[ Audience sits on chairs inside the space ] [ Xenia and Agata in the hallway outside the space] [ Roni in a small room backstage, starts speaking into the microphone, her voice present in the space ] Do we know how to talk about love? Is it better to suffer, because it sounds more sophisticated? How does a friendship-based collective function without words? Could it be just a group of people who are friends? What does it mean that friends are working together? Can friends work hard? How can you, when you work with friends, execute a certain discipline? Am I the boss? [ Xenia enters the space and starts to walk in circles around the audience ] How often do we apply institutional discipline to personal situations because these are the tools that we know? How can we, through friendship, generate tools that have the same outcome? What about collective authorship? Who starts? How does the thing start rolling without one person pushing it? Is the activity more important than the source? Is this challenging institutionalized power dynamics? When are you ready to give away authority because someone else is taking over? How can you be constantly able to shift? Is it also a space for self-realization? Is it your idea? Can we all work on it? Is it possible that there is equanimity but also space for self? How much is love? How much is trust? Do you want to give yourself completely? Are we here together? Do you want to try this out? What blurs the notion of subjectivity? How do you give away a certain kind of authorship, and ownership? Are you interested in making things work? Can production be replaced with construction? [ Agata walks into the space, offers the audience members lollipops one by one ] Where is the gap in time? [ Agata starts to walk in circles around the audience, picking up on Xenia’s rhythm ] How can past things be relevant for the present? How are present artists related to artists from the past? Does the past always have an impact on the future? An impact on how and who we will become? Would you like to get stuck in the past? Can someone please take care of this? When you look at the past, do you experience the present but actually make the future? Did female art history happen physically in space, but it’s not history because it was not named? Does that mean that once something is named it belongs to history? Is this history? [ Roni walks into the space, matching her steps with Agata and Xenia ] When is the last time you felt excluded? Are you now part of the Canon? Is all history related to knowledge? What if the female artist canon would be like compost? Why would I want to create a canon of female artists? For whom? [ Agata accelerates ] Is our knowledge based on male history because we live in a European society? Who were the dictators? What If I decide I’m not going to look at the canon, but I’m going to look at who I want to look at? When you learn history, do you learn names, dates, places, events? Is Art History even more about names? Is it because the artist becomes the product itself? Once you know their names, do they start to exist and become the canon of culture? Is that then what the people decide to look at? Is this a common act of acknowledgment? [ Roni stops and directs her gaze at one of the audience members ] Cracking Circles female trouble Nordic Journal of Dance - Volume 8(1) 2017 27 What does history have to do with composition? Do all elements need to be named? If you are not named, are you not a part of history? What would be a different way of making history? What are the ways of naming, or making visible outside the institution? What does it mean to make visible? What are other ways of making visible without just using vision? Is your context, lineage, heritage worth a thing if you stay there? If you are constantly just looking back, don’t you forget to be here? Do you sometimes forget that actually in the moment you are also writing history? Do I need to understand my history in order to be able to position myself and write history? How can we be in the Now? Does having a relation to the Now always mean having a relation to the past? Did I get it right? If there’s history, is there also future? Can I make use of where I’m coming from? What does that have to do with ownership? Is it just an obsession for archiving? Do you think when I look at all these feminist artists and I read all these texts and I have conversations about them it will impact the future? My future? Our future? Their future? Who are the people we learn from? Who are the people who have a huge impact not only on who we are but also on who we can become? Should reworking her-story actually be about n ot m aking a canon? What are different practices of bringing about history that does not create or need a canon? Is there something like a better canon? Why is History so much about ownership? [ Xenia moves out of the door into the hall, her voice stays in the space ] Is a canon something that is owned or owns? Should it be a completely different structure, a completely different principle of history? What is the opposite of archiving? How do I get there? What If I’m totally not there yet? Can you create the opposite of a canon? Who is the grandmother of the collective? Do you sometimes feel like you do not have grandmothers in your genealogy of mums? What did my grandmother think about just before she died? How many herstories do