DAVID LAKEiN
Is an interdisciplinary artist, organizer-educator and writer who performs-researches-teaches across Europe & the United States and around the world. Whether facilitating students in workshops and projects or bringing artists together in laboratories and festivals, he is committed to research as a creative act and dialogue as a transformational encounter.
Lakein is a well-respected teacher known for his experimental methods and dedicated to a rigorous (un)learning process. His performance work swirls around the borders between dance, theater, cabaret, installation and performance art—often involving extensive collaborations with other artists.
Whether completely set or entirely improvised, a solo show or community gathering, on stage or in the woods, the work often invites and provokes participation from the viewing-listening-reading audience. Lakein embraces and confronts the tensions between the ordinary and sublime, situating his performative creations on the edges between the profoundly serious and ridiculously silly, especially in the intersections of daily life, metaphysics and spirituality.
Lakein’s practice is strongly influenced by a variety of somatic modalities, aikido & meditation, stand-up comedy & standing-around, and books & bars. He studied philosophy & literature, and acting & directing in Connecticut, trained as a dancer, choreographer and performer in Berlin, Amsterdam and San Francisco, and studied visual arts in Chicago; he holds a BA from Wesleyan University, a BFA from the School for New Dance Development | Amsterdam School for the Arts, and an MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
www.lakeinworkshops.wordpress.com
IMPROVISATION LABORATORY
HARDCORE BLAH BLAH JUNGLE
Presence | Perception | Performance
What is presence?
Viva the Magic of Absence!
When is a body neutral?
Long Live the Ascendency of Meaning!
Where do transitions happen?
They inhabit the Dominion of Thoughts, not the Plane of Actions!
Why the disconnection from spacetime?
Oh Rebels! Swim bravely through the Muddy Swamps of Shifting Inbetweeness!
Oh Warriors! Climb joyfully atop the Swinging Branches of Never-Ending Unfoldingness!
HARCORE
Hardcore blah blah provocation to probe long-held beliefs about the performing body and pick fights with cherished understandings about the performative conditions.
BLAH BLAH
Hardcore blah blah invitation to peel back layers of personal likes-loves & dislikes-hates and unmask habitual patterns of attractions & repulsions in movement-dance practices.
JUNGLE
Hardcore blah blah container to research diverse improvisational states of body-mind-voice and manifest them in solo and ensemble instant compositions.
jungle |ˈjəNGgəl|
noun
1 an area of land overgrown with dense forest and tangled vegetation, often nearly impenetrable,
typically in the tropics: we set off into the jungle | the lakes are hidden in impassable jungle.
• a wild tangled mass of vegetation or other things; a piece of swampy, thickset forestland:
the garden was a jungle of bluebells.
• something that baffles or perplexes; maze: a jungle of legal double-talk.
• a situation or place of bewildering complexity or ruthless competitiveness:
it's a motherfucking shit-hole cocksucking cuntlicking asshole jungle out there.
• a scene of violence or a struggle for survival:
The neglected prison was a jungle for its inmates.
• (also hobo jungle) informal a hobo camp.
2 (also jungle music) a style of dance music incorporating elements of ragga, hip-hop, and hard core
and consisting almost exclusively of very fast electronic drum tracks and slower synthesized bass lines, originating in Britain in the early 1990s.
PHRASES
the law of the jungle the principle that those who are strong and apply ruthless self-interest will be most successful and will pulverize those who are weak to specks of dust, annihilating them off the face of the earth and blowing them to kingdom come—toward the ascendancy of heaven.
DERIVATIVES
jungled adjective
jungly adjective
jungligigly adjective
WE
We explore diverse textures of presence, especially the differences between being and presenting, and whether it is possible to inhabit a neutral, uninvested body.
We investigate various approaches to placing a mindful intention and-or locating a physical attitude in the body.
We examine roles we embody—functional, experiential or narrative—and whether one ever occupies a predominant position.
WORK
We consider how the abundance of stimuli confronting us in each moment can inform-influence-inspire our unfolding trajectory so as not to distract or overwhelm us. How can perceiving and identifying the constant impulses around & inside us reveal the timing of our phrasing and amplify the qualities of our movement?
We ponder what factors cause us to disconnect from our surroundings and be uprooted from the moment, and how we can stay receptive and engaged in so-called transitions—the processes of departing and arriving—so as to avoid gaps in awareness. How can expanding our choices and navigating the information flow when our bodies, minds and spirits are narrowing-retreating or leaking-overflowing, soothe feelings of emptiness and being lost?
We uncover the sources of our movement-posture-gesture-facial expressions and the origins of our performance attitude so as to heighten the physicality of our action-states, intensify the intimacy of our emotion-thoughts and enrich the vibrancy of our interweaving form-images. How can cultivating a personal culture of confusion forge a radical empowerment path for us as we stumble upon the unfamiliar, grow comfortable with uncertainty and pursue risk-taking?
FOR WHAT !?
All in order to communicate ideas and share experiences with the world.
All in order to uncover what stirs-motivates-drives us as performers.
Is anyone really watching? Why should they?
This laboratory is an experiment in full-on collaboration among a community of equals. Be prepared to be challenged and annoyed & to experience mental and physical exhaustion—all the while enjoying a ridiculous amount of playful merriment.
You will be asked to do observation tasks and prepare global material prior to the festival.
