To get from one place to another

To get from one place to another (2022)

Performance, 38 min.

Anna Raiola, Mayıs Rukel, Mira Thompson.
Photo by Dora Lionstone
www.doralionstone.com

In the summer of 2022, Mayıs Rukel participated in the artist residency Atelier AM in Almere, which resulted in the 38-minute performance To get from one place to another. He turned this invitation into a collaboration with artist and musician Mira Thompson, and dancer Anna Raiola.

The work explored new grounds of artistic production that moved away from the hyper-ableist norms of the cultural industry, seeking methods of creative relation based on care and reciprocity.

Documentation by ©ATELIER AM, Hans van Hal

“We need to move from here to there.
We need to change the air.”

To get from one place to another is a rehearsal of movement,
Oriented towards the horizon,
Where futures of care, justice, belonging, and abundance expand.
Cultivated into reality through the smallest, most intimate parts of our lives,
Through our imagination, our healing relationship with the land,
Through the echoes of ancestors like Lorde, Baldwin, hooks and more.

To help us move from here to there, what seeds do we plant?
And until the seeds grow, how do we ensure we survive in joy?
Rooted in the sacredness of the body,

Equipped with complex strategies of survival;
Disability Justice is here to hold every single one of us.

What persists in beholding justice?
The land is the body.
Grief can be the garden.

This is re-establishing touch with the past.
A deep breath.

Due to the heightened COVID-19 risk for Mira, they developed a hybrid performance method. Anna and Mayıs performed live on stage, while Mira joined via a large projected screen.

“Voyager, there are no bridges; one builds them as one moves.”
— Gloria Anzaldúa

Intentions for our collaboration

Priority is the well-being of each other and ourselves, care, and (access)needs.
Covid is still a dangerous pandemic threatening our health. A priority is to honour all of our covid safety needs.
Another priority is the pleasure principle. Is the process fun, nourishing, exciting, curious, inspiring, intriguing? Is it pleasurable to do what we’re doing? Trusting boredom and what it communicates to us.
Another priority is the agency to leave. You can always pause or stop your participation in this collaboration.
The way we show up to this work can take many forms. In the dedicated work space of the residency, from home, from the bed, through a voice note, messages, emails. Any kind of presence that feels joyful and accessible, all equally valuable.
Things often take longer than we think. Slow pace is good enough.
What feels possible today? (Question posed by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in Care Work.)
Perfection is in the trash. Good enough is wonderful. Even a little is something.
The amount of time we are able to and want to allocate to this process is the right amount of time.
It’s okay not to know exactly what we’re trying to do. What we end up doing is the right thing to do.
In the work itself too, care for ourselves, care for the audience. Holding trauma informed principles (Lumos Transforms, conveyed to the Ecologies of Transformation cohort by Camille Barton) as the sieve and a shaper of the ideas we come up with.
Humour is a deeply honoured participant. Makes it easier to hold difficult topics. It helps ease the nervous system of the audience and the artists as we move through tricky waters together.
There is enough room for all the ideas we feel called to explore. It’s spacious here.
Accepting what comes with ease usually works.
With every change we make, we arrive at a new place with the work.
The ending of the work usually reveals itself.

Documentation by ©Art in my Backyard, Daan Kooiman
The last image by Bilen Bilen

Commissioned by Atelier AM, To get from one place to another premiered on September 24th, 2022 at the Corrosia Theater in Almere Haven, as the closure of the event Art in my Backyard by Museum M.

Photos by Dora Lionstone
www.doralionstone.com

Credits, Inspiration, Lineage, Riverbeds

Created, gathered, developed, organised and performed by Mayıs Rukel, Mira Thompson and Anna Raiola.

Voice narration by Lucie Gérard.

Mentorship by Victoria McKenzie.

Made with the support of Atelier AM.

With gratitude to the care and support of Vere van Hal, Tomas Heller and Christie Bakker.

With the kind support from the Corrosia Theater team. Marc Mullenders, Desirée Kruizinga, Yasmin Ghandour, Roos, Nina, Laura.

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I found this text while researching Leah's work, whom I first encountered in Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown.

A Choreographer's Handbook by Jonathan Burrows. This text was recommended to me by Camille Barton during the development of my performance piece A Hand in C Major.

Rehearsals for Living, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Robyn Maynard. Dearest Victoria McKenzie first mentioned this text to me in a loving email.

Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, Audre Lorde. This text and Lorde came into my life in 2013, with I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, recommended by my friend Jessica Johnson.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo. Joy's work came into my life after I saw an Instagram post with her poem For Earth's Grandsons featured in it.

The Politics of Trauma, Staci K. Haines. Recommended by Camille Barton as part of the Ecologies of Transformation readings.

Ecologies of Transformation at the Sandberg Institute, curated and led by Camille Barton.

Resilience Toolkit (of Nkem Ndefo / Lumos Transforms, conveyed to me by Char Kasza) and Trauma Informed Principles (Lumos Transforms) conveyed to me by Camille Barton.

Journey in Satchidananda, 1971 album by Alice Coltrane, offered to me as part of a practice by Victoria McKenzie for the Atelier AM process.

Eline, my dear host in Almere, sharing herbal infusions and stories of healing with me.

The spider that was making a web above my window, I was watching it and I heard "The web is the spider."

Ghost by Beyoncé.

Words of bell hooks, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin (whose words gave the piece its title) that I used from the interviews available online.

Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry.

'We Do This Til We Free Us' and 'Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police' by Mariame Kaba.

The abolitionist work of Mariame Kaba, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela Davis, Robin Kelley, Elizabeth Hinton, Assata Shakur, Heather Ann Thompson, Colin Kaepernick, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Ejeris Dixon, Dean Spade, Zena Sharman.

The Pendant animation by Teun Grondman.

Leon Dijkstra, for making me aware of Het Financieele Dagblad headlines and articles.

Ceviz Ağacı by Nazım Hikmet.

Performance portraits by Dora Lionstone.

Losing You by Solange.

Rare by Odunsi.