you carry? Have you had an idea that other women have done before? Isn’t this an amazing thing? What is the understory? What is untold? What is the thing between oral history and a canon? What is the difference between gathering and collecting? How do you queer history? Are you critical towards norms? Is it also like this in other worlds? Does visibility create acknowledgement create knowledge? Is it very clear to you, this present / past? [ Roni and Agata run together into the same direction ] Do you already get the future? [ Xenia re-enters and joins their running ] Is this about all these things that are implicitly impacting us? What is your education? What would be a world, or women, having that education? What should have always been there? Is the now still a patriarchy? Are you making this up? Are you an active member of this community? Which community? Can you make something that is countering, even if it’s not equivalent? This conversation that we’re having right now, have other groups of women had it before? A lot? And so what do we do? Is it connected? Does the person start to exist in the moment you’re naming them? The fact that I painted an amazing painting and it’s hanging in my living room and nobody comes to see it, what impact does it have? [ Xenia stops, standing still ] Is naming like existing like being seen? Where do we find PRACTICE ORIENTED ARTICLE 2 28 the stories that are not here? Why do you only see some events? What is the difference between looking into each other’s eyes and looking through the eyes of another? How does it make you feel to do both at the same time? Why is it always too much or too little? [ Roni and Agata stop one after the other in different spots in the space ] Was it my desire or our desire? Can someone just say their name? Is this a question that many people have? Today, How does a work count if it’s not visible? In performance, is all a question of visibility? Is it my point of view? Is it your point of view? Do you constantly redefine, renew, destabilize yourself? Do you think that women are specific types of humans? Why are you afraid of being ugly? How can we host each other? Can a collective happen with only one person? Does friends making work together sound like fun? Would you like to join our collective? Is this a feminist capitalist collective? Could it not be capitalist? Do you want to move in together? Why not?

[ Xenia, Roni, Agata start moving into the same direction ] Would you like to live outside of Europe? Why does a collective exist? What is the connection between friendship, feminism, structure, leakage, not-knowing, leadership? What are different ways of organizing? How do you share knowledge? [ Roni changes direction ] How do you work with continuity? Are you my baby, kid, child, lover, partner or companion? Have you asked yourself where everyone is? Have you masturbated since you got here? Do you share a bed with somebody? What do you think I did last night? Are you wasting time? [ Agata changes direction and joins Roni ] Are you scared of personal conflict? Are you being too precious with yourself? Is this getting overtherapeutic? How much energy do you spend in finding resolution? When are we walking on the spot? How do I back off? When do you leave the conflict unresolved? Can you live with that? Can you work with that? Rules or Circumstances? [ Agata leaves the space and continues speaking from outside ] How about circumstantial rules? What are circumstantial rules? Is friendship precious? Are you holding back from saying things? How do you feel when you are forced to give space to yourself? Are you making an attempt to fully commit to this? What is the difference between the collective on stage and the collective off stage? What does friendship-based collective mean? Does the work become about the friendship? Can friendship support the artistic work of the collective? [ Agata re-enters ] What is the difference between art and therapy? Who is this for? What is your collective persona? Can we not make this about competing? Doesn’t that make you think of ownership? Do you withdraw from saying things? Are you confronting? Are you seeing anything in between? [ Agata and Roni start to run] Do you accumulate tensions? Is it important for you to be an individual? Do you have a solid practice of being in relationships? Would you like to know who we are talking about? Do you enjoy when things get blurry? Is the key for togetherness to be alone? Does this close you off? Are you scared of intimacy? Do you find symbiosis beautiful? Are you scared of losing control, of getting lost? When do you back off? Is there too much comfort? Do things move through confrontation? Can you strengthen your willpower like a muscle? Are you training every day? [ In Unison ] Do you exercise a collective body? What do you think? Do you sometimes oppress each other?Does this collective have holes? How many holes? Is there anything leaking through these holes? Are you menstruating right now? Are you menstruating together? Is this what you could call a meeting? How do you look at being healthy? Do you have different relationships to time? How much time do things take? Are you clear with your expectations? Can you say yes? Do you work for free? Who is the older sister? How old are you? [ Xenia joins the run, she runs in the opposite direction ] Can you ask a lady about her age? What is the intuition