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Paper short abstract

This paper (auto)ethnographically explores how specific artistic-didactic practices of performance – geared towards questioning polarisations and encouraging learning and (re)connection through relational movement – take effect and are questioned in different (neo)liberal educational contexts.

Paper long abstract

In this paper we reflect on experimental artistic-didactic practices of performance. We do this by zooming in on the Tango Vocabulario, a collaborative artistic tool and resource (inspired by (Queer)-Tango practices) we have developed and are using in our work as scholars, lecturers and dancers at Universities in Austria and Switzerland within different disciplinary cohorts (ranging from anthropology to business students).

In our approach, we juxtapose different theoretical stances and topics and subject them to movement, with an understanding of performance as an everyday-mode (Erving Goffman). We literally apply concepts of relational movement (Erin Manning), and dance philosophical approaches (Marie Bardet) that allow for, on the one hand, reframing a research setting as moving with a topic, grasping the processuality of life, and on the other hand, subverting binaries also on a theoretically level.

We work (auto)ethnographically, comparatively and movement-centered to explore how specific didactic practices of performance geared towards questioning polarisations (body-mind, male-female, leading-following, objective-subjective/reflexive knowledge, etc.); and encouraging learning and (re)connection (to oneself and others) through relational movement take effect. While we focus on performance rather than critique of institutions, our approach is inevitably questioning the paradigm of excellence that neoliberal transformation in education is subject to.