Moya Michael: It is like a finger pointing a way to the moon (sculpturance)
In a bold reimagining of her most recent work, choreographer Moya Michael transforms It is Like A Finger Pointing a Way to the Moon (2024) from theatre to gallery, and from performance to “sculpturance”, blurring the lines between performance and installation.
Performances:
21.11.2024, 19:30
22.11.2024, 19:30
23.11.2024, 16:00
24.11.2024, 15:00
Duration 60min
Audience members are welcome to move freely throughout the space or sit on the floor during the performance.
Drawing inspiration from Bruce Lee’s famous line in Enter the Dragon—“Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory!”—Moya Michael sets out to explore the worlds of words, movements, and rhythms she encountered in South Africa and Namibia. After spending time with !Amace, Be, and their Ju/'Hoansi family, she joins forces with artists Victoire Karera Kampire, Simon Thierrée, and Joachim Ben Yakoub. Through the precise use of image, movement, and sound, a liminal space of ongoing transformation is created, inviting reflection on oral tradition and survival.
This iteration at WIELS marks a pivotal shift in Michael's artistic journey. Viewers are invited to navigate the sculptural landscape, engaging intimately with the performer and scenography. The spatical configuration of the gallery setting amplifies the work's textural and material aspects, creating a living, breathing installation that evolves with each interaction.
BIO
Moya Michael
Moya Michael is a dancer, performer, and choreographer born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has danced with the likes of Akram Khan, Gregory Maqoma, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (Rosas), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet (Eastman), Faustin Linyekula, David Hernandez, Mårten Spångberg, Keyon Gaskin and Jin Xing. Moya currently resides in Brussels, which is her base for creating her work. Moya is interested in ‘performing the self’ and developing projects with other artists and artistic fields and has an ongoing commitment to process and discourse. She continues to evolve as a creative maker of live performances. It is in this manner that she has established a working relationship with KVS (The Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels) as one of their artists. As a skilled performer, Moya is interested in all forms of expression and identity with the use of mixed mediums.
Joachim Ben Yakoub
Joachim Ben Yakoub is a writer and teacher, sometimes also operating as curator and dramaturg, working on the border of different art schools and institutions. He spends most of his time in the Kitchen, a collective study and workspace in Brussels. He is affiliated to the MENARG and S:PAM research group of Ghent University, where he is conducting research on the aesthetics of revolt somewhere in between Tunisia and Belgium and is also lecturer at Sint-Lucas School of Arts Antwerp.
Victoire Karera Kampire
Victoire Karera Kampire is a Belgian and Rwandan filmmaker, sound designer, and co-founder of the nomadic collective .contrapunctum. She holds a master’s degree in New Media and Society from the VUB and graduated in audiovisual arts from the LUCA School of Arts. At the heart of her artistic quest is the notion of absence permeating her films at the border of documentary and fiction, with ghostly presences. She. has just started writing her next film “Ejo”, produced by Graphoui, and is part of a residency program funded by Africalia.
Simon Thierrée
Born in 1980 Simon Thierrée is a Brussels-based composer, violinist, pianist, and orchestra conductor. He has to his credit more than 40 musical creations for stage performances and movies since 1996, in various styles and for instrumentation ranging from solos to symphony orchestras. He is part and cofounder of the composer’s collective NONE. He was selected as a French resident artist in Lebanon in 2021 and in Tunisia in 2022 by the Institut Français. He received the prize Wallonie- Bruxelles of the Proquartetto International Composition Competition for his string quartet Fantaisie en huit miniatures.
CREATION Moya Michael
IN COLLABORATION WITH Victoire Karera Kampire, Simon Thierrée, Joachim Ben Yakoub
SCENOGRAPHY Špela Tušar and Moya Michael
COSTUME DESIGN Andrea Kränzlin
VIDEO Victoire Karera Kampire
COMPOSITION & SOUND DESIGN Simon Thierée
TECHNICAL SUPPORT Jair Montes, Jean-Baptiste Tricot, Nicolas Garcia Baino
DRAMATURGY Joachim Ben Yakoub
SPECIAL THANKS TO !Amace, Be and family, Xoma and Xhao, Nashilongwe Shipwe, Jan de Villiers, Lindiwe Dlamini, Haymich Olivier, Jennifer Hays, Loren Davis Fisher, Igor Shyshko, Ife Day, Martine de Limburg-Stirum, Ellie Bryce, Patrick Van Neck, Caroline Wagner, Lise Bruynseels, Lassenne Vocale and to all the beautiful people we met along the way
PRODUCTION WIELS
COPRODUCTION KVS, Bergen Kunsthall, Perpodium
Coproduced with KVS, in the frame of Próximamente Festival
