How close can two bodies dance without touching? What tension, curiosity, or vibration emerges in the space between them? Literal and metaphorical touch enters as both risk and invitation: sensing heat through inner radar, melting into another body, offering ourselves as landscapes that shall be respected, held, and shared. Skin becomes a porous threshold where self meets the other. What happens when the limit is challenged, what kind of embrace does this process entail?
The project builds on somatic improvisation, choreographic research, and (non)touch-based encounters. Performers and dancers navigate proximity, elasticity, awkwardness, vulnerability, and the intensity of being affected – exploring the capacities and quirks of empathy not as an innate trait but as an embodied practice.
The workshop Ecology of Closeness: Practices of Empathy with Alica Minar will take place on Tuesday, April 14, from 4 pm to 6 pm as part of the accompanying programme for the exhibition Sahej Rahal: Beyond the City of Time at Galerie Rudolfinum. Admission is free. Capacity is limited, we kindly ask you for a reservation via e-mail rajnisova@rudolfinum.org.
The workshop will be followed by the performance Ecology of Closeness on Wednesday, April 15, at 6 pm. More information about the performance can be found here.
Alica Minar is a Slovak choreographer, performer, and curator based in Prague and Berlin. Loud visuals in which narration and abstraction go hand in hand are typical of her work. Through bizarre situations, she intuitively searches for humour and poetry, while dissecting the neglected sides of burning societal issues together with the audience. Shaped by choreographic scores and clowning principles, she explores how nudity and costumes distort the perception of the dancing body. Since 2023, she has also expanded her curatorial practice, co-creating projects such as the Dancetopia Symposium and Fest of Fools. Since September 2024, she is part of the curatorial team of Studio ALTA in Prague. Alica is a graduate of choreography studies at HAMU in Prague (BA) and Inter-University Centre for Dance HZT in Berlin (MA).
More information about the event can be found on the Galerie Rudolfinum website.
Galerie Rudolfinum