and Diasporan expressions within flamenco. Her general artistic practice investigates the ‘betwixt and between’, or more specifically; the entanglements of movement, culture, and identity, from an anthropological lens of bodies caught in cultural ‘in-betweens’. Akinyi’s latest piece ‘G.R.I.E.F.’ is a durational exploration of emotional release and spiritual trance through flamenco rhythms, which premiered at Yellow Fish Festival (NYC) in May 2021.

She is currently choreographing ‘Havets Skum’ for KORA/Dansehallerne.

𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗣𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗣𝗲𝗲𝗿

Peer to Peer is an encounter platform with professional conversations about artistic practice in the field of dance and choreography.

We meet twice a month at Union, where we start with collegial mingling and a drink in the cafe and continue in a professional session facilitated by the guest artist.

After the event, it will be possible to continue the conversations in the café, where you can buy your dinner (the kitchen closes at 7.30pm).