Written by Dimitris Mytilinaios

The physical presence of the dancing body is activated in the public space with the use of specific choreographic tools aiming at a morphological shift of the dominant “pedestrian” kinetic form in the walking network provided by the city.

Where/when are we allowed to dance? What happens if we dance there / when we are not ‘allowed’ and do not dance there/when we are ‘allowed’? How does this ‘permissible’ come about and what forms does it include? Is it a historical necessity or a manifestation of ideology?

We investigate the ways in which movement-behavior is outlined, what defines public bodily forms and we seek for modes of appropriation in order to expand it and to make possible its temporary or not change.

The main hypothesis to be considered in the experiment is the degree to which the activation of the human body or a set of human bodies in a choreographic (defined and at the same time based on subjectivity) way becomes capable of coming to an “instantaneous” rupture with the boxed and socially determined kinetic citizen/user behavior in the public space – in other words with the physical manifestations of the habitus.

The city momentarily and cumulatively, historically and daily, is the track, the place, the field of play, expression and performance for its users and therefore generates codes and behaviors. The legislative, the political, the cultural and the social are based on it, arise from it and compose interactive systems within it, regardless of scale. Urban planners have successfully or unsuccessfully designed cities that can support these systems by covering a range of extroverted needs based on safety, exchange value and use value. But there are also peculiar needs for extroversion, project creation, energy expenditure that go beyond or escape the fragmentation of work and are rarely actualized.

We wonder: are their manifestations scarce due to lack of space or lack of time? Is it a question of planning or of choice?

Considering that the urban space is in a constant process of construction, as a field of negotiation, conflict of multiplicity and diversity, we emphasize on the need for finding fields of contact, active engagement and unpredictable interaction – places of unexpected situations, disorder and confrontation*.

*Richard Sennett, The Uses Of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life, Yale University Press,1970


drifting, Dimitris Mytilinaios, Courtesy of the artist
drifting, Dimitris Mytilinaios, Courtesy of the artist