Physicalized Resistence is the brain child of Katya Chizayeva and Tangarr Forgart, who have met in Ukraine in 2017. The initial one month long self made residency happened during four weeks of July 2019 in Kiev, Ukraine. There was a GoFundMe compaign (https://www.gofundme.com/manage/physicalized-resistence/edit/story) to help raise the funds that went to the Ukrainian participating dancers and studio rent.

"Physicalized Resistance" is an exploration of personal connections to wrestling, dance and queer body politics. Two artists, Tangarr Forgart and Katya Chizhayeva, will bring together their stories and physical practices to research the following questions:

- How do we physicalize resistance to X in martial arts and beyond?

- Why consent is radical?

- Wanna fight? Beyond winning or losing competition, researching queer power through embracing the Warrior archetype.

Methods of research included dance research, physical theater training, writing, dialogue, movement, generating narrative, story circles, improvising, and co-devising performative work.

Performers began a dialogue with the Kiev's LGBTQ center “Insight” to reach out to the local queer community for support. During the rehearsals there was (and will be) a call for queer performers to participate in joining the research for open practices.

Tangarr Forgart is a queer, trans man, a pro Brazilian Jiu Jitsu wrestler and coach from Kiev, Ukraine.

Katya Chizhayeva is a queer, female dancer and performer with the background in Aikido and Tai chi. She immigrated from Kiev, Ukraine to the USA in 1995, and now lives in New Orleans, LA.

Katya's interest in making this research and the show is influenced by her father’s wrestling history. Pavel Chizhaev is a Kiev based Greeco-Roman wrestler, former Champion of the World of 1984. He was a rising young athletic star who made a 100 degree turn as he encountered corruption in the Olympics, the collapse of Soviet Union and his state supported career, getting involved, as many athletes of that time, with organized crime in the 90s, until eventual decline into alcoholism and pessimism.

“Much of the personal motive for practicing martial arts comes from integrating my father’s story and its era, a need to transform generational trauma of confusion around violence, domination, and morality into the source of pride and integrity.

I am doing this project because it’s deeply important to me to continue developing meaning and a sense of authorship over my life in the context of working with the stories of my emigration, relating to people who are from my Ukrainian/Russian heritage and queer, and are working towards supporting each other in having our voices heard through art and activism.

I am interested in the embodied stories that emerge from the cellular memories of our queer resisting bodies - archives of our culture,family, traumas, healing - and the findings of awareness, meaning and value within ourselves.” (-Katya C.)

JULY 2019, Kiev, Ukraine

At the beginning of this residency there was an unplanned set back, Tangarr had a knee surgery, and the entire dynamic of what was planned shifted. He was in a brace, walking with a cane. Tangarr could not wrestle, and in addition to that, he had to familiarize himself with the concept of open ended dance research. He made a giant learning curve, learning contact improvisation, improvisation, how to frame research process that’s not ‘product’ oriented, and what tools to use. Tangarr also had to work a lot to pay for his knee surgery, which brought its own challenges. Both artists brought their own ideas and interests, physical and peformative, to the table. The result was generating layers of material, establishing relationships with each other and the material, and establishing foundation for next year’s work.

At the end of the month Tangarr’s knee was reinflamed, and they had to postpone until the summer of 2020. Several rehearsals, as well as interviews with Tangarr and Katya, were documented by Zuzanna Borucka, a video collaborator. (https://vimeo.com/user73289803 ).

"From Scarcity to Abundance (A Body's Journey)" Workshop Proposal

Facilitators: Katya Chizhayeva and Leah Vanessa Bachar

"From Scarcity to Abundance (A Body's Journey)" is a mix of movement research, somatics, dance influenced exercises, improvisation/scores, and physical theatre games. The workshop focuses on facilitating immediate creative expression, finding our centers, and finding our voices individually and collectively.

The aim of the workshop is to transform the survival/scarcity mode brain into thriving/liberating awareness. Our process aims to create spaces that open dialogue about scarcity mentality through the medium and the powerful potential of a collective creative work.

The workshop is a 3 day experiment where the goal for all participants is to be witnessed, heard, to utilize somatic and performance research as tools for awareness, expression, and power. The combination of practices cultivates the capacity to let go, to release any stagnant physical energy, to break through both self-imposed and societal boundaries, and to create a community where peace, acceptance, and being present are key.

The workshop will strive to create a container inspired by the surreal and healing elements of Alejandro Jodorowsky's psychomagic experiments, the avant-garde nature of Alfred Jarry's happenings,  the raw and intimate nature of Jerzy Grotowski's Poor Theatre, and the primal and anarchic energy of Antonin Artaud's Theatre. The process is also influenced by work from Deborah Hay, Maria Casimi, Luciana Achugar, Sonya Pregrad, and other creatives. 

PROCESS

Our goal is to collectively cultivate a liminal reality from the very beginning, using only our bodies and voices as the main sources of energy. This container serves as a gateway to the senses, a safe space that is designed by the participants where ceremony, ritual, and primal instinct begin to connect all of those involved.

 As the container is strengthened, the workshop will dive into the body's deep need for creative and transformative justice. The exploration of how the body is affected by our surroundings, habitual perceptions, as well as by systematic oppression, societal inequality, non-conformation, ancestral lineages, individual and collective memories, will be the catalyst to create new work with one another.

We are leaving the option for making a public performance to the participants, prepared to either have internal performance experience or public performance as the goal of the workshop. 

 Elements of theatrical jazz, improvisational movement, the work of Deborah Hay's, the discipline of Diego Pinon's work with Butoh, the repetitive, challenging insight of Meyerhold's Biomechanics, and the radical education of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. The introduction of these methods comes from the belief that dance/performance/movement studies facilitate acts of resistance to false power, and the exploration of true power that can be felt, not prescribed to believe. This power is the practice of radical self love, investigation through connection, and self acceptance.

The creative spontaneity born from coming together as a group of international artists is the drive behind the workshop. The parallels within the body from country to country serve as potential building blocks for global artistic conversation. The need to connect to one another and create is potent at this time. The trust that is displayed in the workshop will be the main ingredient for creating an artistic laboratory.