this performance-in-process began during one-month long “Made in Berlin” residency at Lake Studios Berlin. the piece used simple props and embodied practices of clowning/fooling/creeping to make a humorously critical and tragi-comic emulation of masculinity. to read and check out my documentation during my residency, go here.

venus nest was a forty-two day devotional dance practice dedicated to planet Venus during its retrograde period from 19 dec 2021 to 29 jan 2022. every day during this period i performed a twenty-minute dance with and in a particular dress. this practice informed my research during my time as a “Fellow” during the Bodies (un)protected programme at Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm. in the essay that i contributed for the accompanying reader for this program, i wrote the following about this practice:

to train myself to perceive beyond-through colonial thinking, i have a variety of different games/experiments/relationships going on with a variety of different people, animals, plants, objects and entities – such as planets. for example, for the past several months i have embarked on a series of specifically timed devotional dances to the planet we call “Venus”. in traditional Hellenistic astrology, Venus is considered to denote diplomacy, binding, peace or harmony. Venus is often associated with coming together. since apartheid (apart-ness) is a major character in the genetic narrative of my ancestry and lineage, i have been spending fugitive time with Venus in seriously playful ways. i share with you below, some of my findings/learnings that have emerged from these devotional dances with Venus

advice from Venus for thinking around something:

eat your prayers / come face to face with your sex organ / let your tongue play (or) speak in tongues / locate each scar / relinquish accumulation / spread knowledge / be double-hearted / find the unpretentious door / list the incompatible temporal patterns / muddle the books / film the mirror / walking circles, let different parts lead / perform an orgasm to move the shame-pleasure / look the divinity of your ass in mirror / just lie there / hold your pelvis in your palm and listen / smell your whole body / tend to your underneath / sway gently for 15 minutes / fall over and allow a movement to catch you / dedicate a dance to Trust / turn your hand into an ear and listen / observe the beauty of all your little thingies / list the different loves / grind and thrust your grief / seduce yourself / kindly touch whatever is swollen / plan a surprise / find other faces in the mirror / consider that the stuck may be how you get to the next step.

hand in hand, you walk silently with a stranger through a forest. a black tent approaches and you are invited to crawl inside. in the small space, you encounter an old and out-dated globe, seemingly held by two white hands. the sound of earth shuffling. the stranger enters the tent and offers to sing you a song. the song is sung and together you sit in a moment of silence, witnessing presence.

this was a one-on-one durational performance installation created for the Antidote Movement Festival in the Netherlands whereby i re-worked my graduation piece into a different form. the piece aimed to continue (or start) conversations around colonial haunting. through an intimate and gentle exchange between myself and individuals, i facilitated a ritual of recognition and mourning through song, silence and walking; inviting my personhood to be considered as a living artefact of colonial history, particularly Dutch colonial history.

the exchange lasted between 15-20 minutes, and was performed for about thirty people. the piece ran for ten hours in total on the 28th and 29th of June, 2019 at the Van Heerman Arts Centre in Soest, as a part of the Antidote Movement Festival.

this zine was offered at the durational performance installation “i’m haunting you now” in 2019. it contains quotes from decolonial theory that contributed to the research behind the work, featuring the invisible voices of certain thinkers who have shaped my work and ongoing song. for a pdf or hard copy of this publication, please contact me at: nicola.van.straaten(at)gmail.com.

an old globe, two white mannequin hands and a large, dimly lit stage shrouded in layers of black curtains. the 45 minute solo speaks to the uncomfortable silences around colonial history and the presence of the ghosts that remain.

“i’m haunting you now” formed part of the master’s thesis that concluded my MA in Solo / Dance / Authorship. with this research i attempted to embody the paralyzing and monstrous feelings around my own lineage and my current context of living in berlin. activated by the study of decolonial theory and aggravated by the lack of feeling or discussion around the effects that the european project of modernity has/had on the planet, this work was seeded from a desire to interrogate the gaps, become familiar with discomfort and work with and from a certain anguish, mourning and (out)rage. accompanying the piece, was a small booklet handed out to every audience member, offering context and insight into the work. to see extracts of this work, click here:

https://vimeo.com/524843520

performed at:
Uferstudios, Studio 14

28 & 29 November 2018, Berlin

choreographed & performed by: Nicola van Straaten

dramaturgy: Coila-Leah Enderstein and Lena Astarte Posch

sound design: Coila-Leah Enderstein

light design: Bryan Schall

photographs: Marc Seestaedt

this is the small booklet that was offered at the conclusion of the 2018 performance of “i’m haunting you now”. the text breaks down elements of the piece, offering insights and quotations that contribute to understanding the context around the work. for a pdf copy of this zine, please email me at nicola.van.straaten(at)gmail.com.