of the collective? Is personal desire for collaboration Nordic Journal of Dance - Volume 8(1) 2017 29 paradoxical? If I want to say something, can I just say it? Is our work constant? Does it suit you? What is so particular about you? Are you frustrated? What are the non-spoken structures and hierarchies? Are you well taken care of? Are you writing history? How much time do you spend together? Are you inclusive? Who are you inviting? Who are you not inviting? Is the collective sick? What does it need? Do you want to construct a second world? Does this make me separatist? Can I construct this place? Isn’t that all about ownership and territory again? Are we talking shit to death? What are the reasons for starting? What are the reasons for continuing? Who is part of the collective? [ Agata leaves the stage, her voice stays present in the space, she’s almost out of breath ] What is the difference between collective and collectivity? What is the difference between collective work and collaboration? What’s the What? Do we need an explanation? Do we rationalize too much? What isn’t there that shouldn’t be there? What isn’t there that should be? What’s the error? Is fun the same as entertainment? What’s the problem with improvisation? Can you be soft and intense at the same time? Do you have a lot of fun when you work together? Will you have children together? [ Xenia directing at a specific audience member ] Are your actions leaking? What is the contemporaneity of your work? Who gets to decide what your contemporaneity is? Do you think that the programme of this Symposium expresses your contemporaneity? Is everything happening at-the-same-time? What is the difference between training and practice? What kind of music do you like? What happens to work when life comes in the way? Should life get in the way? If you have two options, which one do you choose? Why not choose both? What do you give? What are your strategies to avoid the uncomfortable? What is the knowledge you’re interested in? Do you care about pleasing? Does this excite you? Is there something you want us to know? What’s the interesting question to be busy with? Is the future open? Talking about love and emotions and so on, is there a blank field somewhere that can be occupied? Hasn’t this happened before? Is this a question? Do you work with consent? Do you have friends outside of the working context? Do you think it is necessary to have fun? What is your fantasy of the artwork that we could make together? How can this be a dance piece? What should be in this piece in order to make it feminist? Where do I find access, research, talk? What do you want people to see? Do you want people to know? What are the options? How far do I want to go into institutionalization? Have you ever traveled together for fun, not for work? Do you think that work is not fun? Can we create an experience rather than an image-based event? Is leakage the effect of our actions? Is the effect of our actions a leakage? Would you like to move beyond closed doors? [ Xenia joins Agata backstage, her voice stays present in the space ] Is being naked more fun than being dressed? Is that a rhetorical question? How do you feel about this room? How can we contaminate it? Do you feel the pressure? Are you afraid of Spivak? Did you read anything by Spivak? Have you seen any refugee since coming to Copenhagen? Are you on tinder? Do you care about your feelings? Was that a question? Do you work with humour? Do you think you are funny? [ Roni joins Xenia and Agata backstage, all three voices stay present in the space ] Do you think we are too serious? Can we all get naked? Is it true that you only work together because you would like to sleep with each other? Have you ever had sex with a man? Have you ever had work with a man? Would you call yourself a man? Would you like to become a male choreographer? Do you hate men? Do you feel a lot of white guilt? Who are you to ask that? What are the hierarchies in dance today? Who should we ask our questions? Are you a separatist when you play with binaries? Is everything in a certain order? What’s with the idea of compost instead? Is this where structure is in happening? What is merging and 30 dissolving? What is much less solid? How can you generate the structure rather than use the structure? Is this because we circulate around the same notions? But again–why binaries? Do you have resistance here? Do you have sex with women? Do you have sex with people that are neither women nor men? Do you think it is important either way? Do you have any kids? Do you assume that everybody is lesbian? What do you think of heterosexuality? What do you think about dads? Do you need one? Do you have any spare one? Do you like that? How old were you when you had your feminist awakening? What is that? Why do you assume that it happened at one point and was not there to begin with? Was your mother a feminist? Are you born a feminist? Are all women feminist? Does a feminism has anything to do with social construct? Do you think that Beyoncé is a feminist? Do you think you can be less or more feminist? Do you think it matters? Do you like Beyoncé? Do you think Beyonce is sexist? How do you not get stuck with one feminism? Is feminism a movement? If it’s constantly moving, can you know what it is? [ Xenia, Agata and Roni re-enter the space ]

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