NASA Notros Aquí Siempre Allí The Performance of Heritage
“In a globalized world, here and now is not one thing”
Pablo Bronstein in Tate Live
NASA is a performance research-artistic-social project imagined to be developed in different Migration Museums. Migracy is an activity of animals and humans since the beginning of times. The imminent cases of massive displacements affecting different societies, generates new categories of relationships: State policies of migration, academic and scientific research and qualifications in the media as a ‘problem’ or a ‘crisis’. And not less important: the very simple daily human encounters among people from different cultures.
The presence of Migration Museums and Migration Archives become primordial for the recollection and archiving information about emigration and immigration. Understanding the new functions of the Museums in Europe and the globe, these are the institutions who contemplate the living process of production and development of tangible and intangible patrimony during the exoduses. The concept of Migration Museum arrived in Europe in 1991. The Association of European Migration Institutions is a network of forty organizations located in Europe and working on the history of migrations in Europe, and on the literature produced on this topic. AEMI seeks to provide its members with an international forum through which they may advance the knowledge of European migration. (to learn more, click here and here too).
“The body is the site of contested narratives. where the sociological, the psychological, the political and the religious meet” (Geaves 2000:194)
The space of a Museum of Migration must be the first place where people can reflect about their migratory experiences. This frame is where the project NASA proposes to develop the main objective of reinscription and negotiation [1] of migration as a reality rather than an ‘exclusive problem’. ART is the dimension in which complex processes such as migracy, unnamable atrocities and overwhelming feelings, can be translated to the common language of gestures, movements and sounds. NASA embraces the understanding that, in the contemporary social context, art and artists should take an active position as facilitators and ‘connecting bodies’ between institutions and social groups. THE OBJECTIVES OF NASA cope with the pillar goals of the AEMI:
Remembrance, Recognition and Integration.
Raising awareness and educating about the events that provoke(d) migrations to generate empathy among the host populations and the so called second and third generations, thus to deconstruct stereotypes diffused around immigration.
Giving recognition to the contributions of migrants to their host society and to their home countries.
Integration by strengthening the sense of belonging, making migrants feel part of the nation; and thus, contributing to more open and inclusive national identities.
Give voice to the different ages of immigrant population, to foster the process of inclusion and the right to be different.
THE STAGES OF NASA * 1st stage: are you with me? The first stage of the project will the presentation of the solo performance “Are you with me?” during the 27th Annual Conference of the Association of European Migration Institutions in Husum, Germany in October 2017. A sample of this solo/monologue, was shown for my choreographic presentation of Performance of Heritage in March 2017 at Roehampton. This performance is a combination of my own testimony and the voices of many others like me. I sing and dance against history and speak your language so can be with me. I believe in “a more radical use of dance, in which dancers´ bodies are more conspicuously seen to be agents of interpretation, rather than complementary exhibits”.[2] (CLICK HERE to go to the script) 2nd stage: choreographic intervention of migration museums During the 27th conference of AEMI, the project will be proposed to the 40 member institutions.(To see the list and links, click here ) I categorize said institutions as follows:
Emigration museums, which focus is in the memory and the recovery.
Immigration museums with focus in diasporas and actual situations -such as refugees.
Migration in general, covering the exchange of space and nation in a wider possibility of narratives.
Migration documentation centers, which can be an interesting venues and alternative spaces.
The second stage is a performance with characteristics remaining from the first stage, in collaboration with immigrant artists of the community, dancers, musicians or others. This implies a residency time for research and creation, and a performance. NASA will intervene the spaces, with diversification of characteristics according to its objectives, and the possibility of interaction with the current expositions of each museum. CLIC HERE to go to the whole description of the second stage. 3rd stage: nosotros aquí siempre allí we here always there
"Individual human beings and everyday life is the ground of all selected and protected cultural heritage, and the commercial, political and societal use of it” Heritage and Individuals, Finland 2011[3]
The third stage will imply a Workshop with immigrant population and a site-specific performance. The participants will be migrant, or descendant, so the effect of migration is embodied and remembered. The structure can be represented in different languages and in coordination with the curator of each space. CLICK HERE to go to the whole description of the second stage. 4th stage: The nasa virtual space-ship Each creative and artistic process generates and brings material. The material used for the previous stages constitutes already tangible and intangible, which origin are archives, oral transmission, memory and creativity. The virtual station will be an online archive of the following: Recordings of testimonials, interviews and songs. videos and scores of dances videos of the performances in Migrant Museums CLICK HERE to go to the whole description of the fourth stage. BUDGET First and fourth stages have a fix price of 3 000 E, because they will be developed by individuals. The second and third stage, will depend on the venue, the space and the number of participants. (Click here to see more detailed budget description)
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[1]Cf. The whole concept in Bhabha `The location of culture´.
[2]Lopez y Royo ‘South Asian dances in museums: culture, education and patronage in thediaspora’ .
[3] Heritage and Individuals 3rd Conference of the SIEF Working Group on Cultural Heritage and Property. (Click here)