Democracy, You’re Breaking my Heart: Performative Tools for Tomorrow

In this course, we will practice being un/familiar with our knowledge of the world—its definitions, modes of existence, our and others’ bodies and identities. We will explore desire, attachment, and breakup as performative strategies to tackle the complexities of interdependence, attention, and democracy. If society is broken and we are divided, how can improvisation become a tool for expanding our capacity for delight and discomfort? How can performance support the ruination of forces which stifle us and the activation of multiple, often inconsistent desires? What does disobedience look and feel like today and tomorrow?

Course leader

Ania Nowak

Target group

The workshop is open to everyone, with a special invitation to participants with queer, crip, BIPOC, and migration experience.

Course aim

The US-American cultural theorist Lauren Berlant wrote, “Cruel optimism is about how people will stay in relation to their object even if it destroys them because they can’t bear giving up the pleasure of knowing the world in a particular way.” In the classroom, we will create tools to embody, move, think, speak, sound, read, and perform with others; in other words, how we stay connected. We will witness each other and seek an appropriate language of feedback collectively and individually.

Fee info

EUR 100: Participation Fee
The fees consist of the enrolment charge of € 100.– (non-refundable) and a course fee which varies according to the length of the course. Students are entitled to the reduced fee on production of a valid confirmation of enrolment at an educational institution for the 2024 summer term as well as SN-Card-holders and members of the Society of Friends of the Summer Academy.

Costs for material used in the courses are not included in the participation fee, and will be charged separately at the beginning of the course.

On acceptance, the enrolment charge of € 100.– should be paid immediately. The course fee must be entered in the Summer Academy account by 30 June 2024.

Payments will be accepted using the following credit cards: Mastercard and Visa
EUR 670: 670 Euro (reduced 495 Euro)

Scholarships

https://www.summeracademy.at/en/studies/scholarships/