Fields

A short text or a long line written by Mette Edvardsen for Etcetera magazine (June 2018) on an invitation to elaborate on her approach to text, writing and speech from a choreographic point of view. Held by a cardboard cover, the text is here published on its own as a very slim book.

Writing from the body, from nervous impulses, sensations and gestures, but also from our being carried by matter, language and history, Sabina Holzer explores how writing may become ‘a way of singing and slip over into liminal, latent meanings and potentials.’ How to stay close to the body of the word? To perceive some of the multiplicity of our reality and ways of being, she incorporates somatic practices, ecology and new materialism, fables and science fiction in her writing. Allow me to dream a body with you gathers poetic essays and stories that delve into the fine grain of our corporeal entanglements and embeddedness. ‘Would an encounter between you and me be possible without all this?’

Sabina Holzer works in the field of expanded choreography. Her performances, interventions and texts explore the ecologies of human and more-than-human bodies with particular attention to movement and matter. She engages in practices of collaboration, philosophy, ecology, science fiction and poetry.

Graphic design: Michaël Bussaer

Skies is a practice that emerged when Edurne Rubio and María Jerez found themselves working in isolation during the creation process of their performance A Nublo in 2020. A dialogue in pictures capturing the skies above Madrid, Brussels and many other places, it is now a book and document of a particular time that invites others to reminisce as they read the clouds and ponder invisible worlds that haunt the aether. It comes with an essay by Augusto Corrieri on theatre and cosmos.

Edurne Rubio is a visual artist. Her work leans towards the documentary and starts out from orality and storytelling. 

María Jerez creates work at the intersection of choreo graphy, film and visual art. With her work, she wants to open up spaces of possibility through the encounter with what is foreign to us.

www.edurnerubio.org
www.mariajerez.com

Published by Varamo Press in the essay series Gestures
First edition October 2022
200 pages, 11 x 16.5 cm, sewn perfect binding
ISBN: 978-82-691492-6-5
Graphic design by Michaël Bussaer

A performance text by Jozef Wouters, The Soft Layer traces and proposes visions and words that enfold the historic building of Dar Bairam Turki in Tunis like a cloak. How can we imagine possible futures for such a place and the community inhabiting it, beyond nostalgia and the spectres of the past? Several voices muse in three languages (Tunisian, French and English) on renovation and history, destruction and cleansing, the limits of science-fiction and the soothing quality of aloe vera.

Published by Varamo Press in the essay series Gestures
First edition May 2022
48 pages, 11.0 x 16.5 cm, sewn perfect binding
ISBN 978-82-691492-4-1

In the high-octane essay And Then Comes the Chorus, Jon Refsdal Moe pursues the imagination of theatre opened up by Alfred Jarry when he slipped an ‘r’ into a profanity as he exclaimed ‘Merdre!’ on stage. ‘What matters is that the words became flesh and that this flesh exploded right in the world’s face. What matters is that literature stood up at the Théâtre de l’Œuvre on December 10, 1896 and cried FUCK! and all hell broke loose and the world has never been the same since.’

Jon Refsdal Moe is a writer and dramaturg from Oslo. He has written two novels, one doctoral dissertation, several essays and a lot of criticism. He was artistic director of Black Box teater in Oslo from 2009 to 2016 and is now professor of dramaturgy at Stockholm University of the Arts.

Published by Varamo Press in the essay series Gestures
First edition November 2022
48 pages, 11.0 x 16.5 cm, sewn perfect binding
ISBN: 978-82-691492-8-9
Graphic design by Michaël Bussaer

‘Human beings embody whatever they meet, and it’s all there when you work whether you want it there or not.’ Practice is like the dust that accumulates, and revisiting fragments of essays and talks on choreography Jonathan Burrows ended up embracing the haphazard and the mess, moments of unfocus and focus, harnessing them in pithy formulations and scores, adding room and punctuation and line breaks in the process so readers can hear the rhythm as he writes his dance on writing dance.

Jonathan Burrows is a choreographer, who has worked for many years in collaboration with the composer Matteo Fargion, with whom he continues to create and perform work. He is the author of A Choreographer’s Handbook (Routledge, 2010) and is currently an Associate Professor at the Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University.

Published by Varamo Press in the essay series Gestures
Graphic design by Michaël Bussaer

Cactus erotica. Dykes taking T erotica. Handmade rope erotica. 
Tangentially alien erotica. Clit long like laffy taffy erotica. Death erotica.

In L.A. Warman's anti-sequel to her award-winning debut Whore Foods, two anonymous lovers traverse the vast and lonely desert which has blighted most of the continent. In their possession is the gift of the Vapors, a mystical substance which allows them to transcend death. Yet as they explore the desert realm and each other, they cannot help but wonder if their entwined destiny resides somewhere beyond transcendence.

LA Warman is a poet, performer, and teacher currently based in New York City. Warman is the author of Whore Foods, an erotic novella which recieved a Lambda Literary Award in 2020. She is the founder of Warman School, a non-accredited and body based learning center. The Warman School has taught over 500 students online and in person. She teaches topics such as erotics, death, depression, and god. Pitchfork named her piece ADMSDP one of the top 100 songs of 2020. She has had performance and installation work in shows at MOCA Cleveland, ICA Philadelphia, Time-Based Art Festival, Poetry Project, and Open Engagement. Warman has presented performative poetics research at Brown University, Hamilton College, Reed College, Hampshire College, and others. She is a founding organizer of the Free Ashley Now survivor defense campaign.

"This book is an instant waypoint on my return to the revelation: if nothing else, my tears have a place where they belong—mixed into the dust of others." — Wilmer Wilson IV

Après une campagne militaire fulgurante, l’organisation secrète du redoutable Dr Belsidus a chassé les puissances occupantes du sol africain et s’est rendue maitre de l’ensemble du continent, unifié pour la première fois en un gigantesque empire. L’expansion a démarré et l’édification d’une civilisation d’un genre inédit est en marche. Mais les nations européennes, après s’être fait la guerre, s’apprêtent à revenir. Une course s’engage entre l’Internationale noire et les appétits impérialistes : sabotages, espionnage, guerre technologique ou bactériologique, les héros et héroïnes de L’Internationale noire né reculeront devant rien pour sauvegarder cette indépendance acquise de haute lutte. 

Dans ce second volet du roman-feuilleton qui fit la réputation de G. Schuyler, retrouvez les nouvelles aventures de nos personnages, dorénavant contraints à une lutte géopolitique d’une ampleur inégalée, pour garantir à leur Empire noir un avenir radieux ! 

George Samuel Schuyler, 1895–1977, fut un essayiste, journaliste et romancier de première importance dans le monde culturel africain-américain de l’entre-deux-guerres. Il reste connu pour la férocité de ses critiques. Il est l’auteur d’un seul roman, Black No More, traduit en France en 2016 et d’un essai romancé dénonçant la traite au Liberia, produit de son enquête de terrain dans le pays. Proche des courants socialistes jusqu’à la Seconde Guerre mondiale, il prendra un virage nettement réactionnaire par la suite, tout en demeurant dans les mémoires de toute une génération d’écrivains, tels qu’Ishmael Reed ou Samuel Delany.