Vienna-based artist and choreographer Michael Turinsky. Photo michaelturinsky.org

HÀ NỘI — Vienna-based artist and choreographer Michael Turinsky will lead a workshop in Hà Nội from March 21 to 23 to foster collaboration between differently abled arts practitioners.

The workshop with Turinsky will be held by the Goethe Institute in collaboration with Kinergie Studio, and is aimed at encouraging diverse discussions on inclusive arts in relation to contemporary issues.

Drawing on his own artistic practice as well as the recent book Disabled Ecologies by Sunaura Taylor, Turinsky invites participants to explore the relationship between body and landscape understood in both literal and metaphorical terms across diverse sensory and ethical dimensions.

Turinsky is an artist and theoretician with a physical disability working at the intersection of contemporary dance and performance, disability and political as well as aesthetic theory.

Academically trained as a philosopher at the University of Vienna, he began diving into the world of inclusive dance in 2006. 

Later questioning the notion of inclusion, Turinsky later coined his own term 'crip choreography' to designate his unique artistic practice of engaging the specific, resistant materiality of the body in processes of subverting, de-organising and re-organising dominant forms and qualities of movement.

Recently, he has also become interested in what fellow artists with disabilities have termed the 'aesthetics of access', as well as in exploring the intricate relationship between dance and ecology.

His solo work Precarious Moves was awarded the prestigious Nestroy Prize for the Best Off-Production 2021. In 2024 he was awarded Outstanding Artist by the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Culture.

Artists and movement practitioners including those with disabilities wll participate in an intensive three-day workshop examining the relationship between the body and its surrounding environment and landscape.

Participants will be guided in integrating elements such as sign language or voice into the creation of their own movement language.

Throughout the workshop, they will also practise fundamental skills in live composition working toward the development of a short 10-minute performance to be presented at the conclusion of the workshop on March 23. 

A talk with Turinsky and Vietnamese artists on inclusive arts will be held at 6.30pm on March 24. — VNS