PANDGANG (by Emilie De Vlam)

We start each session with a circle, and end with a circle, the circle in which we question and attune each other. Young people who are looking for their place in life are welcome on the site. It is a participatory process. We have lunch together beforehand and tea and coffee. We do a collective warm-up, which you can take literally and figuratively. We tour the building. After that, the spaces of the site become co-players in our process. We question a place and create a place and we switch places. This creates a flow. We are addressed and challenged to deal with impulses from the site. At the end of the sessions, we come together to exchange.

Body and environment! A development in situ to circulate the questions around ‘place’, place is what you take with your body. And then you also get moving, and you do something. In this project we want to enter into the process of experimenting with alternative ways of ‘inhabiting a place’ in community. The intention is to deal with the broad issues of living from an artistic vision and to be able to touch on themes that may be much less visible at first sight. The crucial starting point is the view that the body, part of the space around it, like the weather, is in a constant flux of change. We operate at the vibrant intersection of the intersection between body and environment. This refers to body-oriented performance strategies such as butoh and body weather.

PANDGANG as a word refers to both the site itself and ‘going’: PANDGANG is both place and movement! The building in this case, the 2nd pandhof of the Caermersklooster, is constructed with a tour, both below and above, and thus invites you to circulate. All residential units, almost cells, lead to this circular route. The centerpiece is the oak tree in the garden (once planned as a symbol of an earlier occupation victory in connection with the housing problem). We would like to focus on the idea of circulation, between the different spaces that can be exchanged as their own place, between the time layers of its history, between the current interpretation with young people and the students in this project at this very moment.

The site is not inhabited but the place is a collection of housing units that are empty, in a different state, until further sale of this historical heritage, and where young people are currently allowed to find their place, come to orient themselves. We try to form a community structure that embraces the idea of ownership versus exchange: exploring how we create a place, what the idea of our own place can be and how we can play with inevitable changes there: moving/moving on’). The students themselves can get to work with this data under mentorship. This creates a learning environment outside the walls of the institute. We are open to the inclusion of the young people who are orienting themselves in this place, the internally displaced, and the students who are working on their development path. The project is in constant evolution. Each phase is a benchmark in the evolution it already has within it. An installation/performance is created over the entire site by taking the time and space to land on the site in a casual atmosphere.

There is a public show moment on Friday 24/03 in situ @Het Pand: 17:00h.

Als a workshop-performance with Frank Van de Ven, 17:00h @ Het Pand.

Welcome.

Emilie de Vlam has a great interest in human life. She studied social sciences and anthropology and continued her studies in comparative knowledge systems. She studied at the University of Ghent (B) and St Andrews (UK) and contemporary dance theater at HIDD Lier (B), and butoh at Tenshi Khan in Tokyo (J). Her roots are in body weather laboratory (butoh) and from a young age she attended workshops all over Europe. She grounded DEVLOER the undependent free artist space for movement in Ghent. Emilie sets to work with the same passion for people of all possible backgrounds, lifestyles and ages.

 

(c) Bart Gabriel/Emilie de Vlam, PUTJES
(concept/performance Emilie de Vlam, photo Bart Gabriel)
(c) Giada Cicchetti

Date: Tuesday 21, Thursday 23 and Friday 24th of March

Locatie: Het Pand, Langesteenstraat 16

Joning and more information via: Samira El Khadraoui

see also:


in collaboration with: